Just read an article which had appeared in the newspaper a couple of days back about ICICI bank being fined Rs. 55 lakh for unruly means of loan recovery. About time something like this was done!
I had a car loan taken from ICICI bank and during the process of applying for the loan I was assured that they would allow swiping of my cheques with those of my dad's, who was also a co-applicant in the loan. In spite of continuous reminders that the cheques had to be swiped after two transactions, six transactions were taken from my account with no sign of the swiping being done anytime soon.
That being done, I went to the Panjim office to see what was causing the delay in swiping the cheques. Unfortunately, the person who I dealt with had been transferred to mumbai. To my consternation, the lady behind the desk said that the cheques WOULD NOT be swiped and that the ENTIRE loan would have to come from my account. When I confronted her with what I was told when taking the loan, she replied, to my UTTER DISBELIEF, with 'you have been deceived by that person. You deal with him about that problem' ??!!
They both work for the SAME COMPANY! This is how you talk to customers?
When I asked her for my father's cheques to be returned, I couldn't believe my ears when she replied that my cheques were in mumbai and she had NO IDEA where my father's cheques were. I couldn't even complain against the callousness and complete lack of customer service of that person because the manager wasn't in and there was no proper complaint register available.
I decided to go to mumbai and imagine my shock when they informed me that they had no problem swiping the cheques and that they would do it right away. When I told them about the complete lack of information in the Panjim branch in Goa, I was asked to fill in a feedback form. So I did, Named the branch. Named the lady. Named the problem. No idea what came of it.
Anywa, the previous cheques handed over by my dad were misplaced by the bank and so they had to be blocked while new cheques were issued and swiped. Therein ended the saga of a simple swiping of cheques.
To ANYONE who reads this and handles loan operations in ICICI, PLEASE read up your loan DO's and DON'T's before sending your customers on a DO-IT-YOURSELF trip to mumbai.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
'15 seconds of fame' ???
Every person wants his shot at fame. No matter how frivolous a situation, one can always find a means to ensure an allegation can be made. In this case, a lawyer has filed a case against our winning T20 team for disrespecting the national flag.
The lawyer, Arvind Sharda, filed the complaint before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Varinder Aggarwal under the Flag Act 1871 for violating the flag code of India.
The magistrate has fixed October 23 as the date for recording evidence by the complainant in support of his complaint.
Jeez mate! We're celebrating a win! We won the cup! We're proud of being Indian! We drape the flag around ourselves! We spray champagne on each other!
There's a thin line between joyous patriotism and fanatic patriotism.
And though I would love to go on and on about this, there is only so much I can write for now. When I get back, this will be delved into much much more. Damn! I WANT TO DELVE INTO IT SO MUCH MORE!
The lawyer, Arvind Sharda, filed the complaint before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Varinder Aggarwal under the Flag Act 1871 for violating the flag code of India.
The magistrate has fixed October 23 as the date for recording evidence by the complainant in support of his complaint.
Jeez mate! We're celebrating a win! We won the cup! We're proud of being Indian! We drape the flag around ourselves! We spray champagne on each other!
There's a thin line between joyous patriotism and fanatic patriotism.
And though I would love to go on and on about this, there is only so much I can write for now. When I get back, this will be delved into much much more. Damn! I WANT TO DELVE INTO IT SO MUCH MORE!
Thursday, October 04, 2007
A train journey to remember....
This was one of my oh-so-frequent train trips between Mumbai and Goa which occurred last month. I had actually penned most of this down in the train itself, as I was beginning to wonder what to do with the incredible amount of time I suddenly had on my hands.
With a sigh of relief as I finally got the bookings for the exams done, I stepped out to book my train ticket for the journey back to Goa. Should have seen it as a sign of things to come. The online booking, a 15 minute process, took an unusually long 50 minutes. After finally having got the ticket for the train I left to complete the other formalities of picking up a couple of books from my regular roadside bookstall and finally, checking out of my room.
I reached the station at 2230 hrs as the train was scheduled to depart at 2300 hrs. Just then, there was an announcement that the train was rescheduled to depart at 0020 hrs! Like, wow! And due to non availability in the sleeper seats that I usually travel by, I had to book a seat in the A/C 3 Tier compartment and that too under tatkal quota... (what else could I have expected after going to book for the train ticket that evening?)
