Thoughts

“Do you think the truck driver knows theory? You will learn by pure practice”  Probably these are the enlightening words that are responsible for me to be driving in Mumbai today. I would have probably not ventured to learn to drive if I was not going to Australia; people told me if I did not learn to drive, I would not be able to move around. Taking this as a cue, I started, probably like most of us in India, by going to a driving school to learn to drive a four wheeler. It was a 2 weeks, 5 days a week, 30 minutes a day crash course in one of those Maruti 800 (I am sure you guessed right; there were no Santro's, Indica's then) which was not easy to handle. I figured out that I need to call my driving teacher “Master” and butter him with the hope that he would teach me a trick or two or atleast not not say “you do not know how to drive”. It was time for getting the license. Come at 1000 and you need to give a test. I am not too confident, having always driven in the comfor...

TEDx Gateway Mumbai NCPA, Nariman Point Mumbai Attended by more than 800 people with 21 purposeful speakers the event gave the much needed impulse to “go do something useful”. While the event itself was poorly organized [;-(], the content in terms of what the speakers had to say made up for this deficiency. My first real TEDx talk, having only seen several interesting talks on youtube, this was kind of special, else I would not venture out a full Sunday leaving all the chores behind! Took a train to CST early and was in NCPA well before 8 am to find that the organizers were just walking in! So what happened next was expected, I did not find my name in their records because “I registered late” so a hurriedly badge with “Sunil Kumar” was penned and there I was ready to sit through the sessions. On purpose I will not dwell into the names of the speakers, because then I will be focusing on the speaker and not so much on what they had to say. I will only focus on what the...

Change your Electricty Provider. SwitchMe.In SwitchMe.  By way of mouth people did mention that I was paying out of the roof for my electricity bill because I was using a particular service provider and not the other; in Mumbai. While this was probably true there was no way I was able to check it out for myself though I knew that I could opt for a electricity service provider of my choice. Couple of things stopped me from actually trying to reduce my electricity bill I was not too sure how much I would save by switching (not a simple unit multiplied by INR) How much effort would go into this (long queues for almost every thing in Mumbai) How exactly to do it (I did bing and google for this!) until I landed up looking at a new service on the block.   I found this concept of switchme.in very interesting. I could log in to their website and could actually compare which electricity provider would charge me how much (for the same use of units ofcourse!) qu...

I am travelling from Bangalore to Mumbai in a fairly "full" train with a confirmed upper berth in one of those AC bogies. One round of checking by the ticket inspector - all set - everyone has ticket. [6 hours into the journey] "You need to pay a fine" says a special inspector to a co-passenger and reads out the rule "You need to carry your original proof of identity mentioned at the time of reservation for Tatkal tickets". This poor co-passenger has (his agent who booked the ticket) mentioned PAN card as the proof of identity and this chap does only have a color photocopy of the PAN card and not the original. The ticket collector does not budge even after the co-passenger shows him his original driving license and few other original photo identity documents; sticking to the rule by rereading it. The co-passenger finally pays up and collects the receipt with some monetary support from one of his co-passenger. As I walk along the aisle I see the same ticke...

My bank mentioned that they had couriered the two Demand Drafts that I had ordered online by Courier. [6 days later] The courier is yet to arrive after 3 calls to the courier call center with the large number of digits ABW number. The call center response (in Hindi translated to English) It is only four days since your courier has been posted. The two letters did not have to travel a whole lot of distance; may be 20 kms in Mumbai. It should have taken lesser time for even the slowest half-marathon runner, ughh. In the name of technology, where we can track our courier, we get to know that we have not received but the actual receiving is pre historic. Why even the Indian Post (which is generally a target of humor) would have delivered the letter sooner! We build technology (helps you know the status of the courier!) but do not use technology to make sure the courier is delivered. Where are we heading? Technology should better the whole process isn't it?

This is a suggestion that I thought I should communicate so that it will be useful to passengers who use Indian Railway (IR). I have often traveled in train and I very frankly I have never traveled in the allocated berth especially when I travel alone. Why? There is always an elderly lady or gentleman who has been alloted an upper berth and the request is made for a change with the lower berth. I have no problem giving up the lower berth for the elderly. However I feel we can avoid this situation. How? Let us say at the time of booking IR does not assign the seat numbers but only mentions that the ticket is confirmed or not. Only at a later date say 1 week or 1 day before the journey (so that it is quite clear who will travel and who will not) the seat allocation is made which possibly can make use of the age to determine who gets the lower berth. That way atleast the elderly will be assured of a lower berth (which they rightfully deserve) and would not have to "ask" a co-pa...