Missed payment

I had a vodafone corporate connection in India for 18 months. When i moved to UK, i completely forgot about the connection. But the legal department in Vodafone did not forget me :(

The first missed call came yesterday at 7 AM when i was getting ready to work. Very few people in India know my UK contact number so i thought that it must be one of my friends ringing me to let me know their new number or something. I was busy getting ready to work so i thought of giving a call once i reach office. After 10 minutes, i get a sms stating "Karthik, call me back" - no name mentioned. I call back this number and a guy picks up the call and says my full name. He then introduces himself as a guy from Vodafone legal department. He says that i have an outstanding bill of something more than a grand and i was supposed to pay it by 4 PM (3 hours notice period) else my name would be handed over to the police. I told him calmly that i am in UK and i cannot make a payment by 4. He then asks me for my credit card details so that he can take the payment. I refused to give him my credit card details and said that i will make the payment. Then i asked him how he got my number and he said that he had got it from my parents.

This gentleman had called up my parents saying that he is a friend of mine who had worked with me in my previous company and that he needed my number urgently. I made the payment through internet transfer on the same day

Today, The hutch guy gave me a number of missed calls between 4 AM and 6 AM . He then calls my parents and threatens them with police action. I called him back once i reached office and explained to him that i have made the payment and that he will get it either today or tomorrow. When i questioned him about his behaviour, he just cut the call.

When i am at fault for defaulting the payment , the way the so called legal department guy behaved was utterly ridiculous

1) He claims that he had sent two legal notices to my mailid which is not active. He would have got back a message stating that the id is not active. He has my parent's address, why couldn't he post the bill to them??? He was able to call them and get my number - why could not he have done this???

2) What was the need to lie to my parents about being my friend. If he is calling from the legal department he has all the rights to tell them the truth and demand the money? Why follow a third rate approach?

3) The guy works for vodafone - a leading mobile service provider and he gives missed calls from his number !!!

4) What was the need to threaten me with legal action the first time that he is speaking to me?

5) When he very well knows that i am in UK, why does he give me missed calls at 4, 5 and 6 AM?

I had mailed across a complaint to vodafone about this...lets see what happens.

Slumdig Millionaire - positive sides!!!

Was talking to a friend who said that the movie does infact have some positive things . According to her, the movie depicts a bulk of population in India but it also shows how these people still manage to live happily amidst all this. In addition, it also shows that some people do not give up and fight for the thing that they want - that includes the hero, the blind beggar...the girl and the kids - they all fight to survive!!!

She has got a point there.

Slumdog millionaire - outrageous!!!

Slumdog millionaire - a movie that has been on the winning spree in almost all award functions lately held and might bag the Oscar's too.. Saw this movie last night and at the end of the movie, i tried to summarize how Danny Boyle has portrayed India in this movie. Things that i could remember

1. Poverty in the slums
2. Communal violence
3. Indian men kidnapping kids, making them blind and then making them beg in the streets
4. Child labour
5. Indian kids stealing from the tourist in Taj mahal and posing as tourist guide.
6. A guy stealing his brother's lady love from him
7. Prostitution
8. Kids who can kill
9. Young guys becoming rowdy and wielding guns
10. Indian police torturing the innocent
11. A corrupt showhost
12. Typical call center joke where a chai wala handles a US customer call

The real heights of the movie was the scene where the kids steal all the parts from the car and the kid says "You wanted to see real India - this is real India" and the US tourist says " we will show you real US" and hands a 100$ bill to the kid

Has Danny boyle shown anything good about India in this movie. Nothing that i can remember!!!

Slumdog Millionaire is a typical white man's view of India where they can see nothing good about India. I am not even 1% happy about this film winning all these awards and my heartfelt sympathy to Danny boyle and others who cannot see the real India .

Naan Kadaval

Naan kadaval - A good tamil movie after a long time. A different story line - hats off to Bala for taking a topic about beggars and portraying it so well. He has done his homework well and his cast includes people with physical and mental disabilities that you usually see outside temples or other common places. Arya and Pooja have done a brilliant job. Illayaraja has done his usual magic throughout the movie.

Naan Kadaval is not a commercial movie, not a movie with the usual masala, not a story about lovers or revenge - is a story about the people whom we see almost every day and about whom we do not give a second thought.

I felt the end could have been different but all said and done your heart really feels a bit heavy at the end of the movie. If you are looking for a movie which is different from the usual movies then Naan kadaval is a must see!!!

Numerology & astrology

A couple of months back when i was in India, i was surfing through some TV channels one morning and came across a program on numerology. People were telling their problems in life to the numerologist who inturn assigns a number to each alphabet in the name, then sums up the digits to reach a single digit and finally compares it against the date of birth and voila - he finds out the reason why the person has so much trouble in life. Then he suggested a change in name by adding an extra alphabet or an extra initial in some cases!!!. I have a question here - names like Karthik, naresh or vinay are 100% pure Indian names but then you calculate the weightage for these names using english alphabets - how is this possible? How did our ancestors survive with their name before the Brits came to India?

One more thing that the numerologist asked the person was to write the name X times (Something like 103 times) every day morning for y number of days - The numerologist forgot to say whether it should be before breakfast or after breakfast!!! How in hell will this help? The person is still the same, he is going to be called with the same name but writing his name down with an extra alphabet is going to erase all his problems in life...

Another scam is the lucky stones one...all the stones that were supposed to be used jus for ornamental purpose have become lucky stones!!! Nowadays you see some people with lucky stones on all 20 fingers.

Astrologers are supposed to predict your future using the position of planets. A Pythagoras' theorem can be approached in n number of ways but the end result is always the same. I expect the same with astrology - who ever is the astrologer you should get the same results but you do not. Nowadays you go to an astrologer and you find n number of troubles awaiting you and all this can be nullified by doing some pujas.

I am not sure if all the above methods solved any problem but they have helped the numerologist and the astrologers to become rich