Planetfeedback.com: A Customers Last Resort

This is a pretty awesome website for all your woes and complaints, being a consumer. Let me explain what planetfeedback is about. Its a website where a consumer can voice his opinion or complain about any product or any company. What you write is visible to all the people who log onto planetfeedback, but none of these features sound interesting at all. What makes it really awesome is that, what you write is actually sent to a high level representative of the company and every reply he sends about your complaint is visible to all the users who are on planetfeedback.

How did this help me?

I flew on US Airways and they lost my baggage when I flew down from Chicago O'Hare to Dallas (The baggage never reached the baggage claim area). What I should have done is requested for some form of compensation at the airport terminal itself, which I did not do at all. What I did not realize was that the ordeal of getting my bag back would be a painful experience. For the next 2 months, they played games with me by twisting and turning their own baggage policy to their convenience. In fact, they even rephrased their baggage policy about 5 days after I lost my bag!! I had lost hopes of getting my bag back and they were not even willing to compensate me for the lost bag too! Thanks to Google, I came across planetfeedback.com. When I reported the same on the website, I get a message from a US Airways representative saying that they will do everything they can to get their baggage AND that they will also compensate me for the inconvenience caused!! It took them about 2 weeks to find my bag and send it to me and they even send me a check for $200 for all the inconvenience caused.

Moral of the Story:

1. Being a consumer, if your issue is not addressed by the company, report it on planetfeedback.com and most likely, your issue will get addressed and resolved.

2. If your baggage gets misplaced during a journey, go and make your claim IMMEDIATELY at the airport terminal itself. Do not leave the airport until they compensate you in some form or the other.

India is a country where consumer rights is a farce because they law system does nothelp the consumer and a consumer problem is never taken too seriously by the market. A website of this kind in India can put the reputation of the company at stake and hence companies will become more respectful towards consumers.

Slumdog: Overrated or worth 8 Oscars?

Finally I got to watch the much hyped movie "Slumdog Millionaire"! Is it highly overrated or did it really deserve 8 Oscars?

Every "Non-Indian" I have met said that its a movie to watch atleast once while most Indians (I mean Indians born and brought up in India) claimed that its not really worth the hype created. Typically a movie that is talked a lot about, turns out to be a disappointment simply because of human psychology-We expect too much out of the movie-way more than what it was claimed to be and evetually, the movie falls short of our expectations. There has been only one exception in my life, the only movie that has lived up to its hype-"The Dark Knight"!

To me, Slumdog Millionaire neither fell short of my expections nor matched/exceeded my expectation! It was kind of a pleasant movie to watch and was probably the only romantic movie I have enjoyed in a long time. Was it worth 8 Oscars? Definitely not! My benchmark for Oscars is "Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King": The movie that according to me, deserved all the 11 Oscars. So I dont definitely think that Slumdog Millionaore deserved to be just 3 Oscars behind LOTR ROTK.

Secondly, if you think A R Rehman deserved an Oscar for Slumdog, then I think the Oscars committee has never listen to the best of Rehman! Rehman has created melodies that can put his own Slumdog Millionaire songs to shame. So I find it unbelievable that it took them such a long tim to recognize his talent even without listening to his best compositions! 

So why do I get mixed opinion from Indians? The reason being: The movie is honest and truthful but it depicts a negative image of India. It fails to show the developing and changing part of India. May be it does not make sense to show all that in the movie, but I can see why a true patriot of India gives mixed feelings about the movie. Anyways I think its all emotional sentiments and does not really need to be discussed here.

Nevertheless, from a neutral stand, I think Slumdog Millionaire was a well shot movie that is very new and refreshing to watch. I would definitely recommend this movie. The only request I have is: Oscars judgement needs to improve. Till date, they have made quite a few unfair decisions which will only reduce the value of such a presigious award! Also, though world reputed, Oscars has failed to recognize talented actors and movies from other countries, ESPECAILLY in developing countries! 

Thats my 2 Paise!

Food in the USA

My experience in Austin for the past 2 weeks has been exciting and disappointing. It has been exciting for obvious reasons but the disappointing part of it being-food. Though there are plenty of vegetarian joints in and around Austin, my luck has been quite bad when it comes to food.

