Of Mosquitoes, Bed-bugs, Leeches and Insurance in India

"Duniya main do tarah ka macchar hota hai.. ek khoon peene wala..... aur ek insurance bechne wala"

(details of controling the macchar of unsolicited calls is given at the end of this post)

Here is a story of two brands... one that behaved like a pest... and another that proved to be a repellant.

All of us, tormented captives of our mobile phones have learnt it through the nagging calls of various insurance companies and DSAs. Today was my turn courtesy ICICI Prudential life insurance.

Time: 9.59AM as per the reliance phone
Date: March 1, 2010
Phone number of the caller: +91 022 42560500

The lady on the other side said that she is calling from ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. I asked her where she got my phone number from, to which was an auto-response - "Sir we get it from our online system". I politely remarked - "madam my phone is registered on NDNC, you can be penalized upto Rs. 200 per minute for placing this call. And i can complaint about you if you repeatedly call me". I was travelling by bus then, and my daily morning friends applauded me for shudh hindi and a line that sounded like a govt. approved family planning ad copy... that usually ends with "nazdeeki swasthyakendra main muft payeeye". It was that polite and straight faced.

Her response was a sure winner for Ekktaa Kkapurr (hope i got her nummerrologie right, since i love this lady from the right auricle of my heart).. She responded with emotion " Sir please go ahead and complaint... we get the number from an online system.. you complaint.. but still you will continue to get our call".

I wanted to give her 9.9 marks, but did not have a score card, the types of which our virtual reality show hosts display on TV with their polymerized smiles, thrills and chills.. and hey she couldn't have seen it, since it wasn't a video call.

Back to the lady.. her words hit me like the relentless bites of mosquitoes, which refuse to cease inspite of my attacks with my favorite electric chinese racquet... "You will continue to get calls" sounded like "We will continue to bite and suck blood, kindly bear or bare with us".

I held back my emotions and smiled, because i was pretty sure that a company like ICICI Prudential Life Insurance may perhaps not cover its own telecallers, or that of their DSAs, for verbal assault and emotional outbreaks.


I did something better... and so can you..

As per TRAI guidelines, i called up my telco for raising a complaint - Reliance customer care. Thanks to their new dedicated customer care for post-paid customers, my complaint got registered in 5 minutes flat. I even got an SMS with the name of the person who attended my call, with another SMS requesting a tollfree feedback about the service.. It was a perfect ten here.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance proved itself to be a brand with which i cannot trust my money, since it depends on stolen data to make unsolicited calls (their so called online system). Further they are a party to offending the law of the land.. the NDNC Rule.. I can imagine what they will do with my money.

Reliance, inspite of its negative perception among many, gave exceptional service.. I remember the name of the Customer rep-Atul ( i dunno why i called him Abdul till i got the SMS from Reliance)..Atul even had records of the exact date when my phone was registered for NDNC on the TRAI list. Though they have yet to prove their worth by finally sending my complaint to TRAI. But i know Papa (of papa ka sapna fame) wont let me down.

In any which way, i am happy that i did my bit by reporting an offence.

More details on NDNC registry and ways to stop nagging calls are available on the NDNC website: http://ndncregistry.gov.in/

Registering for NDNC is simple... send an sms with text START DND to 1909 ..toll free.. Yah seva bilkul muft hai (there i go on a govt ad tone!)

Open letter to Vir Sanghvi

This is in response to Portraits of the artist as a Qatari citizen, an editorial lamenting the exit of M F Hussain's from Indian Citizenship.


Dear Vir,

Your editorial throws an interesting insight into the malformed definition of freedom of expression; that rests today in minds of Pseudo-secular-liberal journalists and so called key-keepers of the fourth estate.

I begin my response with a guiding quote by Swami Chinmayananda - " To do whatever you FEEL like doing, is not freedom" .. its called licentiousness. Here a licentious individual keeps to himself, a licence to impinge on any other faith, just because he FEELS like, without being sensitive to the feelings of a community at large. The word FEELs is highlighted because his actions of what he thinks is freedom, is out of pure Feeling without any Intelligent inquiry of its outcome.

Coming straight to your article, I am not sure what feelings you have towards your own mother, but we Hindus (even those outside the "Hindu Taliban" breed as per your definition) revere Mata Saraswati, Sita and Durga nothing less than our biological mother.

i would like to quote you:

"If some Hindus are offended by Husain’s nude Saraswatis, then they can simply look away. They have no right to restrict his creativity or to deny the rest of us the opportunity to view Husain’s work."

My question to you is.. would you or any member of your Liberal Journalists' watering-house club, tolerate any liberal artist to paint your own mother nude, with compromising pose with your own gardener? The feeling for a hindu is the same when their mother, Goddess Parvati is shown having sex with Nandi. Nude painting of Saraswati is one of the less severe and "liberal" versions.

Does freedom to you mean, that a non-believing painter is free to make a pornographic movie on my mother and publish it within the confines of my home?

Does freedom to you mean, your neighbour, or your "brethern" getting drunk or going overdose on Bhang cupcakes (publicized on second front page of the same newspaper where you showered your grace today. The first front page, like most of our liberal media, is sold out to an advertiser) and doing a strip tease on the street... Even worse... in your living room? Well thats his freedom of expression... but do you allow that?

I am sure, in each of the above cases, you will use your "freedom" and political contacts too if necessary to retaliate.

In that case, why is it that the non-believers, as mentioned in your articles, should continue to have the "freedom" or "License" to poke their dirty nose in the faith of the believers?

Would the non-believers be comfortable if believers kept on making lewd remarks about their lifestyle? No... they wont.. and both of them peacefully coexist with the right distance and etiquettes... Which in totality define our collective freedom to THINK what we should do... and not do whatever we FEEL.

The painter is free to express his views openly, but a free democracy also obligates him to be answerable for his work and bear its responsibility to . In the US and UK there have been instances where editors and journalists have resigned, where people pointed out their irresponsibility.. Here in India, any such attempts have been quelled, with the editors continuing to review free food and booze. I guess that's freedom.

Books like Satanic Verses, Worshipping False Gods and the Danish Cartoons are banned in India, since we believe in a culture of respecting each others faith.... Not maligning it... Atleast as a Hindu, i can vouch for my faith, and that of my close friends of other faiths. These books and MF hussains paintings may mean freedom for the artist, but it also means infuriating a large section of our population. They should be banned.. When the law of the land ignores that, and even worse, when media drunk its own world too doesn't reflect peoples faith... parallel law takes over. Perhaps you find that interesting, since that gives you more sensation and topics to write upon.

i would like to end once again with Swami Chinmayananda's Quote.. and i suggest every journalist, in particular, should read the book - Manual of Self Unfoldment.

"To do whatever you feel like doing is not freedom"

Freedom is being allowed to THINK what is appropriate and do that... and not do whatever you FEEL.

With deep belief in my faith,
and regards to non-belief of others,

Nagesh Pai
Saraswat and a Hindu

References:
Hindustan Times - Mumbai Edition dated February 28, 2010

Paintings by MF Hussain viewable HERE

Words for a busy friend

It was on a winter few years back when i broke into sudden poetry out of nowhere, the last thing i thought i would do in life. I wrote few verses to my friends during that season.. here's one of them to a friend who was hassled with lots of work and was gasping for time for herself:(click on the slideshow controls "<< >>" to watch all the four slides")



I hope the poet that possessed me returns someday!