This week will be hectic, apologies are in order for people whom I might have missed as this is bit rushed.

Movie – The last dance(Mandarin - english subtitles) - a multi-layered movie with protagonist who is cursed to kill. Movie story telling takes places across chasms of time, a sort of nobody’s viewpoint. At times this gets unnerving as you do not know what is real, but dawns slowly you are on one way train which is heading for inevitable crash. 

Food – Oye Amritsar has great portions but terrible service. The getup of the place is reminescent of roadside dhaba complete with movie posters and advertisements. The place has entrance  made of guess what – truck’s parts.  Koftas were honest attempt as was daal makhani. Apparently the meat is succulent and wonderful (but I can’t comment further details).

Toscanos – Great place – Awesome food – right from the soup with pieces of vegetables, bruschetta and choice of wines. Pizza was good enough for 2 people and done wonderfully.  We did not go for sangria there though – we waited for Ani’s awesome Sangria !! Thanks Ani/Reshma.

Udupi – Krishna – next to Jyoti Niwas college - special food thali on sat is nothing but normal south indian thali + juice + icecream + dosai, + bhajji.  Avoid it – go for the tiffin/tindi items directly.  They are closed on sundays.

Never before a translation has managed to surprise, evoke a smile and shock all in 76 odd pages.  Without giving away the premise of the plot  – hmm what can I say.   Their are no villains in the sketch, it is just a sort of story where everybody is a victim.

The title as the name suggests is for the lead character – named so because she is dark skinned. She adores  the crispness and solitude of night, pretty much faithful to her own name – companion of night . The girl while growing up is devoid of “need” to be “loved /desired/” or “validation” from others including her own parents. There is nothing wrong with her, she simply hums to a tune of rythm, rythm of  solitude - which most “social” people find incomprehensible.  She does not hate other people or become judgemental about them. She just wants to be a lone wanderer.

This results in consequences beyond comprehension for her and parents , her own kid.  Why does she behave like the way she does?  Why she can’t be normal like kids, girl her age or woman through various stages. Author does not take prisoners…

“Everything just has to be taken as it is. Why does fire burn? Because that’s the very nature of fire, the essence of its being. There was nothing more to it than that! Fire cannot be cooled. If you want to cool it and pour water on it, it will not cool, it will just go out. “

Book  is inviting  in terms of another opposite character – the kid girl of the main lead and plays important part in bringing sunny side. How sad – I associated Sunny/bright with better and…I guess that was one of the point of the author – association of colors/feelings to appearances/behavior.  Book does not judge anybody,  but highlights how easy it is for us to do so.

Alas, this is the sole novella of the author.  MacMillan has to be thanked for undertaking this translation via Vasantha.

Reading – “अठरा लक्ष पावल” – 18,00,000 steps. A traveloge of 1968 by D M Mokashi. It is an account of writer who attaches himself to “start a revolution by refusing import of wheat”. It is wonderful description of prevalent times and writer does not miss any stuff.

It also reflects the state of young nation (20 years after freedom) which faces the demons of politicians who just outright lie, officialdom which imposes corruption and treachary (in form of river dams – uprooting families)..you get the picture.

A band of writers and disillusioned fighters pick up an issue of import of food as way to illustrate the ills of dependency on government, socialist ills introducing form of begging bowl habit and try to do a trip from verrul to Mumbai (Kailash-becuase diety of Shivaji is God-Shankar at verrul to Sindhusagar – Mumbai). Idea is to awaken the true independent feeling.

There are villages where water and connectivity makes residents confident and independent and there are remote locations where old traditions die hard and people suffer due to lack of education facilities, connectivity, poor crop output and eventually lack of faith in future.

Sadly many of  conditions prevail even today across lot of places.

I acquired Wimax broadband connection via Reliance sometime last year.  Once construction started in the vicinity somehow connectivity went downward over time. I decided to disconnect them and sent a request-written/oral via customer support center on March 8 of this year.  I followed up dilligently reminding them to take away the equipment and disconnect the connection before the next bill comes over. Finally got the confirmation that it was terminated on 21st march.