Wonder of wonders! The T.C. came in and told me that I was UPGRADED to the A/C 2 Tier section! (Upgraded. Made me feel like an outdated piece of electronic equipment) I got to my seat and next to me were a group of 'youngsters' chatting away to glory with a very thick gujju accent. Guess I've learnt to detect it from the innumerable 'saas-bahu' serials running on television. All of a sudden there appeared this bevy of beauties who looked to be travelling WITH the 'youngster' guys. Seemed that they were married couples! Looked like kids! Come to talk about that, one of them had a little baby girl! So yeah! One of the guys wanted to borrow a pen. 'Dost' he said. Funny. I've never heard anyone refer to a stranger that way. I mean I've heard of 'Boss', 'Patrao', 'Bhaiyya', 'Bhaisaab' and 'Mahashay'. (For the uninitiated, first two are common in Goa, next two are common almost everywhere in the northern part of India, and last in Kerala) This was a first. He was 26 yrs old and he was a father of a beautiful baby girl. And it seems his honeymoon was in Kerala. Though I didn't seem to get the gist of why he called it his 'first honeymoon'. And the look he had on his face when he was talking about Kerala? Dreamy. Almost like he had the best time of his life there. Well, why wouldn't he? He had his honeymoon there!
All things moving on, we seemed to have been moving unusually slow since early morning. I presumed it was because we were moving through the landslide affected area which was demarcated as a 'slow zone'. An hour later we stopped right in the middle of a tunnel. What do you know! The locomotive engine broke down! Now how often would you have heard of something like that happening? On inquiring with some of the T.C.'s onboard, we finally managed to find out that the fuel line was not developing pressure in the forward direction but was doing so in the reverse direction! So, it was decided to take the train back to the station we had just passed to attach another engine there. The delays just kept piling up.
In the end we stopped inside another tunnel again because the locomotive engine just broke down completely. The place that we stopped was called Aadavali, or so the locals said. It had a lovely river, more like a creek actually, flowing right beneath the tracks.
I had borrowed a travel guide book on 'South India' from a couple travelling in the same compartment to see if I could find any info on this place but to no avail. I thought they were British at first but later found out the guy was Irish while his girlfriend was British. They were with me in the previous compartment until they too were 'upgraded'. The reason I thought they were British was because when the T.C. told them that they had been 'upgraded', she exclaimed "Wicked!". Typically British if I may say so. But the guy had a distinct Irish accent. So I wasn't actually sure till I finally spoke to them and we had introduced ourselves to each other.
After the new engine had arrived and was finally connected, the train resumed it's journey at 1240 hrs. Revised ETA was now 1630-1700 hrs.
There was an interesting bit that I'd begun to notice in my last couple of journeys to-and-fro Mumbai. The Madgaon-Diva-Madgaon train has the lower half of a few bogies spray painted upon in the form of graffitti. I'd never seen a train like this before!
Now that the train was well on it's way to Madgaon we had fallen into complacency and assumed that normalcy had taken over the journey. How mistaken we were! At Kankavali, SOMEONE from S3 pulled the emergency stop chain! Aaaaaargh! Frustration was beginning to show. Another delay of 20 minutes out there.
Finally. At 1600 hrs! Karmali! But wait a minute. I was supposed to get off at Madgaon. The last stop and the next station. I just couldn't wait for that. The fear of another unscheduled stop was too much to bear. I got off at Karmali and grabbed a motorcycle pilot to the bus stop. Took the local bus to Panjim. From there, I took a shuttle service bus to Vasco. Met Dad in Vasco.
HOME SWEET HOME!
With a sigh of relief as I finally got the bookings for the exams done, I stepped out to book my train ticket for the journey back to Goa. Should have seen it as a sign of things to come. The online booking, a 15 minute process, took an unusually long 50 minutes. After finally having got the ticket for the train I left to complete the other formalities of picking up a couple of books from my regular roadside bookstall and finally, checking out of my room.
I reached the station at 2230 hrs as the train was scheduled to depart at 2300 hrs. Just then, there was an announcement that the train was rescheduled to depart at 0020 hrs! Like, wow! And due to non availability in the sleeper seats that I usually travel by, I had to book a seat in the A/C 3 Tier compartment and that too under tatkal quota... (what else could I have expected after going to book for the train ticket that evening?)
Wonder of wonders! The T.C. came in and told me that I was UPGRADED to the A/C 2 Tier section! (Upgraded. Made me feel like an outdated piece of electronic equipment) I got to my seat and next to me were a group of 'youngsters' chatting away to glory with a very thick gujju accent. Guess I've learnt to detect it from the innumerable 'saas-bahu' serials running on television. All of a sudden there appeared this bevy of beauties who looked to be travelling WITH the 'youngster' guys. Seemed that they were married couples! Looked like kids! Come to talk about that, one of them had a little baby girl! So yeah! One of the guys wanted to borrow a pen. 'Dost' he said. Funny. I've never heard anyone refer to a stranger that way. I mean I've heard of 'Boss', 'Patrao', 'Bhaiyya', 'Bhaisaab' and 'Mahashay'. (For the uninitiated, first two are common in Goa, next two are common almost everywhere in the northern part of India, and last in Kerala) This was a first. He was 26 yrs old and he was a father of a beautiful baby girl. And it seems his honeymoon was in Kerala. Though I didn't seem to get the gist of why he called it his 'first honeymoon'. And the look he had on his face when he was talking about Kerala? Dreamy. Almost like he had the best time of his life there. Well, why wouldn't he? He had his honeymoon there!
