NOTHING UNFAIR IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A FAST BUCK 

I use a mobile phone with BSNL SIM card in it. While all service providers look to make some extra money from their users than what they are really entitled to, BSNL is no exception either. Recently, I received the following message in my mobile phone from BSNL.

“Under the inspirational leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, BSNL as a part of pro-people initiative, has decided to offer while roaming, without worrying about incoming call charges. For further details, contact 18001801503”

Again for a few more days, I received the same message repeatedly. Roaming charges for incoming calls are done away with. So far, so good.

Then, one fine day, I received the following message:

“Thanks for Subscribing to Funky Studio (3 Ringtones 2 Videos 1 Wallpaper)(59797) service. You have been charged Rs.5.0 for 5 days. To Unsub send SMS STOP or call 155223(tollfree)”

In fact, I do not know what this service is. There is no way I could have opted for it. Any way, my five rupees are gone and now, my anxiety was to save another five rupees which the cell phone company would deduct from my talk time balance in another 5 days. As I immediately wanted to unsubscribe, I sent the following SMS to 155223, as advised in the message above.

“STOP”

Then, I was surprised to receive the following message again.

“You are currently active on 1.Funky Studio (3 Ringtones+2 Videos+1 Wallpaper)

0.To Deactivate All .To unsubscribe please reply with the number of the service (Example:1)”

Then, I sent another SMS to 155223 as follows:

“STOP 1”

Then again, I received the following message from BSNL, which is a repetition of the earlier one:

“You are currently active on 1.Funky Studio (3 Ringtones+2 Videos+1 Wallpaper)

0.To Deactivate All .To unsubscribe please reply with the number of the service (Example:1)”

This time I was irritated a great deal and I did not know what else to do. Somehow, again, I sent the following SMS to 155223 as follows:

“1”

Then, I was relieved to receive the following message from BSNL:

“Your request for unsubscription of Funky Studio (3 Ringtones+2 Videos+1 Wallpaper) is accepted and will be processed soon”

After some time, I received yet another message, which read as follows:

“Dear Customer, Your pack Funky Studio (3 Ringtones+2 Videos+1 Wallpaper)(59797) is deactivated. Thank you for choosing BSNL.”

Now, I heaved a sigh of relief, since the process came to an end. And this process started without my knowledge, robbed me of my Rs.5 and my free-time of about half an hour.

And, I am sure there are a few lakhs of users who suffered this ordeal and contributed at least Rs.5 to BSNL to make up for their loss of incoming charges while the phone is on roaming. There may be users, who might not have noticed this and therefore, are still continuing to lose Rs.5 every five days to BSNL. Their loss is our BSNL’s gain.

The other avenues open for the company to make an extra buck are to send unsolicited SMSs to users, some of which are as shown below:

“Hello Dear..I Want to talk  with U, Please Quickly Call on My Number 12630066..I''m Waiting.”

“WIN Rs40000 CASH or GOLD, 4 Smart Phones & lots more!Dial 12555088 (Toll Free) from BSNL Mobile, Play BSNL GRAND GOLD Contest. Chgs apply.”

“Anamika 18yrs 
Hi 9441791684 Check out my bikini hott videos here
122.176.112.58/m4u/DirtyNightShow.jsp?id=OTE5NDQxNzkxNjg0”

You either telephone to the given number or click on the link provided and you are certain to lose some amount, each time you proceed further.

If anyone knows filthier and dirtier ways to adopt to make money, BSNL would be glad to be in touch with them, I suppose.

(Note: The contents in the inverted commas above are the copied and pasted messages received from BSNL and the ones I sent them to get the uncalled for ‘service’ discontinued). 

So many aspects of smoking

Smoking, particularly cigarette smoking, as we all know, is the legacy of the west. When it comes to aping the west or something foreign, there is no one in the world to beat an Indian. If it is idiosyncratic of an individual to emulate the west, one can do nothing about it. But, in India, even the present Government or the earlier ones are no different either. We, as individuals or as a Government, do not have any original ideas. When the West indulged in smoking, we too did. When the West disapproved of it, the individuals who got addicted to smoking could not give up smoking, but the Government started appeasing the west by imposing curbs on smoking and at the same time, taking advantage of the situation.

The government does not ban smoking, it goes on increasing prices of the tobacco products. The argument put forward is that it wants to make the habit of smoking unaffordable. If the price of a product is unaffordable, one would switch over to the less costly brand. In such a case, it must be ensured that there is only one brand available and that must be made costlier than ever. Then, to some extent, the desired effect may be brought about.