But alas, the process had not completed, they had not taken away the equipment till last month and every month sent me bill followed by  physical person to pick up the bill amount. Off course the person who came to pick up the bill did not have any idea my connection had terminated in march and I had not used their connection for really long time . But every month I would need to call up the support who would assure I would not get bill next month and nobody will make personal calls at odd times to collect the bill. Offcourse every call and related complaint result was nullified as none of this information ever flowed into the accounting/billing system.

BTW they went ahead and charged me for 2 months when there was no connection – this would be reimbursed in next 180 days

Challenges with Reliance CRM system-

1. Not integrated with billing system.
2. Not integrated with local last mile provisioning/deprovisioning system.
3. No one customer view – every time a call is made – there is no way to refer back to “open”/”hot” incidents related to the account. No way to see at one shot if connection is active.

One lesson -
Customer is big loser. Avoid group companies when you can. They acquire customers at fast rate without actual thought to “service”.  The “margin” for local service providers is low that they have little to no interest in “helping” the customer.  Their systems are antiquated with fancy sw but no real productivity. 

Many of the CIOs of these kind of companies (many of the insurance folks fall in this category) actually themselves never avail these services so do not know the loss of productivity for service staff and lost customer cost.  One of the firms uses a email system where customers need to break down the large attachments into mutliple mails and number them – this in the days of 5 GB limit mailbox and large attachment size available for free email systems .  Load of end user experience who suffers becuase of these broken systems and apathetic folks.

Background-A policy was renewed with Reliance General insurance via Dakshin Honda. I carry insurance schedule/certificate from Reliance but I found out to my horror while trying to renew that customer support does not carry any of the details “printed” on the schedule. This means if by chance I had met with accident in last year, they would have refused me any claim because they do not have details.

Further enquiry exposed the fact that branch in Jayanagar is supposed to update this information and it should reflect in the CRM system. Unfortunately for one year they never bothered to update/reflect the information and provide the minimum due information which would be the bottleneck in case of problem. The local branch number printed on the certificate does not ring anywhere, it is disconnected .  There is no other contact other than support who do not have any details or next steps except asking you to walk back to the reliance office.

Culprit – me who renewed policy via Dakshin honda based on trust (got the same insurer via them) and kept asking for the policy document for 3 months. Once I got the document I was certain I have all the information in case I get into problem. Just imagine the horror when I discovered otherwise.

So lesson – take that extra minute to call up the customer support # to ensure your information is present as per the document provided otherwise at crucial moment you will be spending money from your pocket.

Sankat City – simply because of Anurag Kashyap’s push and overall PFC push (it better be good).
The other movie has to be kaminey ! – I have watched and loved all movies from Vishal Bharadwaj – he gets every genre done right. From makdee to maqbool – one of the finest works. Waiting for this one !

Sometimes it does cease to surprise me how oil firms (nationalized – Indian, Chinese, Russian ) or the MNCs engaged/associated with Oil( Chevrons, Shells) behave when they need to cover up. The lobbyists everywhere feel they can wriggle out of the mess they create with penalties and stand up and commit them again.  This arrogance comes since the feeling is folks are dependent on them. Can you imagine these kind of statements in this day from regular technology or other kind of  firm?  Can middle men be removed? Our own bofors scandal is still fresh.

The statement of Lobbyist for chevron -  ‘We Can’t Let Little Countries Screw Around With Big Companies’. I am sure the local firm is equally responsible as this could not have gone on without graft at local level. But the lawyers and lobbyists reek of arrogance.

Kannada actor Shankar Nag’s dream child Sanket has contributed  another play called ‘Naa Tukaram Alla’, which is written and directed by S Surendranath.
S Surendranath’s ‘Naa Tukaram Alla’ is an adaptation of Herb Gardener’s ‘I am not Rappoport’. It is a comedy play and it deals with the life of two old aged persons. The play throws light on the life of common man in the modern world.

Play had standing applause and evoked laughter on every second sentence. The subject was pretty serious and at times I thought some of the audience was obnoxious with their laughter riot.  But it was wonderful to see theater almost full for a kannada play. Looking forward to the next production at rangashankara.

ज़िन्दगी क्या  है , जानने  के  लिए
जिंदा  रहना  बहुत  ज़रूरी  है 

आज  तक  कोई  भी  रहा  तो  नहीं

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smOQlFia1IU&feature=PlayList&p=3C581C3C75419B47&index=1