All things moving on, we seemed to have been moving unusually slow since early morning. I presumed it was because we were moving through the landslide affected area which was demarcated as a 'slow zone'. An hour later we stopped right in the middle of a tunnel. What do you know! The locomotive engine broke down! Now how often would you have heard of something like that happening? On inquiring with some of the T.C.'s onboard, we finally managed to find out that the fuel line was not developing pressure in the forward direction but was doing so in the reverse direction! So, it was decided to take the train back to the station we had just passed to attach another engine there. The delays just kept piling up.
In the end we stopped inside another tunnel again because the locomotive engine just broke down completely. The place that we stopped was called Aadavali, or so the locals said. It had a lovely river, more like a creek actually, flowing right beneath the tracks.
I had borrowed a travel guide book on 'South India' from a couple travelling in the same compartment to see if I could find any info on this place but to no avail. I thought they were British at first but later found out the guy was Irish while his girlfriend was British. They were with me in the previous compartment until they too were 'upgraded'. The reason I thought they were British was because when the T.C. told them that they had been 'upgraded', she exclaimed "Wicked!". Typically British if I may say so. But the guy had a distinct Irish accent. So I wasn't actually sure till I finally spoke to them and we had introduced ourselves to each other.
After the new engine had arrived and was finally connected, the train resumed it's journey at 1240 hrs. Revised ETA was now 1630-1700 hrs.
There was an interesting bit that I'd begun to notice in my last couple of journeys to-and-fro Mumbai. The Madgaon-Diva-Madgaon train has the lower half of a few bogies spray painted upon in the form of graffitti. I'd never seen a train like this before!
Now that the train was well on it's way to Madgaon we had fallen into complacency and assumed that normalcy had taken over the journey. How mistaken we were! At Kankavali, SOMEONE from S3 pulled the emergency stop chain! Aaaaaargh! Frustration was beginning to show. Another delay of 20 minutes out there.
Finally. At 1600 hrs! Karmali! But wait a minute. I was supposed to get off at Madgaon. The last stop and the next station. I just couldn't wait for that. The fear of another unscheduled stop was too much to bear. I got off at Karmali and grabbed a motorcycle pilot to the bus stop. Took the local bus to Panjim. From there, I took a shuttle service bus to Vasco. Met Dad in Vasco.
HOME SWEET HOME!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Utter Callousness by VHP!
Nationwide protests is what they wanted, to 'highlight' the hindu culture that would be destroyed if the Central government went ahead with the Sethu Samudram Project.
Protest they did. Blocking railway tracks and creating traffic jams by blocking major roads. In the midst of this mayhem, a pregnant lady trying to make her way to the hospital with her husband is stuck in the traffic. With the VHP was in no mood to relent, the husband tries to find a nurse to help his wife, only to return and find out that his wife has had to deliver the child on the footpath!
Is this what we plan to achieve in the 21st century? Political parties and religious fundamentalists calls bandhs and stage dharnas all in the name of protecting the common man's interests and culture. But at what cost?
When the news channel Aaj Tak tried to contact Praveen Togadia on the phone, he refused to acknowledge that VHP was responsible for the woman's sufferings. Later on, another person from the VHP apologised on behalf of the VHP, but continued to claim that this was being done to protect the hindu culture!
Why make the common man suffer for the whims and fancies of these organisations? You want to call a bandh or stage a dharna, then do it in your area first. Shut down your daily life first and then go to the common man asking him to just drop what he is doing so that your aspirations can be satisfied.
Protest they did. Blocking railway tracks and creating traffic jams by blocking major roads. In the midst of this mayhem, a pregnant lady trying to make her way to the hospital with her husband is stuck in the traffic. With the VHP was in no mood to relent, the husband tries to find a nurse to help his wife, only to return and find out that his wife has had to deliver the child on the footpath!
Is this what we plan to achieve in the 21st century? Political parties and religious fundamentalists calls bandhs and stage dharnas all in the name of protecting the common man's interests and culture. But at what cost?
When the news channel Aaj Tak tried to contact Praveen Togadia on the phone, he refused to acknowledge that VHP was responsible for the woman's sufferings. Later on, another person from the VHP apologised on behalf of the VHP, but continued to claim that this was being done to protect the hindu culture!
Why make the common man suffer for the whims and fancies of these organisations? You want to call a bandh or stage a dharna, then do it in your area first. Shut down your daily life first and then go to the common man asking him to just drop what he is doing so that your aspirations can be satisfied.
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