Back from the dark ages

May 13, 2008

…for now. Of late, I am often in doubt if we live in the same India the media is proud of - a booming developing nation with growth rates averaging over 8%, the better-off BRIC nation because of its services sector with a energetic young population and a country that is focused highly on its infrastructure.

To begin with I don’t get frustrated anymore. Not worth it..it only weakens the heart and ups the BP. “Resigned” is more an appropriate term to describe how I am. 12 hours of power cut that not even the best inverter can take, no water supply on Thursdays and a dead broadband 15 days a month for the past 6 months which just got worse over the past fortnight. That leaves me in the company of newspapers and my toddler son. My mom jokes if I feel like living in the ’70s.

Just so you know, I don’t live in one of those thousands of village India has without electricity and water. This is Pune for you. The Pune that world perceives as one of the good cities in India to live in - a lifestyle that can you dream of with state-of-the-art IT parks, malls you can spend all day in and still crave for more, a wi-fi city and most importantly a city with no load-shedding. Not my word; it’s all that is said in the papers. The state-owned telecom BSNL (this editorial throws some light on the sad state of affairs) that I use has been down this past fortnight. BSNL is not this worse in many parts of the country especially in South India. Here, the response is bad, customer service pathetic and no helpline that will attend to your number. They just keep pointing you to one number after another until you finally give up because of exhaustion. And when it does work, it does in the timing their personnel work - 10 -5 and automatically switches off in evenings and weekends.
For once, all you folks living outside the country - I’m with you.

Now on a unrelated note, the Tata Second Career guys got back regretting they couldn’t find an appropriate fit for me in the 50 odd projects they have charted out. No disappointment. Alright, maybe just a little not so much for having not made through. It’s the rejection, you see! They sent out a very personal mail to all applicants. It was so personal that the mail was addressed as Dear {name of applicant} - a programmatic glitch perhaps that couldn’t fill in the {} with the actual name. Anyways, it was an initiative worth all the appreciation even if the execution was a lil rusty. A great opportunity to get back all the talent lost to motherhood and other reasons!