McDonalds-With a dream of finding the McAloo Tikki or burgers of similar kind, my hopes were dashed almost immediately only to find meat and chicken burgers. I ask the guys to give me a burger which is vegetarian. He did say something but I did not listen to him at all because all I wanted was food and I just said yes to whatever he said. But what comes on the tray is just plain and simple-BUN which is available in India for 2 Rupees in Gajanana Bakery, for which I paid $3 (Sheeesh!! I could have had 6 McAloo Tikkis for 120 bucks in India). Anyways, I told myself-"Better luck next time" but luck was not on my side.

Greyhound Bus Station Pizza Joint- I was hungry as hell and wanted to eat something. So I decided to go and get myself a Pizza. Fortunately, there was one vegetarian Pizza (well... almost vegetarian)-Cheese Pizza. So I go to the counter and say - "One Cheese Pietza please" with a lot of Desi American accent. The lady gives a reply in a thick Mexican accent-"eeh do you lik tu hev som dhrink?" I said "yeah something small". So she replies saying "Noo, small no goodh. Bigger cheaper." So I said ok. The bill was $5!! Anyways, the Pizza I got was ice cream cold and the amount of Pepsi I get is almost 700ml!!!!!! Man, I did not want so much of a drink. Instead, I wanted some hot Pizza. Frustrated, I told myself-"There is always a next time". Read on to see what happens next.

Wendy's Burger-Again same story. Only non vegetarian burgers. So I thought I will do something smart-buy small fries and a small soft drink. It came to $2 and I thought I had found my was through the system and had done the smartest thing since I had come to the US. Unfortunately, this jubiliation lasted only a few seconds. This time, I tried to have some ice tea instead of Pepsi (You see, I was influenced by the crap about Pepsi being not good for health). Only when I took the first sip of ice tea did I realize that my luck was no good this time too. The ice tea had no sugar and the SMALL one was also as big as the large PVR theatre Pepsi cup. I added sugar to the ice tea but it hardly made any difference. May be something else was missing in it-Lemon, preservatives, chemicals which add to the taste. Irritated, I told myself-"Next time, cook and eat at home."

:-)

What is God?

I had never read the critically acclaimed "Angels and Demons" and I thought I will give it a read. I must say that, most of the stuff in the book is quite incredulous and though I did not really enjoy reading the book, it did spark some interesting questions in me.

I have had many interesting discussions with my father about the existence of God and none had convinced me enough about His existence till I read a part of a conversation between Kohler, an athiest and Langdon (in "Angels and Demons"), in which Kohler says, "Science will have an answer for everything". I thought-"Buddy thats quite a sweeping statement to make without knowing the gravity of the spoken words." I personally feel that science can never explain everything but, for a second, lets say that years from now, science will have an explanation for all the events that happen in this Universe. So does that mean that we really know everything about God? Definitely not because, all that we can do at best, is explain what already exist. For example, scientists could spend all their life talking in depth about our Sun and write millions of papers about it, but it will still not come anything close to MAKING a Sun of the same gargantuan size and power. We could talk at length about cells, animals, tissues and what not, but it is still not the same as creating a blade of grass from just atoms. We talk about fission, fusion, antimatter and generating enormous amounts of energy using nuclear physics, but it is still not the same as creating an atom from just pure energy.

The point is, this Universe is millions of years old and humans came into the picture only a few years ago. All that we are doing is explaining things around us that have been there even before there was life on this planet. All these events that we are explaining have been happening for time immemorial and in all this, there is only one eternal truth-that there is some force or some being or some power, that created this entire complex Universe, even before we guys came into existence and being true believers in Science, we must acknowledge this truth and this creation. I call this truth, "God" and you guys can call it what you want but the fact remains that, no matter what we call it, this Force came before us, this Force will remain with us and this Force will continue to exist even after you and I are gone.

Dollar Bahu - Sudha Murty

Sudha Murthy is most commonly referred to as the wife of the entrepreneur and chairman of Infosys, Narayan Murty, but not many know about her writing skills. Dollar Bahu is not one of the books that may go on to win the Bookers and the Pulitzer awards, but its definitely a book that will keep you engaged till the end.

The story is about the perspective of Gauramma, who is the mother of two sons and a daughter. Her first daughter-in-law, Vinutha is a teacher who hails from a lower middle class family. Though she is a kind woman at heart, who is always showering her love and affection for her family, her efforts are overlooked by Gauramma who is in praise of her second daughter-in-law, Jamuna who is living with her first son, Chandru in the land of 'Honey & Money' - The USA. As long as Gauramma was in India, she always had a positive opinion about Jamuna and Chandru. Finally when her dream of going to the US comes true, she sees the true cunning and shrewd nature of Jamuna.

