Unscruplous marketing/ Unwanted sms

Imagine being bombarded with sms almost every unrelenting hour, of things to buy, clothes to wear and places to eat. I always thought these were mid class companies having nothing better for their marketing have resorted to these means. Spamming your mobile is the way of the day, previously it was credit card companies and banks, now after DND its sms galore. Unobtrusive they may say, imagine putting your mobile phones in silent so that you dont wake you up in the middle of the night to see a garbage sms about some product, while fearing you might miss some important call or info in the process from people who actually need us.

In one case, when receving some sms multiple times I called them wherein a female took my phone and name to do the needful but wala within the next day, another sms has already landed. Ironically for this company its been almost the tenth time, and what excuses they have:

You had visted us earlier and as a valued customer you are receving this: Daah; I never been to that place, and usually they buy the customer list from other related companies.

Soemone else would have triggered it: Hmmmp, now how lame can that be, the company name is flashing on the top of the sms sender, if every employee could do that, then we would have no check whatsoever. These sms are specifically being sent via some sms bulk sender software or delegated to third party company.

Well if you really want to do something about it, best is call the sms sender if theres a phone number mentioned and ask them to deregister yourself. Else if nothing happens complain at your service provider, but before that you can check if your number is already under DND. Here are some of the list

Airtel
Vodafone
BSNL
MTNL
Spice
Idea
Reliance
Tata Indicom

For more information check this website: National Do Not Call Registry

How green!

Well sometimes I wonder why do we have birthdays, festivals or for that matter all those valentine, teacher's day etc etc.

For a simple reason that we wish to celebrate the person or the thing; on that day exclusively and maybe overdoing it in the process and almost are pardoned to forget it/ him/her on all other 364 days of the year.

Maybe not always; the reason my steering shifts to that direction is for something similar we did few days back on environment day. We went out of the way to a far off place in the city outskrits to plant a thousand sapling via a eco related NGO who has tied down with another firm to take care about the welfare of these newly relocated beings till they attain maturity, hmmmp sounds ok enough.

It was a large almost barren piece of land with shrubs and weeds dotting the landscape and potholes neatly dug all around the place so we can relocate our friends to their new dwellings. Gardening as a hobby and that too in a small backyard seems simple and fun but working with spades and trowel in mud and scorching sun is almost a different ball game. We were sweating good enough to water the plants ourselves, while in another corner coconut water sold like hot cakes. The whole thing looked like a fanfare in itself.



The guest of honor mentioned that this drive is part of a bigger drive to plant a million trees in bangalore, wow, that sure is a big number, and we planted a thousand of those today. The only regret, we would never revisit that place to see how those baby fared. Did that place actually become a green spate of land it was envisioned. The deed was done and the day celebrated & the target met, or did we?

In our zest we humans ravel on the chance to envision, begin an idea a movement, but sometimes once we go past the start line we forget why we came there in the first place. The idea of responsibility of owning the task should be fostered till the end.

And maybe for certain things or people we wouldnt need to celebrate them exclusively but each day by simple smaller gestures the deed would be done.

Hiatus Dot

Its been almost an year or more and to most fellow bloggers (of the year before) I visited I saw the signpost of hiatus either in start or end; for me atleast "the END". Its almost strange that whenever one takes the next step in life the time warps as if few hours were somehow taken back from the day, we get a few more new chores to get involved and the old habits or chores are lost in the run. Ofcourse many would recognise this as a break or timeout for the new things or events just unfolded. But somehow we get so much involved in this run that we really forget on the good things we used to enjoi. There was a time when I was a child and was stuck on spiderman coming on DD and used to cry if I missed an episode and wondered I would ever be someone who misses it out again, and Now when flipping through channels I do come across, it gets flipped as well.

Hmmmph though not the really one of the good things I like to do now but things like playing around, meeting friends more often, spending time with myself. The old list is endless and so is the list we like to do as we move along, so maybe its fair that some things do get lost, but maybe now or more often we should recheck from our checklist of the past, if we are missing on the real things.

Married life sure is different brings in quite a few responsibilities, quite a few new relatonships and ofcourse chores like cooking and cleaning ;) but its fun and you enjoi as long as you keep smiling.

So here's to the new beginning; a toast; Sante!!

And the journey begins..

