Who says Indian eCommerce is yet to kickoff? I say it's already kicking asses, however on receiving end is the Indian consumer! To help Indian consumer come of reluctant mode and start spending freely, shopping sites of India are offering huge discounts, gifts, offers and cash-backs. Up to 50% cash-back across range of products. But... all the cash backs are virtual. The schemes are tailored in a way that either you get zero discount or you end up spending almost six times of the cash back value.
I am a regular at IndiaPlaza.in. I like the site for price research. The items sold on their sites are all grey-market ones but the prices are in sync with street prices of 100% genuine products with bill-warranty. While looking for a washing machine on the site, I came across a banner that shouted '20% cash-back on all items except air-tickets.' I have always been highly wary of IndiaPlaza's offers but this banner amused me and I clicked it to read terms and conditions. There were a hell lot of conditions but the most primary one is "The cash-back will be given in form of gift-certificates. The Cash back gift certicates will be in the following denominations: Rs.100/-, Rs.200/-, Rs.300/-, Rs. 500/-. Example: The 400/- GC may come to you as two Rs.200/- GCs or One Rs.200/- GC and 2 Rs.100/- GCs."
Sounds good so far? But here is the catch. I I buy a washing machine worth 20,000 rupees and get a cash-back worth 4,000 rupees, they will send me a whole bunch of gift certificates ranging in 100-500 rupees (I am sure Rs.100 gift certificates will dominate). Now, as a policy, you cannot use two gift certificates to buy one item on IndiaPlaza (it's not written in the terms and conditions but I know this). It means you are left with numerous gift certificates of 100-200 rupees which you either cannot use at all or if you use, you will end up paying much more. What a creative sales-strategy!
But wait, yesterday I happened to visit IndiaTimes and to my horror, it too have the similar offer going on. Two changes, though: 1. You get 50% cash back!!! and 2. In terms and conditions it's mentioned that gift certificates are nonmergable and must be redeemed before 31st March.
So, we have two nominations for 'Shameless Cheater of India 2009' award. And both are too close.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Hunt for a perfect cellphone goes on
My SE K750i started creating problems in terms of joystick malfunctioning around three months ago. Before it goes worse and the phone becomes unusable, let's buy a new phone, I thought. I never knew that the search of a perfect phone is going to be worse than earlier. I was looking for a business phone this time... er... in fact still am.
Preferences are (in descending order): Very good web-browser, full QWERTY keyboard, non-buggy OS, effective push email support, contacts sync, 2-day battery backup with a little overuse and GPS. Yes, GPS is the only fancy feature that I wish to have in my next mobile phone.
I had short-listed BlackBerry Curve 8310, iPhone 3G and HTC Dream (Google G1). Curve being the cheapest and iPhone the costliest. It seems very easy comparison at the moment and it looks like that coming up with a winner is not a difficult task. But it became difficult as time passed on and as more and more options started coming in.
Blackberry Curve 8310 has great battery life, excellent email service, good keyboard, OS and everything else that I was looking for in a phone, except my top priority i.e. good web browser. Then I came to know about Curve 8900 coming to India. It was a better phone than the 8310 but had similar web browsing experience. Blackberry Storm was better at this but turned out to be one of the worst Blackberry phones every existed. My bad luck! I ruled out Blackberry Curve 8310, 8900, Bold and Storm. Another reason not for going with BB at the moment is the fact that I don't want to shell out about 1200 rupees per month for BB services. I don't roam around (I do but I am in office or at home most of the time), going for BB seemed like a waste of money. Bye bye Blackberry. See you later!
Rajeev has an iPhone 3G and I love it for its web browsing experience. But it has bad battery life and it's expensive! Rs.31,000 for a phone is a little too much for me!
I hated Google G1. It looked like a phone from stone-age. But as I kept researching about the Android platform and its capabilities, I fell in love with it. It is coming for about 21,000 rupees, if someone you know in USA can bring it to India for you. I could have bought it if the phone looked like a full-fledged working device. Android is evolving and the phone is yet to go where it should be. No donut for me here either. But anyways, my next phone would be an Android, G1, G2 or whatever.
Preferences are (in descending order): Very good web-browser, full QWERTY keyboard, non-buggy OS, effective push email support, contacts sync, 2-day battery backup with a little overuse and GPS. Yes, GPS is the only fancy feature that I wish to have in my next mobile phone.
I had short-listed BlackBerry Curve 8310, iPhone 3G and HTC Dream (Google G1). Curve being the cheapest and iPhone the costliest. It seems very easy comparison at the moment and it looks like that coming up with a winner is not a difficult task. But it became difficult as time passed on and as more and more options started coming in.
