Customer Service? Whats that?

This is one of those times when I'm absolutely pissed off. Quick update to tell you folks what happened.
Last week we wanted an internet connection in the new place we've taken ... yes, I'm talking about D-13. So this guy - Alam Choudhary comes over. He is from Tata Indicom. We see the list of offers available. The best one seems to be a flat 6 month connection for which we pay him 6000, and there is no installation charge for it. We gave him the cheque for 6 grand and he assured us that the connection would be active in 4-5 days.

Yesterday, 8 days after this conversation, I called him up and asked him if he would be kind enough to give us the connection. Apparently he was in the mood to be an undercover detective. He murmured that I should speak to "Munna bhai" the cable operator in the area. I asked him why I should do that, and he just would not say. He went on and on about me having to talk to "munna bhai".

So I did. I called up Munna bhai and told him that I had been forwarded to him. Munna bhai tells me that I need to pay 700 bucks more for the connection - wire charges.
I kind of jumped up and down a bit and wanted to tear some of my hair off. Its not too bad that we would have to shell out 700 bucks more. The irritating thing is that these guys could have told me this last week itself!

Anyway, so we agreed on that as well. I called the Alam chap today morning. He said that he would be over for the connection at 12. I called him again at 1 - why? .. obviously cause he never showed up.
At 1, this guy says very matter of factly, "aap munna bhai ko call karo". I can't even explain how I controlled myself and avoided some apt colorful language. I did yell at him a bit though.
And what does our hero do? He decided he doesn't need to talk to me. So he stops taking calls from my number.
I call up Munna. He tells me he will be here between 4 and 5. Its 5.45 now. Neither of the two guys are picking up their cell phones. And I am just reflecting on wasting a perfectly good day waiting for the internet connection who doesn't feel like coming over.

Ten thousand thundering Typhoons and Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles. Antelopes! Sea Jherkins!! Bladderbusters!! Oafs! Peabrains!! Nincompoops!

Kash

Just boring stuff

There were quite a few posts over the last month takling about all the wierd things that happened while we were looking for a place to work out off in Bombay. The last one spoke of us finally finding a place in Malad.

Over last week, we've fixed up the place with odds and ends from both of our homes. Kahin se fridge aa gayaa to kahin se cooler. Kahin se tea-maker to kahin se sofa. Well ... its become quite a cosy place now. I can see our moms yelling at us for hanging out there and not coming home for days! ;)

On the work front things have slowed down a bit. The registeration of the company which had initially looked like a 2 week affair has stretched on. The fellow doing it for us is giving some bull-crap about the delays happening because of 31st of march approaching and this being the end of the financial year. When things dont happen on time, some such magical date always comes up.

No posts from the delhi team. But from what I know, they are sweating it out to produce some real world class stuff! Life for them is all about knitting, dyeing, printing, stitching, washing and packaging, with excellence at every step. Besides, tackling Delhi weather for us Mumbaikars is a task in itself. The last I heard, its bloody hot in the daytime and then it suddenly starts raining hail stones! Its bad enough to make someone believe Tarmon Gaidon is coming. (oops, this is only for "the wheel of time" readers)

Oh yes! Chote has brought over his bike to D13. So now we have some transport to loaf around faster. Its a bajaj. Reminds me of the add "hamara bajaj". For those who want to check out the old "hamara bajaj" add, you can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWFSG0YL_mM

Moving on, we got a couple of bean bags for D13. Well, the two of us thought it was a bright idea, till Chote's mom started asking us why we needed it. And well ... Chote did try to come up with various answers. But when a battle is lost .. well, you know it.

Anyway, the brighter side is that the couple of bean bags make D13 a funky place to work out off.

We've started playing kirket inside the place. There is a longish corridor which is quite free and we can have a lot of stroke play along this space.

Thats all for today. Somehow I dont feel any kind of flow in todays blog. But we hadnt written for a while and I thought Id do the honors.

- Kash

PS: Waise chote is Sushant and pappe is navneet. kaku remains kaku. I am munna.

Finally!

Just dropped in to declare that we have finally bagged a place in Malad to start work from!

The last couple of posts will give you a feel of how big this achievement is. Anyway, our adda in Bombay will be at Evershine Nagar, Malad. We've been thinking of funky names for this place. One that I've been hung up on is 'Cutting Chai'.

Oh! I almost forgot. After we took this place, we got to know that the number of the flat is D-13. hee hee hee ... Wahaan rehne se pehle ache se Pooja karaani padegi. Apart from this, we are signing the agreement for this on a Friday. All kinds of symbology coming into play. Given everything else, I'm sure the D stands for the Devil!! :)

Hmm .. seems to me that D13 is as kool a name as any other! Its D13 vs Cutting Chai till now.

Rumble Ramble

Mumbai is getting hot. And sultry. Just the kind of atmosphere most conducive to a startup! Just kidding, I have nothing against Bombay. Love this city. Okay, like this city ;-)

The past week has gone even before it came. The only proof of its existence is the tired legs and the numbing sensation upstairs. Kashyap and yours truly went looking at some more offices/flats today. I guess we have seen/measured/contemplated/entertained close to 15 spaces over the last couple of weeks and what we have faced can be summarized as below:

a. The space is on the Mumbai city border
b. It is bang in the middle of the locality's busiest vegetable market
c. It is so small (both vertically and horizontally) that you cant really stretch your legs once inside
d. It is in such a bad shape, you start imagining those WW prisons
e. The rent is too high
f. The deposit is too high
g. It is not available till April
h. The owner wants an all-cash transaction
i. The society doesn't allow bachelors

I am beginning to get addicted to nimbu-pani, Vada pav's are getting more and more inconsistent in taste across the city.

Went to Leopold's for the first time last week (Leopold's is a pub in Mumbai that finds a lot of mentions in Gregory Robert's Shantaram). Liked the place. They serve beer in these biig vertical test-tube kinda things. Thank god you dont have to drink straight from them! We played a modification of the game Truth-or-Dare. Since neither of us was in a mood to do a dare (sab beer da kusur yaar), we decided to play Truth-or-Truth. We basically tell the other person the truth. That's it. No choice. It went down some very interesting ways (Sarry! Cant reveal details. I see Kash running towards me with a sickle!). Bahut majaa aaya.

Kash's got an iPod as a gift from a close friend of his (lucky bum). Anyone want to do the same to me?

P.S: Anyone who's read Malcolm Gladwell's 'The Tipping Point' and wants to engage in a conversation on the same, buzz me.

Adios.

-Sushant