Since I am myself pursueing my masters in the US, I may not have the license to comment anything more about this book but this is a must read for those who are going to the US for their higher studies. This book is an eye opener for those who choose to believe that USA stands for "Universal Solutions to All Problems". Though this book is out of touch with reality, lot of things mentioned in the book are still prevalant with Indians living in the USA.

Reading this reminded me of a very famous saying - "All that glitters is not gold!!"

Gods Grace

During my 4th and 5th semester, I got myself involved in a lot of activities but I always did my best to stay focussed towards my academics. No matter how hard I tried, I always got lesser than what I expected in VTU exams though I did quite well in internal assessment tests and final examinations. Even in all the musical and theatrical events my team took part in, we always got the second place no matter how hard we tried.

During my early 7th semester, I sat for 3 companies offering an average job profile but with a decent enough pay of 4.8 to 5 lakhs per annum. Unfortunately none of them clicked because either I never qualified for the next rounds or I did not get the job after the interview sessions. Till 7th semester, my life just moved on uneventfully my career opportunities were only getting bleaker, thinner and dimmer. I had lost hope of having a successful career until.......

Suddenly, now in 8th semester, things have taken a 180 degree turn and everything seems to be going my way. I have MS admits from top universities and top jobs paying way more than 5 lakhs in niche engineering areas. So you must be wondering if this guy is just blowing his trumpet on his blog. The answer is partly yes, but I wish to share something different too.

Between the time from 7th semester to 8th semester, I haven't changed much and neither has my profile. I am still the same mad guy that I used to be back then. So why so many offers now and why nothing then? The answer is - Luck and Gods grace!!

Let me tell you that your first job is all a matter of luck. Academics and understanding make up only 50% and the other 50% is purely based in your luck factor. To get top jobs, it must be your day and as long as its not your day, you just got to do one thing - keep trying till its your lucky day.

How about MS admission process? Here probably, academics might make up for 60-70% of your chances but 30% of your chances is still controlled by your luck factor. The entire luck factor is controlled by only one person - the Supreme Being.

In simple words, if God wants you to achieve something, he will make sure that you get it at any cost, but if he decides not to give you something, you will never get that "something" no matter how hard you try to get it. It is a simple reality of life which my girlfriend strongly believes in and now, I think I share the same feelings with her too.

Tough to get a print out in Bangalore

Bangalore, the silicon valley of India seems to be having problems in getting a print out. With 60 minutes in hand to attend an interview, I assumed that I can easily get a print out of my resume anywhere I want and hence I started off from my college to JP Nagar which is a 30 minutes drive to the company. The outcome was - I was 10 minutes late for the interview with no hard copy of my resume in hand. Well I thought I just threw away my job, but fortunately enough, I got it :-)

Those 70 minutes were one of the most irritating 70 minutes of my life!! Sify, Satyam's acclaimed cyber cafe has outdated desktops and they charge an exorbitant amount for 30 minutes of surfing time. I realized that Sify seems to be totally out of touch with reality as they still have Windows 2000 running on each 677MHz Intel processor machines with 256MB RAM. In simple words, they must have been kept at Visveswraya Mueseum; not in a surfing center. Installing a pen drive took me 10 minutes and after installation, I realize that they don't even have Adobe Acrobat Reader!! Great going sify!! After a 10 minutes driver, I found another surfing center called "Superrrrrrrrrrr Cyber Cafe". Unfortunately, it was run by a dufferrrrrrrrrrr who had never seen a pen drive!! He looked at it like it was a rock from outer space and hence he wasted another 10 minutes of my precious time!! So disappointed and frustrated,I went to another cyber cafe. Here installation went well and luckily he had Acrobat Reader. I was really excited and was waiting for the resume to spit out of the laserjet when he realized that realized he had no PAPER!! That was all I could take in a day. I had lost every little bit of patience in me and I just took my chances and headed to the office. So 20 + 10 + 10 +30 = 1 hour 10 minutes and there I was, 10 minutes late and standing in front of the HR with nothing in my hand to get that job. Then how did I get the job? The answer is - They had a soft copy of my resume and they did not need a hard copy!!

Moral of the story: Buy a printer!! Its a very sensible investment and most importantly, buy paper.