Blackberry Curve 8310 has great battery life, excellent email service, good keyboard, OS and everything else that I was looking for in a phone, except my top priority i.e. good web browser. Then I came to know about Curve 8900 coming to India. It was a better phone than the 8310 but had similar web browsing experience. Blackberry Storm was better at this but turned out to be one of the worst Blackberry phones every existed. My bad luck! I ruled out Blackberry Curve 8310, 8900, Bold and Storm. Another reason not for going with BB at the moment is the fact that I don't want to shell out about 1200 rupees per month for BB services. I don't roam around (I do but I am in office or at home most of the time), going for BB seemed like a waste of money. Bye bye Blackberry. See you later!
Rajeev has an iPhone 3G and I love it for its web browsing experience. But it has bad battery life and it's expensive! Rs.31,000 for a phone is a little too much for me!
I hated Google G1. It looked like a phone from stone-age. But as I kept researching about the Android platform and its capabilities, I fell in love with it. It is coming for about 21,000 rupees, if someone you know in USA can bring it to India for you. I could have bought it if the phone looked like a full-fledged working device. Android is evolving and the phone is yet to go where it should be. No donut for me here either. But anyways, my next phone would be an Android, G1, G2 or whatever.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Back to square one!
Had started blogging with Blogger a couple of years ago. Moved on to use WordPress, hosted my blog on my own site and now I am back to Blogger all over again!
I like WordPress but I am sort of forced to use Blogger all over again. My previous web setup was a complete mess. I had hosted my website www.banwarilalsharma.com with a Chennai-based web-hosting company called Silicon House. It was a budget-hosting, I understand. I accepted the fact that it was a bit slow and the servers were down more frequently than they should. Everything was going good until one fine day when I tried to open my site and came back an empty page saying 'Cannot Find Server'. I thought the server is done. Tried the next day, next week, next month (yes, I am this lazy!). The same result everytime. I got curious and tried logging in to the control panel. I was shocked to know that I have no hosting. It looked like that the bunch of fools had erased the server hard-drive or something. My MySQL database was gone, all the static pages were gone. It took me a couple of months of email discussions with them to know that nothing can be done. My blog is gone!
Thanks to Blogger, I had around 35 posts saved in the control panel (before switching to WordPress). I could recover rest of the posts through archive.org (thanks to you as well). I am back to Blogger once again, until I find a better solution provider and some time to experiment again. :-)
I like WordPress but I am sort of forced to use Blogger all over again. My previous web setup was a complete mess. I had hosted my website www.banwarilalsharma.com with a Chennai-based web-hosting company called Silicon House. It was a budget-hosting, I understand. I accepted the fact that it was a bit slow and the servers were down more frequently than they should. Everything was going good until one fine day when I tried to open my site and came back an empty page saying 'Cannot Find Server'. I thought the server is done. Tried the next day, next week, next month (yes, I am this lazy!). The same result everytime. I got curious and tried logging in to the control panel. I was shocked to know that I have no hosting. It looked like that the bunch of fools had erased the server hard-drive or something. My MySQL database was gone, all the static pages were gone. It took me a couple of months of email discussions with them to know that nothing can be done. My blog is gone!
Thanks to Blogger, I had around 35 posts saved in the control panel (before switching to WordPress). I could recover rest of the posts through archive.org (thanks to you as well). I am back to Blogger once again, until I find a better solution provider and some time to experiment again. :-)
Monday, May 19, 2008
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
This time I broke all my previous records. I took over six months to finish Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. I would blame my busyness (this isn’t a word) for this. The only time I could give to reading was when I was traveling. It took me two journeys to my native place to finish the novel. I may blame bad air/rail/road connectivity for so many things but for reading, it was a boon. The over twenty-hour (one way) journey gave me a chance to read this masterpiece.
As far as busyness is concerned, it’s obvious. Career is moving fast and it’s taking its toll in terms of my time. I leave office building every evening but I am unable to leave ‘office’. It has come to my bedroom now and has left me with no choice to do anything else. Maybe this is what happens with everyone, right? So, no complaints here. Anyways, this is supposed to be A Fine Balance’s review, right? Let’s start. :)
The novel is all about lives of four characters i.e. Dina Dalal, a widow in mid-fifties, Maneck Kohlah, a young, under-graduate student, Ishwar Darji, a cobbler-turned-tailor, never-married, mid-fifties man and Omprakash Darji (or Om), a tailor and Ishwar’s nephew. Dina Dalal has been living in Bombay since her birth. Maneck comes to Bombay for higher studies. Ishwar and Om made Bombay a home in hope of good jobs and better livings. If I say anything more than this about the characters, I would end up revealing something that you would regret to know before reading the novel. Despite being entirely different from one another, they come close in very bizarre circumstances.
I find A Fine Balance as very close to Premchand’s Godan in terms of brutality of one’s fate, the society and the system. Just like Godan, in this novel, there seems to be no end to the problems of the common man. To me, A Fine Balance looks like a revisit to the world depicted in Godan by the great Premchand. Godan is a pre-independence novel and mainly shows the problems associated with the lives of villagers. Rohinton’s A Fine Balance too moves around the same problems but it extends further and shows the condition of common man in the more brutal Bombay. The novel proves that nothing has changed in the last 100 years. The country, the people and the problems, all are the same.
