MTNL and me

The internet connection at home has conked off once again. We are having the summer special: Aandhi (dust storm) with thunder but no rains. And this is enough for the internet to stop working.

So I called up MTNL, who are my service providers. When you dial the number you are welcomed to the service, and then asked to press 1 if you want to continue in Hindi or press 2 if you want service in English. When you press the desired number you are told to press 9 at any time to return to the previous menu. And then the voice continues: dial 0 to speak to a customer representative agent and dial 9 to return to the previous menu.

Once you swallowed the stuff and dialed 0, you will be told that you are in the queue and that you waiting time is 100 seconds. Every 10 seconds they will do a countdown till you are left with 0 sec. Do not assume that you will be automatically connected to a customer representative agent, for you most assuredly will not. You will continue to be on hold, at regular intervals you will be asked whether you want to record your complaint, and an irritating tune 'Ting, Ting, Ting, Ka-ching" will be played.

And then the tune will vanish, and the phone will ring so that you can be connected to the customer representative agent.

You will be all eager...your complaint will be ready...

And the phone will disconnect.

After all this is MTNL.

The peacock and the peahen

One more post about the peacock. I just could not resist it. Not when it so beautifully danced on my birthday on my porch amongst my flowers. The peahen as usual was pretty blase about it. She ate the bajra with nary a glance at the dancing peacock. He shook his feathers at her, and she hopped across on to a tree.
My colleague, Shankari, and I had a good laugh. The peahen, according to us two females, knows how to deal with a male.