Persistent efforts never fail

I am going to miss a big fun here onwards.
After a long and big rally, today finally the opponent on the other side of the net succumbed.
In this fight I had to use many weapons, I lost on many fronts, but I never gave up.
It did cost me at times but I was firm.
Others would have reached the stage of mental trauma, but I learnt to overcome all the pressures and reached a stage where I started enjoying the battle.

It was a fight between me and the customer care support.
I had to get my postpaid connection disconnected.


Being lazy enough to personally go to some Airtel office and get it disconnected, I preferred to do it via customer care support. Another intention behind using this approach was the toll free facilty available.
What's wrong in using a facilty which don't require you moving even a single step and also not to pay a single penny.
My initial attempts to disconnect the number was directed by then customer care support (CCS) into an attempt to get it transferred to my new location.Even after initial igonorance towards the request, CCS was firm on its stand to convince me. I was told about different advantages of this relocation facility like no tranfering charges, retaining all the facilties of present number and also retaining the last five digits of my present number as it is.Now it makes no much sense to retain last five digits, but at that time they caught me in words.It was not just firm, but was also strong enough to finally get me into the trap.
Yes I was in to the trap.
They entered a request to tranfer my postpaid connection to my new location. I received a procedure and a date by which things will be smootly done. I found no reason to reject the offer as it offered me to do no work for this.
I was happy and was relocated to new place.
Kept waiting till the date which was supposed to be the dead line.
I decided to take a tough stand and dialed the CCS.
Not one but two big blows I received with this call.
A sweet voice on the other side told me that no such relocation facility is available!!!
I got a jolt but sooner recovered.
There itself I decided not to give up and give a cool headed fight.I explained all the earlier conversations with the CCS in detail. I wasn't much worried till then since it was a toll free number. I guess the CCS realised it sooner and so gave me another jolt.
I was told that they can't do anything and gave me a new contact number. This new number would connect me to the CCS of my earlier location.
And friends this was not a toll free number !!!
A big question stood infront of me.Totally confused on the path to be taken.
But since I had decided to do the things with cool head no matter what comes infront of me, I took a step ahead.
The dialled number took me through the journey of dialling and selecting different options made for different purposes.
I managed to overcome all the difficulties and reached CCS to explain my problem.
Once again the request was taken and a new date was given.
To my surprise, there was no record of my previous request.
But this time some thing did happened.
After few days, I received a massage from some number a nd soon followed by a call who took my address and appointment to meet me.
A new blow awaiting!!
I was supposed to arrange for some documents. This was acceptable, but I was also supposed to pay some tranfer free!!! which was not mentioned by previous CCS even after repeated questionings.
By this time I had reached a stage to give everything they want but to get the number transferred.
And do not forget, I was all the time keeping my head cool.
On scheduled date the fellow came to pick up the documents. I was made to go through all the formalities that we do while taking a new connection. I also paid some fees which here was termed as tranfer fee. Now I was given a new number and to my surprise 5 of the digits were matching with the one in earlier number but their sequences were altogether different.
I questioned the guy immeditely being myself very active, but was soon made to realize that you are a fool and you got into a trap.
So, I paid the charges, followed all the formalities, got a number with nonmatching last five digits and at the end was also told to call the CCS of precious location to disconnect my earlier number!!!!
Waw!!! I learnt a new definition of relocation.
Since then I was calling the CCS of precious location on that non toll free number.
Would like to enlist the responses I used to get:
Sorry sir, there is no such request available with us.
Sorry sir, But you need to pay your outstandings first!!! ( for unused facilities!!).
Sorry sir, but you need contact on another number. After dialling ********** please dial 1113 and submit you request. ( After ********** I had to dial 11111113 !!!)
Anyway, I kept submitting the request to disconnect the number, was keeping track of my requests since they do not seem to have any such facilty (seems they regularly delete every days requests and complaints). Got so much used to do this that I can now submit my request while in deep sleep also.
And all these days my previous number was active and they were even updating my bill for the services not used.
This would have continued long unless I would have used the only Brahmastra remaining with me.
Being cool at head and in voice, once I firmly told them that I won't be paying bills anymore and it is there responsibilty to disconnect the number.
This I guess finally worked and today I can see my number finally disconnected.
After all this jugglery, still the fight is not over. I am supposed to get ~ Rs.150.00 refund back remaining out of my deposit paid earlier.
Am still wondering whether to get into this get new fight or not. I might have to spend as good as Rs. 500-1000 on calls to get my deposits back. That's what is making me think

During this whole process I newly learnt to be calm. The person on the other side always used to be very calm, may whatever you say. This automatically makes you calm.


A word of advise to all my friends who might locate in near or future:

Never transfer, Always disconnect

The Astronaut Farmer

Last night I watched the movie "The Astronaut Farmer".