The novel covers a vast set of problems that persisted in India in 1970’s. The novel makes us go to the roots of well-known (and still persisting) problems like caste system, unemployment, poverty and corruption to specific problems of 70s like problems emerged because of Emergency called by Indira Gandhi. There are several examples in the novel that tell us how systems are made for betterment of things but end up ruining them. One such example set in novel is, the Gandhi government encouraged family planning for controlling the emerging population. But this didn’t do any good to the most, rather it ruined lives of many. Mostly young, unmarried or elderly people were forced to go for the nasbandi program.
Despite of the lengthy descriptions of the characters and events, Rohinton Mistry was able to keep me involved. Curiosity was always on extreme. Due to less but prominent characters, I was able to recall them without any confusion, even after an interval of three months. The only thing I regretted reading this novel was the kind of stress it gave me. Every event mentioned in the novel made me go deep into the situation, maybe because I have seen quite similar events in my own life or in lives of people around. Another positive point about this novel was its connection with Parsi culture (apart from Maneck Kohlah and Dina Dalal, there are several Parsi characters in the novel). Being a Parsi, Rohinton Mistry was able to beautifully describe the Parsi culture.
I give full marks to this highly tragic novel. A must read if you can bear all the stress it will give to you.
As far as busyness is concerned, it’s obvious. Career is moving fast and it’s taking its toll in terms of my time. I leave office building every evening but I am unable to leave ‘office’. It has come to my bedroom now and has left me with no choice to do anything else. Maybe this is what happens with everyone, right? So, no complaints here. Anyways, this is supposed to be A Fine Balance’s review, right? Let’s start. :)
The novel is all about lives of four characters i.e. Dina Dalal, a widow in mid-fifties, Maneck Kohlah, a young, under-graduate student, Ishwar Darji, a cobbler-turned-tailor, never-married, mid-fifties man and Omprakash Darji (or Om), a tailor and Ishwar’s nephew. Dina Dalal has been living in Bombay since her birth. Maneck comes to Bombay for higher studies. Ishwar and Om made Bombay a home in hope of good jobs and better livings. If I say anything more than this about the characters, I would end up revealing something that you would regret to know before reading the novel. Despite being entirely different from one another, they come close in very bizarre circumstances.
I find A Fine Balance as very close to Premchand’s Godan in terms of brutality of one’s fate, the society and the system. Just like Godan, in this novel, there seems to be no end to the problems of the common man. To me, A Fine Balance looks like a revisit to the world depicted in Godan by the great Premchand. Godan is a pre-independence novel and mainly shows the problems associated with the lives of villagers. Rohinton’s A Fine Balance too moves around the same problems but it extends further and shows the condition of common man in the more brutal Bombay. The novel proves that nothing has changed in the last 100 years. The country, the people and the problems, all are the same.
The novel covers a vast set of problems that persisted in India in 1970’s. The novel makes us go to the roots of well-known (and still persisting) problems like caste system, unemployment, poverty and corruption to specific problems of 70s like problems emerged because of Emergency called by Indira Gandhi. There are several examples in the novel that tell us how systems are made for betterment of things but end up ruining them. One such example set in novel is, the Gandhi government encouraged family planning for controlling the emerging population. But this didn’t do any good to the most, rather it ruined lives of many. Mostly young, unmarried or elderly people were forced to go for the nasbandi program.
Despite of the lengthy descriptions of the characters and events, Rohinton Mistry was able to keep me involved. Curiosity was always on extreme. Due to less but prominent characters, I was able to recall them without any confusion, even after an interval of three months. The only thing I regretted reading this novel was the kind of stress it gave me. Every event mentioned in the novel made me go deep into the situation, maybe because I have seen quite similar events in my own life or in lives of people around. Another positive point about this novel was its connection with Parsi culture (apart from Maneck Kohlah and Dina Dalal, there are several Parsi characters in the novel). Being a Parsi, Rohinton Mistry was able to beautifully describe the Parsi culture.
I give full marks to this highly tragic novel. A must read if you can bear all the stress it will give to you.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda by Dharamvir Bharati
I had read Dharamvir Bharati's Gunahon Ka Devta around three years ago. The novel is one of my favourite Hindi novels. Since Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda is much more acclaimed novel than Gunahon Ka Devta, my expectations were much higher. And I must say this short-novel over-delivered on my very high expectations.
The way Dr. Bharati has told the story in Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda is very much different from the conventional story-telling style. Today, in twentieth century we may have read novels with similar way of story-telling but for a Hindi novel that first published in 1952, it must have been quite revolutionary. Bharati have split the story of the novel in seven short stories.