Just before the train leaves the station you hear a long whistle and the station master waving the green flag, a reminder to all those to hurry on to life ahead because it waits for no one. And like the chug-chug train the motion towards a new destination entails, untill the next and further on....

Our lives are no different we see it as chunks or moments wrapped in time when a particular life altering event happens, which changes the face of some boulders around completely revealing a new scenery or masking a few else. Continuing from the previous blog, that event has already transpired; atleast in theory the practical events would soon follow. Trodding all those years in the bliss of singledom, life seems a bit different than before, ofcourse the taste seems a bit ticklish but surely I will survive :). Ofcourse my other half also has the same events paging forth, as we slowly work our way through the intricacies of adjusting and knowing the idyosyncracies of the halves which should make us whole again!! "Again" you may wonder, well folks, marriage believe me or not is a reincarnation of sort, a new life wherein your life is not yours alone, you learn to share it and feel it beating as whole in the comfort of those you love.



Scores of philosphers have come & gone, contemplating this topic in detail; but theres no easy way for all the answers; the taste of the pudding is in its eating; hehe :). And I am already strapped in. Let the journey begin.

Adieus gringo - II

The ritual which started last year continues this year too, and like old times I am all ready to look back on the year gone by and strap in myself for the year ahead, which would be much different then experienced by me so far. What am I talking about, read on.

The friends who were engaged, got married, the ones who were married increased their family size by one or maybe in the process, our office team shed in some few members and got a few members in exchange. The ones who left would surely be grazing in greener pastures and the ones who are joining in now, think this is as green it can get, a perspective thing isnt it!

"Two men look out through the same bars; One sees the mud and one the stars." - Fredrick Langbridge

Surely the difference is not that stark but it sums the perspective succinctly. Where we stand now tells a lot about our reach of the horizon and what we are able to see. And I guess with each passing day we are able to recognise the oddities of life much clearer and our wants increase our already bulky list by a few more points.

So if I were to sum the year in one breath it goes like this a close friend K who got engaged, got married and also got a baby (fast processing ;) ), another friend S got engaged and would get married next year, one of the friend A who had initiated a venture is going strong though with mild hiccups but he is gulping enough water :) and stands steady, mid-year was sent to Germany for a company trip and visited Rome and Switzerland as a side tour, where also got to mingle more closely with another friend there and other Indian families who hold hands in a far off land. Finished three years in office and got a memento. Though would confess have left blogging from a regular ritual to a side affair, will that change time will tell.



While some of you who were reading my blogs regularly found out that I was getting married an year back, but thats what I myself thought ;) but it turned out to be a hoax call, and the movie story took in a different d-tour from there on, but the stars it seems have realigned themselves for that fortune moment, and it seems real enough now. The dates have been decided and all seem to be in place, and as I said life would be different from now on.

Spending your life with a stranger for another sixty years, yiikees, makes my hair stand, but then I wont be the first one to experience neither the last. But as each person, and his/her experience is unique I guess it would be "Different". Many a times I have thought about this institution and ended with two logical answers of man's desire to procreate and his/her want to share in his life with another being after all we are termed in as a social lot and this is as social as it gets. Ofcourse friends and family included, but this is different I guess, its the step wherein the circle repeats itself into a new line for a different ending struggling for its own space to evolve and touching in a few more circles in the process.

Thats life I guess & maybe not pondering on it more of where its heading I guess I should be running out, there's much to be done and many a lists to be made. I wish you all a Hapy New Year and great life ahead.

Missyou Service

I dont think so the word would recaptulate any notes or nuances, though I do think it should besiege your heart with refrences of a long lost calling. Although till now you would sure be getting positive halos but let me warn you of the sign post which reads "Sharp curve ahead".

From past few months Time magazine has a small section [Lexicon] where they introduce some new terms which have come into existence with light to the circumsance or conditions. I thought maybe my conditions also calls for a similar action.