As always I missed the beginning. In fact this time a major part of the story was over.
So, will present here what I could make out from rest of the story.
The story speaks about Mr. Charles Farmer who I guess at some point of time was training for a space mission but was discharged out of his services for some reasons.
This puts a brake to his dream of traveling in space.
He then decides to make this dream come true on his own.
Overcoming all the problems appearing on family as well as financial fronts and also facing the opposition from the US government over his personal rocket launching, he finally manages to arrange his first attempt to launch his space journey. But his being solo attempt, thanks to furious fight with in the family the earlier night, something goes wrong and instead of vertical launching, the rocket takes a horizontal route which crosses through the media people standing at the gates of his house. The capsule finally drops at a long distance from the launching pad bringing back Mr. Farmer home with lots of injuries.
With all such things thus happening Mr. Farmer decides to give up his plan to chase the dream. In next few months, things change with all their financial problems solved.
In the mean time Mrs. Farmer realize why Mr. Farmer is chasing his dream. He dont wanted to repeat the example of his father who earlier had failed in the race of chasing his dream.
With better financial conditions and support from the family Mr. Farmer once again decides to make his dream come true.
This time he was not alone. Things all go fine and as planned with every member in the family providing their helping hand.
Finally Mr. Farmer manages to travel to the space.
Just to add some spice, his communication is lost with the base i.e. his home.
He revolves around the earth many times in that lost state.
But he finally gets the connection just when he is some where about his own house.
He decides toget down on earth and accordingly plan with the family so that once he land on earth his family members can come in their car and pick him up and move on to nearest restaurant to eat pizza.
Sounds crazy but looks good while watching the movie.
Billy Bob Thornton played the role of Mr. Farmer. This has been a very different role by him unlike earlier ones in Mr. Woodcock or School for Scoundrels. So was a bit difficult to digest in the beginning.
But overall its a good movie and I recommend to watch it at least once.

The Flying Scotsman

“Graeme Obree”

A name unknown to people including me.

Yesterday my luck was strong and got an oppurtunity to grab the remote control. Of course it was not so early but had already struck past 10 in the night.Channel 26 on my TV and Star movies was on.

Not aware which movie is on, but an interesting shot of cycling going on. Showed a cyclist riding on a very odd kind of bike riding in a very awkward position. Initially could not guess what is happening but just realized his mission failed.

Later he was shown drinking glasses of water, running to the toilet followed by a set of exercises done done whole night.

Early morning back on the velodrome.

From there on I understood what he is all upto. The target was to brake a record of maximum distance riding in an hour. With in 24 hours of First failed attempt, he was again on the mission. And this time he made it. Riding 51.596 kms in one hour and breaking a 9 years old record. He was Graeme Obree, The Flying Scotsman.

This is a true story of Graeme Obree who broke the world hour record twice in career. He also won the individual pursuit (4000 m) world championship in 1993 and 1995. He was known for his unusual riding positions and for a bicycle “Old Faithful” he built which included parts from a washing machine.

Personal life of Graeme was a bit tragic. Facts like his newly made and 9 years old broken record lasted hardly for a week were rather depressing. His self made cycle called “ Old Faithful” was banned in a dubious manner by the Union Cyclist Internationale. Going beyond this, his riding position was also banned and was kept uninformed until one hour before he began the world championship pursuit in Italy. Result was his disqualification. Later his another newly found riding position called “ Superman Style” was also banned. Being under regular depression, no wonder this passionate guy attempted suicide 2-3 times in life. But something motivated him to stand tall and break records.

“I didn't tell myself that I will attempt the record, I said I would break it.”

He returned to the velodrome next year and made a new record of 52.7 kms in one hour.

Such real stories always attract me. I can feel these people's passion for the work and their struggle. It inspires me a lot.

I wish you all also to experience this feeling. So do try to watch or read “The Flying Scotsman”.

P.S.: Just came to know today about a similar story of an Indian player Mir Ranjan Negi, a Hockey player who went through all the humiliations after 1982 asian games, but made it big in the end. A real story transformed into todays well known “Chak de India” movie. More details of it, may be in another post.

The Lake

I entered the world of blogging few years back. With a concept of putting the trekking experience in words I started a blog and put up this picture. But writing a story for this picture took too much time. To the extent that it never appeared on paper and so never uploaded. With time the blog went in to the memory and the username and password were forgotten.

Very recently while trying to retrieve some information I once again came across this blog and got this picture.

I feel it will be an injustice if this picture does not make it to my blog. If I am not wrong I clicked this while on the way from Fort Torana to Raigadh.Now I do not remember what story I had in mind about it. But it marks the beginning of my blogging interest.

So, sit back and enjoy nature's beauty.

Back to the life

What comes in your mind when you hear a number like 146?
Well the answer is relative.
It depends on what suffix is attached to the number.
If you say 146 Rs. then may be in today's context it is a small amount.
It you add KG after the number then what appears in front of your eyes is a massive body (over weight) which is a center of laugh for every body around.
If you add days after the number, then it refers to almost half of an year. Nearly five months.
You might be wondering, Why am I speaking of number 146?
Because those are the number of days after which I attempted to write my new post.
Yes it is 146 days since my last post.
Lot of things happened in these many days.
Even,lot many stories in mind kept waiting to come into picture,but that never happened.
In coming I will try to bring them all alive.
Hope now there won't be any more disruptions.