Bharati, himself, is the story-teller. The place of the events is Allahabad (I suppose) and the time is immediately after India’s independence from the Britain (~1950). The novel starts with an introduction of Manik Mulla, the protagonist of the novel. Manik is a famous personality of the colony Bharati lives in. It’s summer, typical North India style. A group of friends (including Bharati) gathers at Manik Mulla’s house. A regular activity. Some of the friends are playing cards, some are laying on the floor, doing nothing. Bharati is reading a novel. Manik Mulla pulls the book from Bharati’s hands, saying, “You can’t read others’ stories in a story-teller’s house!” And this is how Manik Mulla starts telling the stories. He tells seven stories on seven consecutive noons. All the seven stories prove to be a part of a single story in the end. Manik Mulla tells the conclusion on seventh noon and novel ends.
Unlike Gunahon Ka Devta, Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda has nothing to do with sacred love and commitment. This novel is all about Indian lower-middle-class people. According to Bharati, economy is more important to Indian lower-middle-class people than love or any other emotion. And this phenomenon has led the entire class to darkness, immorality, inhumanity and apathy. All the people in the novel tend to do injustice to humanity. Their characters seem to be weak and they end up betraying the people around. All because of money or their low values.
If you are wondering what Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda means then Bharati ji has described it in a very beautiful manner. As per him, despite of all the darkness and sadness, there is something that inspires to light up the dark, lead to the good. The truth, faith and bravery lead the soul to the light in the same way the seven horses lead the chariot of the Sun. The chariot of the Sun has to move forward, always. But it’s destroyed during its journey via the streets of our dark, corrupt, low-value and immoral lives. Except for the seventh horse, all the six horses have been severely injured. The seventh horse is still brave, determined, focused and is moving ahead continuously. The seventh horse is the future. Bharati ji has co-related this seventh horse with the children of his novel’s characters. He says these children, the new generation will lead us to the light and we must have faith in this seventh horse.
A very small but good read. Highly Recommended.
Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda by Dharamvir Bharati. pp 101, rs 25 paperback. Bhartiya Jnanpith.
The way Dr. Bharati has told the story in Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda is very much different from the conventional story-telling style. Today, in twentieth century we may have read novels with similar way of story-telling but for a Hindi novel that first published in 1952, it must have been quite revolutionary. Bharati have split the story of the novel in seven short stories.
Bharati, himself, is the story-teller. The place of the events is Allahabad (I suppose) and the time is immediately after India’s independence from the Britain (~1950). The novel starts with an introduction of Manik Mulla, the protagonist of the novel. Manik is a famous personality of the colony Bharati lives in. It’s summer, typical North India style. A group of friends (including Bharati) gathers at Manik Mulla’s house. A regular activity. Some of the friends are playing cards, some are laying on the floor, doing nothing. Bharati is reading a novel. Manik Mulla pulls the book from Bharati’s hands, saying, “You can’t read others’ stories in a story-teller’s house!” And this is how Manik Mulla starts telling the stories. He tells seven stories on seven consecutive noons. All the seven stories prove to be a part of a single story in the end. Manik Mulla tells the conclusion on seventh noon and novel ends.
Unlike Gunahon Ka Devta, Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda has nothing to do with sacred love and commitment. This novel is all about Indian lower-middle-class people. According to Bharati, economy is more important to Indian lower-middle-class people than love or any other emotion. And this phenomenon has led the entire class to darkness, immorality, inhumanity and apathy. All the people in the novel tend to do injustice to humanity. Their characters seem to be weak and they end up betraying the people around. All because of money or their low values.
If you are wondering what Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda means then Bharati ji has described it in a very beautiful manner. As per him, despite of all the darkness and sadness, there is something that inspires to light up the dark, lead to the good. The truth, faith and bravery lead the soul to the light in the same way the seven horses lead the chariot of the Sun. The chariot of the Sun has to move forward, always. But it’s destroyed during its journey via the streets of our dark, corrupt, low-value and immoral lives. Except for the seventh horse, all the six horses have been severely injured. The seventh horse is still brave, determined, focused and is moving ahead continuously. The seventh horse is the future. Bharati ji has co-related this seventh horse with the children of his novel’s characters. He says these children, the new generation will lead us to the light and we must have faith in this seventh horse.
A very small but good read. Highly Recommended.
Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda by Dharamvir Bharati. pp 101, rs 25 paperback. Bhartiya Jnanpith.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Mumbai Under Construction!
I came to Bombay around 2 years ago. The day I landed in Vashi, I saw road construction in progress. Today, after two years, nothing has changed. Road construction is still in progress. I am not talking entire Vashi, I am talking about a small stretch of 5 kms that I need to commute on weekends. NMMC (Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation) or whoever is responsible for the construction is taking its own sweet time to finish the work.
What a non-sense system we have. One constructs and the other destructs. Cycle of constructions and destructions seems to be never-ending.