It happened a few weeks back when I got an odd sms with a dab of shaayari, at first I thought it was a wrong sms (just like your garden variety wrong number), but then few minutes later a more longer one knocked my door, with a full red gleaming from its eyes I mean ... you get the drill. As the sms had ended with a "Khuda Haafiz", I thought the mis-chances of such happening would be remote. And before my chain of thoughts could travel out of the confines of my imagination three more landed on my doorstep, like baskets of uninvited babies that are left unattended (was that the damn stork again!) now what to do!! Ironically or what my hindi in english form (damn this mobile people for not inventing hindi fonts everywhere) is not very good and it was taking me a whole minute to digest the contents. And gosh they were pretty heavy stuff thrown back, so I thought to return the favor, and more so in the same devilish charm my unknown benefactor had secretly bestowed upon me. Our company landlines route their numbers through some GSM technology (in case of out of city calls) which means that most of the time you would see a mobile number flashing on your screen. And then the phone rang on the other side,

She: Heeeellloo
Me: Heelo, I got a sms from this number
She: What!! I didnt sms this number (what she meant was you jerk I was fooling with a different guy and yours wasnt it!)
Me: (I thought when confronted its better not to beat the bush) My name is Shadab my number ends with 08 and I received a couple of sms.
She: Ohhhhhhhhhh!! (read my long lost love) sorry, I guess I would have mistakenly ....ilarkbfsra... (some gibrish) would remove your number.
Me: Ok.

I thought I had happily closed that chapter when half a minute later I get another delivery, ".....Appne hamein kaise bhula diya....". Hmmmph now thats a puzzle; I hardly knew that girl forgetting comes later in the story, more so after the climax. But I thought this foolishness should end here and now, and having read a recent hoardings of a call filter service introduced by my cell phone provider, (the service couldnt have been introduced at a better time), Lo, the deed was done. To my surprise the sms still came pouring in, so I revisted the site to look for some finer prints and there it was "The service activates 24 hr after its submission, and only for calls". Hmpppppph, so that indirect approach didn't work as planned, I have to go to plan B which is take the bull by its very horns. And so I called from my number, .... for clarity and privacy I wont mention the dialogue delivery in full but what I was enlightened with was the fact that miss call is a way of saying Miss you while sms like the ones I was receiving were its smaller siblings. Hmmmph having being annoyed more than my fair share I try to huddle some logic in her head reiterating that it wasn't working and that so will not this (get the waft). Poooh. after that initial call, I didnt receive any sms for whole day. And I thought my power of persuasions had worked, but the next day I got a call which I cut, then another, another. This time I called my cell phone provider to really do their stuff, and guess what, it did. But did I get a sigh of relief, nope, some jerk head had introduced their service with some jingles attached, now everytime I had a call from the barred number I get an sms too from Vodaphone stating "Your call barring was has successfully barred the __ number at __ time". Arrrrggggh, what was the use, the person can himself sms me while the calls even though barred still makes me pick my phone, they could very well, have called it Miss you service, as they cant block the sms while the call itself spurs an sms. So instead of the person the phone company does the missing you act. And thus my very own Term.

Leaving persuasion in the gunny bag I blasted the miss you person and finally its all over, the service is no more and so have my phone stopped beeping frantically every hour. Silence is a bliss, the missings are no more missed, atleast not by me!!

sUrReAl RiDe

The big metal snake wringling through the concerete jungle and the green alike, carrying in its belly score of people with various destinations to reach through, well, look it a bit closer its our very own train.

Its been almost fourteen years for me since I set my foot on a train station and it seems, I havent missed much. Coincidentally or what the slithering or bovine metal beast still misses the clock more then often. But having been missing from action so long, I cant treat all its brethrens alike, it could very well be some spat of fate. Being in Delhi and having been used the Metro rail facility I wonder how many years it would take for our Indian stations to be spick and span like a dirt road. When at the clock's rung the train screeches on its metal track. I guess more than longer, looking at the way things are. But whatever the indian train holds, it still has its own nostalgia and a different sort of charm.



My journey was from Delhi to Moradabad, a small town in UP also called the brass haven. Its strange how a small microcasm exists under this very metal roof, with people sharing in their laughs once or twice, or for the more brazen ones a comment or two. Almost any topic seems to be fine to pass the way out, from the goverment squabbles to the state of education and eroding values, yes sir, you will get and hear and shun it all. If you are traveling in an AC tier then the strange black glazed mirrors almost alienates you from the world outside, with beds stacked one over another, fans whiring, and lights flickering the dimly lit house almost seem hynotically surreal, as if the time had surely slowed down in this part of the world.

With every train station the all to familiar call of station tea (chai-chai) to pakodas of every shape and size. Going through the ever changing scenery one living in a city like delhi can't fail to realize that there is still much to change on the scene outside.

I guess an airport in every big city will still take time, till then the train will surely be there for an all to familiar ride. Enjoi the joyride!