aditya kumar's weblog

I am yet to come across a single telephony/broadband internet company in India which does the basics right. For example, here is something that should not have taken more than 12 hours, but the problem is already 4 days old. Reason being, wrong information provided — repeatedly. My letter to the customer care department of the biggest GSM player in India, open for all.

Dear Telephone company,

When I first emailed you for the change of billing plan from my gmail address 3 days ago, I was asked to do so from my email address registered with you. When I emailed you from the email address that is registered with you (this yahoo.co.in email address), you have sent me another email, asking me to email you from my official email address.

I am surprised how long, lengthy and irritating the whole process is turning out to be — especially since I have repeatedly mentioned that I want to go for this with “immediate effect”. It is obvious to me how much seriously you have taken my request for urgency in this regard.

You could have told me to send the email from my official address the first time itself. It has already been 3 days I have been requesting for the change of plan and all you are telling me since then is to email from one account to another. I am frustrated because you have told me to send the email from my official address NOW — on a Saturday evening, a weekend, when I can’t access my official email account until the next working day, that is Monday.

Its a pity that something that should have been sorted out by a single email has taken such a long time and still going on. Yours is an example of how the purpose of the email of being quick and fast to accomplish tasks, is totally defeated and lost. Its sad, frustrating and I will make sure that this case is heard by the masses — the people.

Thank you and you will have your email from my official email account on Monday. However, this email will go public today itself.

Aditya Kumar

…and yes to aerated drinks. If it were my way, I’d say no to aerated drinks too (How ironical — Believe it or not, last week I won 36 litres of it). Anyway, my friend from Kolkata, Dipankar Bose sends me this piece of art:

I’d want here to introduce a couple of friends and I do it for the sake of art. I have often said, a little bit of appreciation gives any artist the ultimate kick and good work should not be left unnoticed — especially when its out there on the internet.


Its not always that I come across people who are really good in some form of art or the other. Dipankar has done some really wonderful work in computer art but more of the satirical kind. Another dear friend, Desmond, does not use words on his blog but his work with the camera does the talking for him. I link to him on the right and here. Well worth your time, those pictures, I can assure you.

ps: Dipankar’s work should be up soon and I’d have it here!

To move from one of the many small/medium organizations to one of the biggest Information Technology recruiters in the world is quite a transition. The problem I am facing is not of following the new rules and procedures that creep into the small things (that we take for granted while we work in a small company) but of facing the human sea that overwhelms me every day, every minute I spend my time there.

According to one estimate, there are 6000 people that work in the 4 blocks of my office. So when I take the lift (call it elevator, if you may) everyday, the probability of someone who has been in the lift with me before is largely diminished. And it shall remain so until I have spent some time there. Coupled with the fact that there are new faces coming in three times a week, the point of my time spent there’d barely make a difference.

So it does not matter how long have you been in the organization. You could be a week old, a month old or a decade old working here and still walking around as if this is your first day. 95 of the 100 people you walk across everyday won’t even notice you. Chances of looking at a person and making a mental note like “Oh, I see her around everyday” are remote unless you happen to be working in the same project/application etc (in case that happens you’d need a slap on your back because since she works with you, in the same department, you ought to know her).

So you, kind of, start feeling alone in this whole sea of human beings. There is no connection, apart from, of course, that all are working for the same company. That does not matter much, I dare say, because its not a big deal. Everyone is.

Of the thousands of cubicles that you see, one of them is yours. Of the thousands that park their vehicle everyday in the parking lobby, one of them is yours. And You realize that you’ve become, and how, a part of the system.

Rationally speaking, one shouldn’t be concerned with all this, simply because thats the way things happen all over the world. There is absolutely no other way of accomplishing the goals that world class companies chalk out for themselves. It’s raw manpower that drives the system (notice how ironical it seems, to use the word ‘system’ again, compared to the usage of the same word in the last paragraph). No number of machines, tools, hardware or software can replace the effect a bunch of minds, working together, can create).

Maybe one day I’ll be able to recognize faces in the elevator (or call it lift, if you may) and better still, someday people would know people three cubicles apart but for now, I appear lost and trust me, many, just like me, are.

My internet service provider decided that enough was enough as it had been quite some time they had had an outage that lasted more than a day or two. So here i am, writing to you from my cell phone. Bono once said that cell phones are ‘dangerous little devices’. Yes. Anything that lets you blog from your bathroom is dangerous, i say. Anyway, this is turning out to be a long break now. And to some friends who have been left wondering where i have been all this while – i am very fine, all good! What more better evidence of my good spirits than the fact that i am doing this from my cell phone! Oh i just hope that this attempt is successful. Later!

Changed my address without intending to and I have moved into Writers block. Don’t intend to stay long here, will move out soon. Oh and my new job is not helping the cause.

The ever beautiful Milla Jovovich. Portrait (though incomplete), 0.5 mm 2B pencil on paper.

So if you have been wondering what I’ve been up to all these days, lets just say I have been taking a break. Not the “I-want-to-take-a-break-from-writing” kinds but a real break. The hectic last few days in the office followed by equally hectic travelling. A rush-rush trip to Mumbai and then to Pune (I wasn’t getting nostalgic about the city in the last post for nothing, after all) and now at home in Goa.

A week off and half of it spent in travelling like mad — some of it in Mumbai’s locals that practically drain out ones stamina, in the buses, the autos and in the midst of all this, meeting friends that always complain that I am unable to take out time to meet them up.

Pune has changed in bits but not changed in entirety afterall. Traffic is more than before but so are the McDonalds and the malls. This change is just about happening in every Indian city. Sadly its Pune’s turn now. Why sadly you ask. Oh, Malls aren’t the ideal things to build when the city lacks basic infrastructure and proper roads, isn’t it?

Anyway, so I have been off for sometime and who knows for how much time more. Next update, probably in a few days!