There are a lots of chaos because of this. Long, unnecessary traffic-jams, honking vehicles, frustrated people. Sometimes you feel like dying. Air-conditioned, music-filled environment inside of the car just doesn’t sooth you.
You cannot guarantee a time for reaching somewhere, no matter howsoever short distance you are considering. Past night, when I left for office, everything was usual but while coming back from office, I took 15 minutes. I would have traveled this distance in less than five minutes if I was on foot.
It is not the case with Vashi only. You name a place in Bombay where there is no road construction work going on. Forget place, you can’t even suggest a 2 kms stretch. It seems entire Bombay is under construction! When will I see a developed Bombay? As of now, there doesn’t seem to be an end to the problem.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Web presence of engineering colleges of Bhopal
CarWale.com have started a campaign/contest for finding talent in automotive journalism world. It’s about writing an article on anything related to car. Winners will be offered job from CarWale.com and the best writer will get a prize worth 50,000 rupees. Here is the link to the contest.
I remember in my engineering days, I used to go to net-cafes and find technical conferences, paper-presentations. If I found a good conference, I made sure that I write a paper as per theme and always wished that my paper makes it. The enthusiasm was just irresistible.
Thought of passing this contest’s information to a few engineering colleges in Bhopal. Finding email addresses of my college i.e. OIST and LNCT was a few seconds’ job. But that’s all, I couldn’t find email address of any college. Found MANIT’s site but there was no email address mentioned. To my horror, RGPV UIT doesn’t seem to have any website!
The world is making Internet its home and the most technically advanced places in M.P. don’t have web presence at all. They don’t even have email addresses.
Anyways, came across a nice blog on MANIT.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Halla Bol - A Message
Watched Halla Bol yesterday morning. Youths, rights awareness, patriotism. Nothing new. Still, I liked it. There are a plenty of movies more or less on the same plot but I still liked it. This movie too, like other similar movies, transpires a message. Fight for your rights, fight for truth.
I like such movies. I like them because they make my blood boil. I like them because they make me feel like becoming one of those protagonists. I like them because maybe I am one of the uncountable scared people who can’t come ahead and fight for our rights. I see truth being killed but I just take my eyes off thinking this is the way world lives. Nobody is bothered, why should I? I do something because everybody else is doing. These kind of movies wake my inner-self.
Halla Bol is all about a person like me who is lost. He is not bothered about what is right and what is wrong. He has accepted that what everybody does is right. This guy is just like anybody else. But someday somebody comes and provokes the hero within this person. He fights and wins. I am not a hero, I might not have enough guts to sacrifice my career, my life for nation. More precisely, I might not become the first person to do that. But I might be one of the many who will be standing beside the hero. I need a hero whom I can follow. The country is full of people like me. Everybody needs a hero.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Clean Permalinks in WordPress
I came across a beautiful article on ‘How to write clean urls for WordPress’ today. I have configured it myself and it works great. If you are wondering why didn’t I use it for my own blog then I must tell you that I have a shared hosting.
The article can be read here.
Friday, November 16, 2007
My love for Sony Ericsson continues
Everybody around seemed to use a Nokia when I bought my first Sony Ericsson (SE), a K750i. Had used Samsung R220 and Nokia 6610i before but K750i was my first love. A state-of-the-art device, a beauty. It was barely eight months when it refused to charge properly. SE’s highly incompetent service-center people said, there is a corrosion in phone due to moisture in environment. Someone from SE called and told me that it might due to sweat. I agreed, dumped my first love and bought another K750i. I was really taking care of the phone this time (even paid Rs.300 for that transparent screen-care film, scratch-guard. It came off in just 2 months!), but perhaps God didn’t like this, he thought, how can this highly unmanaged person managing the phone well! It was third month running when I forgot my phone in a taxi in Fort. The taxi-walla was intelligent enough, within 5 minutes of losing the phone when I tried, ‘The Airtel subscriber you are calling is not reachable…’. Not everyone is good.
It’s barely 7 days I bought this device but I am sort of in love again. What I liked in K790i over K750i is, its 3.2MP camera, bigger and brighter display, EDGE (I am going to use it in a couple of days), looks and Radio (reception is better than K750i and it doesn’t have that irritating sound of tin-tin). SEs look fragile but they are quite sturdy, though camera-cover seems to be very delicate in K790. One thing that I am missing from day one is absence of MegaBass, however, since I have HPM-70 headphones, it’s not that big deal.