But, the way the prices are increased has a set pattern of vested interests getting benefitted. The modus operandi is like this. In the month of December and January, several times the normal stocks are dumped into the market. The government announces rise of tobacco products during annual budget, but in the market, they would be sold at that price two months in advance. If only one thinks how such a precise guess is made by the manufacturers and wholesalers, one would be awestruck. The union budget would be announced on the last day of February. In the last week of December of the earlier year, the cigarettes would go into black market. The stocks of December and January next would be sold for several months, even during March and April, at the increased price, without having to pay the taxes and duties due to the government. No stock of February will ever be seen in the market. The March stocks would enter the market with the new prices printed on them. This modus operandi has been going on for decades. And, one cannot imagine this without some source from the government helping the vested interests and needless to add, that source is also a vested interest.

To jump on a bandwagon is also an Indian trait. When quite a few people are of one opinion and some powerful men are also there in that group, any one saying anything against such an opinion is considered bad, negative or a traitor. No one would even listen to what he wants to say. Since the three BJP MPs, who went all out in support of smoking, are men of some stature, their opinion is on air and in print.  If their argument is found wanting, then the science that proved the direct linkage between smoking and cancer has to be made public and their queries to be answered with necessary evidences.

At the end of the day, if the Government thinks that smoking is bad, it has to ban the tobacco products altogether and ensure that it is not made available in the market and also black market. But, making a fast buck and fleecing a tobacco addict in the guise of putting some curbs on it does not speak well of a true government that cares for its people.

And then coming to larger pictorial warning on the cigarette packs, we want to portray an attitude of ‘more loyal than the king himself’. 

The class that takes you for a ride

We were taken for a ride, we are being taken for a ride and we will always be taken for a ride perennially, by one particular class of people. They are not punished by the government. In fact, some revenue accrues to the government if that class operates successfully. Even the opposition parties do not oppose that class. If the opposition become the ruling party, it too would benefit from this class. It is a different matter altogether that the ruling party leaders and the opposition alike take us all for a ride and that too, on a permanent basis. The media, particularly the TV channels, makes huge money from the revenue that is collected from this class.

You must have guessed by now which class of people are being referred to above. Yes, it is the ‘ADVERTISERS’ on Television channels. Barring one or two per cent of them, all others hoodwink us all.

If you give a particular food drink, your kids grow taller and taller and a particular detergent soap would make your stained clothes look even brighter than the new white cloth. ‘Daag achcha hai’ (The stain is good) – because, the detergent can never remove it. If you use a particular tooth-paste, it makes your teeth and gums healthier, because it has salt in it. The tooth-pastes of the same firm have so many other tooth-pastes and we do not know what to do with them. One other tooth-paste claims to have three things in it, viz., tooth-paste, floss and mouthwash.  How a tooth-paste can have floss in it is beyond anyone’s guess, but they go on advertising. If not today, one day, one weak moment, you will certainly accept it. Or at least, that is what the advertiser thinks.

When a man uses a particular perfume, the ladies in dozens (and also the other gender sometimes) fall flat for him.  You can make the best use of a soft-drink to win over a girl, keeping at bay the other contenders. If you go for another soft-drink, you will make others also drink it and that too, with your money. None of us care to bother how ridiculous these suggestions are. Some popular film heroes resort to acrobatic adventures to snatch a small bottle of soft drink, which one can get at Rs.10. When one earns in billions, one should not be so miserly, I suppose.

If you take a tablet or capsule, your health and vitality will go on improving forever. We just ignore the fact that one who said that had to go for treatment of cancer. A man suffering from piles is afraid of surgery to get rid of the problem and hence he goes to an Ayurvedic doctor. The doctor prescribes some medicine. The old man continues to visit the doctor with the same complaint and the doctor relentlessly gives the same medicine each time. There are no indications as yet that the old man had been cured of the disease.

After eating a particular chocolate, two gentlemen become so deranged that they ask the tailor to cut and reduce the pants of their father into shorts. We laugh it out, but we never realise that the advertiser wants us to eat that chocolate and become so deranged.

And then, we have Sandhi Sudha. Jockie Shroff, Rohini Hattangadi, Govinda et al promote it on Teleshopping. My wife suffers from knee problem (the doctors call it osteoarthritis) and I ordered for one over telephone. The next day, a man landed at my residence, delivered it, collected the money and left.  She used it for three months and there was not a trace of improvement. It is an outright lie that the film stars say over television in teleshopping programmes. In fact, all other teleshopping ads are as good only.

And there are those who ‘stone’ you to success, fame, prosperity and aristocracy. Yes, they sell the precious stones and ‘yantras’. They try to convince you that by spending a few thousands of rupees for buying a precious stone or yantra, you can earn in millions or even billions and shoot to fame the moment you wear them. As against the ‘actual price’ of say Rs.10000, they offer it to us for Rs.2999 – because they are so ‘considerate’ to us probably. In the hope of becoming a millionaire or a billionaire, we become poorer by a few thousands of rupees.