I had bought my K790i from Maaru NX, Vashi for Rs.12,500. The package included a surprise, a 1Gb M2 memory card. Manoj clarified that the phones he has, have 1Gb cards inside. Sony was offering them under a promotional offer. I wasn’t aware of the fact and was planning to spend a couple of thousand rupees for the card. Overall a nice purchase, I am happy.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
AnswerTips: Double-click any word
Rajeev was reading the ‘Thai plane crash story’ on CBSNews a coupe of days ago and found something ‘cool’. He accidentally double-clicked somewhere and a small JavaScript pop-up opened up. The window had definition/meaning of the word Rajeev double-clicked. He showed me and I got interested immediately. It’s AnswerTips from Answers.com. I have installed it on this blog, test it by double-clicking anywhere on the page. If at all, you are interested, copy and paste the following JavaScript code anywhere on your page and your site is AnswerTips enabled too.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
ICICI Bank responded unexpectedly fast
It’s just one month when I had all complaints for ICICI Bank. But today I seem to have differing views. I won’t say there isn’t any problem, but yes, the problem was handled like never before.
Actually my credit card’s last month bill was some Rs.27120. I paid Rs.27,000 in two part payments and couldn’t notice that Rs.125 are still to be paid. I was shocked when I noticed the statement. I was charged Rs.1300 as interest. I called up customer care and they declared that no matter how much is remaining, interest will be calculated on entire bill amount! Insane it was, 1300 rupees interest for 125 short-payment. Nothing on this earth can justify this calculation. Was already upset about something, hence accepted what that guy said and came home.
Past night, when came to office for a while, I found a mail from ICICI Bank reminding me for the current due to be paid. I became furious then, wrote a mail to ICICI customer care saying ‘why didn’t you send me a mail that sir, please pay 125 rupees otherwise we will charge you interest on entire bill amount’. I was so pissed-off that I warned that I will get rid of this card as soon as possible.
Withing 12 hours, I got a call from ICICI saying sorry for the act and promising me that they will reverse the interest charges. Just saw my online statement, they have really reversed the charges!
They made a mistake but this time they handled it in a wonderful way. I expect the same from every vendor in this world. Everybody makes a mistake but you can still remain good if you handle it well.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
News of the day, CarWale.com is one of the top 100 in Asia
Well. it’s official now. CarWale.com is among top 100 Asian companies, Red Herring declared this in its Red Herring 100 Asia 2007 event today in Hongkong. Mohit sir was present in Hongkong to receive this honor.
I am on a high, finishing the post as well as the day’s work right away. It’s time to party! 
Read complete news at CarWale.com Blog.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Alert!!! Renew And Secure Your Internet Banking Account Immediately
I was surprised when I received a mail from ICICI Bank (customercare@icicibank.com) with title Alert!!! Renew And Secure Your Internet Banking Account Immediately. The mailer had a ICICI Bank logo and the mail format was quite similar to what ICICI has. Below is the complete mail body:
Security Update for Online Users
Currently, you are on the ICICI Bank Company Mailer
The internet has become widely accepted for banking online. While we have taken all the possible measures to ensure security and confidentiality of our online banking systems, as we are providing you 128-SSL Secured Server which is highly protected to store your passwords.
Now we are updating our 128-SSL Secured Server to 256-Encrypted SSL Secured Server which is highly sophisticated server to maintain your personal information as our prior service to you.
Important: Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of your online banking account we have issued this warning message.
During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, we were unable to verify your account information. It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website .We demand that you take 5 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records to avoid running into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to update your records will result in your account suspension. Once you have updated your account records your internet banking service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.
If You Have ICICI Bank Personal Account , Click here https://verification.personal.icicibank.co.in/verify1.jsp
If You Have ICICI Bank Corporate Account , Click here https://verification.corporate.icicibank.co.in/verify2.jsp
Sincerely, ICICI Bank Security Department
I didn’t think much and clicked the ‘Personal Account’ link and landed on a page that was quite similar to what I see almost daily (oh yes, I use Internet banking too frequently). But when I was about to fill it, I noticed it is asking me for somewhat suspicious information like ATM pin and all. Then I had a look at URL. Hell! It was anything but ICICIBank.com!!! The URL was
http://www.iikii.com/bemarket/imgs/save/3/rbc3/www.icicibank.com/Login[1][1].jsp.html
Then I went back to mail-box, saw mail headers and found that mail has been sent by sd1967.sivit.org. So, I was about to become a victim of phishing! Trust me, it could have been a disaster. I remember well that a few months ago someone trapped me and took away my orkut password. He looted two of my communities which had over 4,000 members. Though it gave me a shock and I left orkut the same day but it gave me a lesson also and I am wary of such things now.
If any mail asks you your email, username, password, ATM pin, credit card information or any such thing, please make sure that you are not being trapped.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Isn’t ICICI Bank going Indian Government way?
I am an ICICI Bank customer for a long time now. I also have a credit card with them. Trust me, having an Internet-banking-enabled bank account and credit card of same bank is a blessing. You don’t need to worry about anything, keep on spending in malls and repay sitting in your office chair. I appreciate ICICI Bank’s Internet/Phone banking capabilities (and fantastic security too), I really don’t remember when I visited my bank branch last!
But unfortunately I have had a few highly disappointing incidences with the bank. The latest was horrible. Here I go:
I had ordered some gifts against my reward points on 25th of July and I received them on 28th or so. I was to give some of them to Sudha. Before I could give her these, someone from BlueDart called me asking if I have opened the box? I answered in positive. The guy on the other side said, ‘Sir, ICICI has asked us to take the parcel back! There is some problem in the delivery’. I was surprised as if there was some problem why didn’t ICICI call me? Anyways, I asked the guys to come and collect the ‘opened’ box. I couldn’t do anything but to apologize to her!
Today is 12th August and there is no news about the gifts or my reward points! Mess!
Is this the way a bank like ICICI should behave? If there was some problem they should have called me regretting for what they have done and should have asked me for a balanced solution. Or were they supposed to ask some third-party to take the gifts back from my hands? Can you imagine, how humiliating it is? At that moment I thought of suing the bank literally but cooled myself off thinking, this is the way we all are. And ICICI is no exception.
Another bad experience I had was when I contacted them for a small personal loan sometime back. I contacted three banks i.e. ICICI, HDFC and Citi. Among them HDFC and Citi were more than desperate to give me the loan, in fact Citi committed to hand me over the cheque within 2 days. But since I bank with ICICI, I thought it would be better to get loan from these people but ICICI didn’t give me a damn even after receiving all the desired papers. They didn’t even bother to contact me since then.
Anyhow I don’t need a loan anymore but the practice was a lesson to me that DON’T SEEK ICICI FOR ANY SERIOUS BUSINESS! They have got enough mullahs and are happy with that. ICICI is happy to be what it is today and doesn’t have intention to expand.
In nutshell, I think ICICI is overall a great bank until everything is a success in one go, but if something needs a second attempt, you will have tough time with them.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Tesu and Jhainji in Bundelkhand
A fellow-Ambahite sent a mail in Ambah group a couple of days back. The mail contained something very special, well to me and every person belonging to Ambah or Chambal. The mail had a few Tesu and Jhainji songs written in Devnagiri script. All original bundelkhandi/brij dialect ones. Those songs and much more is composed by Mr. Mushtaq Khan and is available at this URL. All the stuff is in Hindi/Bundelkhandi language/dialect.
A quick overview of Tesu and Jhianji: As the Deshahra/Vijay Dashmi finishes, Chambal starts to celebrate a very interesting ceremony. Almost every chambal family takes part in this ceremony but at individual level. At least one boy (5-15 years age) in the family buys a Tesu ( a three-leg statue, resembles a king/prince) and girl (of similar age group) buys a Jhainji (a pot made of mud, resembles a queen/princess). Now boys and girls roam in streets in groups, singing Tesu-Jhainji songs. They go to every door-step and ask for money (usually 25 paisa to 1 rupee). This goes on till Sharad Purnima (15 days prior to Diwali). On Sharad Purnima, the Tesu and Jhainji's marriage takes place. It's just like normal marriage. All major events take place in this marriage. Even a pandit is hired to perform the pooja. I had performed pooja in a few such marriages and could be able to get some 15-16 rupees ;~) Parents of the children too participate in this and enjoy the event. After marriage, Tesus and Jhainjis are broken by hitting hard on floor. Crackers, sweets, songs are all around to celebrate this mega-event.
Well, I should have described all this in past tense as nothing happens now. Chambal is modern now, unfortunately! Trust me, Sharad Purnima used to be a bigger festival than Diwali at my place. It's all over now. Thanks to technology for providing TV, CD players, mobile games...
Anyways, I don't know Mr. Mushtaq Khan but I sincerely thank him for making so much efforts for us. And yes, I am thankful to Deepak as well to bring up such a great thing.
A quick overview of Tesu and Jhianji: As the Deshahra/Vijay Dashmi finishes, Chambal starts to celebrate a very interesting ceremony. Almost every chambal family takes part in this ceremony but at individual level. At least one boy (5-15 years age) in the family buys a Tesu ( a three-leg statue, resembles a king/prince) and girl (of similar age group) buys a Jhainji (a pot made of mud, resembles a queen/princess). Now boys and girls roam in streets in groups, singing Tesu-Jhainji songs. They go to every door-step and ask for money (usually 25 paisa to 1 rupee). This goes on till Sharad Purnima (15 days prior to Diwali). On Sharad Purnima, the Tesu and Jhainji's marriage takes place. It's just like normal marriage. All major events take place in this marriage. Even a pandit is hired to perform the pooja. I had performed pooja in a few such marriages and could be able to get some 15-16 rupees ;~) Parents of the children too participate in this and enjoy the event. After marriage, Tesus and Jhainjis are broken by hitting hard on floor. Crackers, sweets, songs are all around to celebrate this mega-event.