Amitabh Bachchan and Nagarjun say that Kalyan Jewellers are the best and others are no good.  Madhavan advocates Joy Alukkas. SP Balasubramaniam says that Andhra Jewellers @ Naj are the best for Nelloreans (it is because the firm has no branches elsewhere). Tamanna prefers Khajana jewellers to the rest. Sowcar Janaki and Suhasini call CMR Shopping Malls-Chandana Brothers, Nellore the best, since they have been here for generations. Frankly, I never heard about those jewellers two decades ago. May be, they then had an elusive existence. Each one blames the others of cheating the public. These advertising firms appear to make no gain for themselves and the ads appear to be for the sole purpose of playing a spoilsport for the other jewellers. Since those who appear in these ads are all reputed, would it not be safe to assume that they are all saying the truth and that all these jewellers are not worth the name? If there is a message, we have to take it.

This open cheating of the public continues unabated. The television channels say that they do not subscribe to the views or claims of the advertisers and that you only have to ascertain the genuineness of their claims before buying a product. The government pretends not to see this open looting of the public money.

But, we continue to watch the ads on TV and buy them. We may not believe that the products are as genuine as the advertisement claims, but we just try it out once. Seeing us buy it, others buy. And then, seeing others buy, we too follow suit. And the chain continues. And the ‘ride’ never ends.

 

 

 

 

With vocabulary, the politicians and the press take us for a ride:

When Narendra Modi said that he would have been sad even if a puppy is run over by his chauffeur driven car, a hue and cry has been raised, particularly by the Congress Party spokesmen and the press. They said that it amounted to his comparing the Muslims killed in 2002 riots to a puppy and that he should have been careful in his selection of vocabulary, as the analogy of ‘puppy’ was an inept one.  To those who learnt what Mr. Modi had to say, it was a clear statement of his concern for even a puppy and that one only had to imagine his concern for the human beings.  

In his all out criticism of Narendra Modi, Mr. Digvijay Singh, General Secretary, Congress Party had said that he (Mr. Modi) was playing to ‘public gallery’. In English, there is an idiomatic phrase ‘playing to the gallery’, which means that one does something that gets the approval of the lower elements in the audience. Does he mean that Mr. Modi was playing to the lower elements of the public? Does he categorize the public into 1. Higher elements and 2. Lower elements? If he did not mean it, should he not have been careful in selection of his vocabulary.

Hoodwinking and taking people for a ride has become de rigueur for the politicians these days.

Idea Data Card

When it comes to ‘innovative’ ideas, be they good, bad or ugly, there is no one to beat IDEA CELLULAR or Idea Data Card.

In an advertisement on TV channels a few months ago, the famous Bollywood star, Ajitabh Bachchan, who has his own mobile phone in his pocket, asks another elderly man standing beside him for the latter’s mobile phone. The elderly person politely gives his own phone to Ajitabh Bachchan, who, gives it back saying that if the mobile phone is for mere making calls, he does not want it. The senior then is magnanimous to offer it again saying that he won’t ask for the charges and that he (Ajitabh) can use it. Then, Ajitabh takes out his own mobile phone to show what extra features he has in it. Insulting an elderly person this way is the height of cruelty and malignant and rude behaviour. The same role is donned by the Tollywood actor, Mahesh Babu in Telugu. Somehow, their fathers were saved the ignominy of donning the role of the elderly person. What a way to attract new customers for this product of IDEA!

And the moment a customer gets this product, he would be taken for a ride without his knowing. My son had bought me a USB Data card of IDEA when we surrendered BSNL landline with broadband at Machilipatnam. He gave it to me for my use. Even when there is balance in it, it prompts you to recharge. I innocently recharged online and surprise of surprises, the previous balance is totally gone and whatever recharge you made only remained. In a Savings Bank Account, if you have a balance of Rs.1000 and deposit another Rs.500, the balance then becomes Rs.1500. But, in IDEA data card, it becomes mere Rs.500. Can anyone explain the logic behind this? How TRAI has approved such unethical practices by the operators is not clear. Again, when I was out of station, the balance in it expired and I telephoned to one acquaintance in my place to go and deposit Rs.200 so that I can resume my internet activity through the data card. He did not do it for a day. I thought he was not inclined to do that and therefore, entrusted the task to some other person, who promptly went to the IDEA outlet and got my data card recharged with Rs.200. The earlier acquaintance, who did not act for over a day, also went to the outlet and got my data card recharged with a similar amount. By both of them recharging the account, only one amount remained and the other had just vanished. But, I had to pay both of them Rs.200 each on my return to town.

One need not shell out some money from one’s pocket, but one is not expected to loot another’s.

Another interesting feature is that you can recharge this on your own, on line, but when there is a balance, you lose the earlier balance on recharge and when there is no balance in it, it does not work at all and you cannot recharge it online.

Who else can get such unique ideas than IDEA?

Finally, I chose to bid adieu to IDEA.