Well, I should have described all this in past tense as nothing happens now. Chambal is modern now, unfortunately! Trust me, Sharad Purnima used to be a bigger festival than Diwali at my place. It's all over now. Thanks to technology for providing TV, CD players, mobile games...
Anyways, I don't know Mr. Mushtaq Khan but I sincerely thank him for making so much efforts for us. And yes, I am thankful to Deepak as well to bring up such a great thing.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
The Kite Runner by khaled Hosseini
Great book! I am away from books for at least three months due to extreme busyness in office and at home but I managed to complete this book by sleeping late at night and awaking very early in the morning. It was really a pain, I won't do this exercise for anything but I just got hooked to the book. It was worth all that pain. :-)
The Kite Runner is a story of Amir, son of a very rich businessman of Kabul, Afghanistan. The Kite Runner is Hassan, a servant-cum-friend of Amir. Hassan is son of Ali who was given shelter by Amir's grandfather. Ali served Amir's father, serving Amir was duty of Hassan. He served Amir well, amazingly in fact. Hassan never disappointed Amir and always thought Amir agha (sahib) is a friend of his but Amir didn't think the same for even a second. In some very dramatic political conditions, Amir had to leave Afghanistan. Ali and Hassan couldn't come with them. But some very unfortunate incidents in Afghanistan brought Amir back after all twenty-two years. Hassan's son was waiting for him...
Novel has pre-taliban background of Afghanistan, mostly. After reading the novel, I came to know really good details about Afghanistan, its people, culture and economy. I also came to know a special type of muslim community, Hazara and their relations with muslim (shia, sunni) families in Afghanistan. A little description of Taliban's effect on Afghanistan is also provided by Mr. Hosseini.
Overall, a very thrilling, moving, genuine story written in really wonderful way. 9/10 from me.
The Kite Runner is a story of Amir, son of a very rich businessman of Kabul, Afghanistan. The Kite Runner is Hassan, a servant-cum-friend of Amir. Hassan is son of Ali who was given shelter by Amir's grandfather. Ali served Amir's father, serving Amir was duty of Hassan. He served Amir well, amazingly in fact. Hassan never disappointed Amir and always thought Amir agha (sahib) is a friend of his but Amir didn't think the same for even a second. In some very dramatic political conditions, Amir had to leave Afghanistan. Ali and Hassan couldn't come with them. But some very unfortunate incidents in Afghanistan brought Amir back after all twenty-two years. Hassan's son was waiting for him...
Novel has pre-taliban background of Afghanistan, mostly. After reading the novel, I came to know really good details about Afghanistan, its people, culture and economy. I also came to know a special type of muslim community, Hazara and their relations with muslim (shia, sunni) families in Afghanistan. A little description of Taliban's effect on Afghanistan is also provided by Mr. Hosseini.
Overall, a very thrilling, moving, genuine story written in really wonderful way. 9/10 from me.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
'The Wanderer Thinks' shifted to my own website
Happy News! 'The Wanderer Thinks' has got a new address: www.BanwariLalSharma.com/Blog/. :) Site doesn't have anything apart from this blog as of now, I will try to upload a few pages in a while.
Well, if you have been redirected from http://banwarilal.blogspot.com, then I am sorry for the inconvenience. The information you are looking for, can be found in the archives. Notice the URL you clicked on, there is a date format e.g. /2007/04/. It says this post was written in 04 i.e. April of 2007. Browse relevant month to read the post. :-)
Well, if you have been redirected from http://banwarilal.blogspot.com, then I am sorry for the inconvenience. The information you are looking for, can be found in the archives. Notice the URL you clicked on, there is a date format e.g. /2007/04/. It says this post was written in 04 i.e. April of 2007. Browse relevant month to read the post. :-)
Monday, March 12, 2007
A bad day...
A bad day began when I left to office without breakfast. It was hardly one hour in office when I burnt motherboard of Rajeev's machine. While coming from hardware shop, tyre of bike got punctured! Got a repair shop around and got the tyre repaired for 40 rupees. Yes, fourty rupees for a puncture-repair! Just 400% costlier than Bhopal. It wasn't enough, I felt worst when I saw a Palio S10 in this condition...
Luckily, day didn't end this way. Got news that Arun sir's marriage has fixed. Had a quick party, took two samosas and one-and-half glass of Pepsi. :-)
Luckily, day didn't end this way. Got news that Arun sir's marriage has fixed. Had a quick party, took two samosas and one-and-half glass of Pepsi. :-)
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
My sweet Bhopal and its sweeter Bhopali language
A few days ago, Mohit sir asked me to search 'Bhopali Bakar' in wikipedia. Though I am very much comfortable with the meaning of the term, I was wondering what will it come up with. Searched and found a page with Bhopali Bakar title. Went through it and found myself laughing like anything. I had been in Bhopal for around seven years and I enjoyed this special Bhopali-style language a lot then. This page just reminded me old sweet days. Thought of sharing the same...
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