Why not to marry?

Ok then. Here's the most awaited blog, post my marriage. Apologies for the delay, to those who got married in the mean time.
There's been much written/talked on this topic before and I won't repeat the theory. I am writing based on my personal experience.
So, here goes the list:
- You get home-cooked food for lunch (at office); otherwise you would have got the luxury of eating the "delicious" canteen food; or better, the healthy snack at McD.
- You can no longer keep wearing the same clothes until the color changes.
- You can no longer ignore wishing birthday/anniversary to relatives/friends; now even the fufaji of your mamiji's brother gets a birthday call!
- YOU HAVE TO BATH EVERYDAY!
- You have to start saving; and you can no longer spend at leisure
- You can no longer sleep the whole day and stay awake the whole night (I miss those days when I used to pull all nighters and complete 1-2 seasons of PB, 24 ..!)
- Your get poorer on stress level and burdened with happiness

And there are many more cons; but then this is the only life long relation that's not joined by blood but still holds you stronger. The feeling of love and togetherness that you get in return is truly priceless; and you won't get a costlier-priceless thing in the world. So go, get it.

And correction on the title of the post; it should be "Why not? Go n get married."

Another one of those "I am back" blogs

Some learnings from other blogs/articles/personal experiences etc.:
- Don't invest in ULIP- buy a term plan and a pure investment product instead. ULIPs just charge you extra for bringing both the feature together.

- If you have recently bought a Broadband data card and somehow the Broadband mode is not working (and you are ignorantly using hybrid mode instead), call up the Call-Centre now to get the Broadband activated plus ask them to increase your validity equal to the extent of gap. (Based on experience with MTS data card; got the mode changed after a heated battle of 5-6 days, fingers crossed for validity extension)

- Tata Swach is a cheap purifier. But beware, the battery (which gets exhausted in 2-3 months) is a scarce commodity; you won't get it from anywhere but rather have to purchase a new set of purifier. (The purifier costs 1000/- and the battery 250/-).
I had to buy a new one; though, I have tried Aqua Sure this time (cost 2300, one battery free).

-Electronic Gadgets on EMI, at no extra cost: Very lucrative, but don't end up buying electronic items just because there's this cheap EMI option available. On the face of it, the option looks a good bargain; but then take a step back and understand why companies are foregoing the time value of money.
Simple! The value of electronic items go down with time and go down more than the value of money. Hence, you are being lured to buy that LCD 1 year before you actually want to buy and more importantly at today's price (which would be any ways greater than the price 1 year hence). Got the deal?
But if you are planning to buy a gadget, do look out for these EMI deals as it would be cheaper. Buy if you had planned and not because there's an EMI deal.

More reviews/watch outs coming up

Chocolaty Life-Raju aur Basant ka Atyachar

Act-1, Scene-1
Place: Cadbury Guest House, Worli, Mumbai
Time: Around 7 PM, sometime in July

Rahul-"Raju bhaiya kuch nashta bana do"
Raju-"Abhi khane ke time ho gaya hai, nashta nahi milega"

Sunil takes the TV remote in his hand to browse for channels when Basant strikes.
Basant (Quickly robs Sunil of remote)-"Ye remote ko hath nahi lagana"

<span style="font-style: italic;">The Context</span>:
Raju and Basant are the care takers for this Guest House of Cadbury. And they have been here eternally; as confirmed by seniors. The new joinees are initally provided accomodation for some time. And that is the time when we cross our ways with R&amp;B. Both are from Nepal as is apparent by the accent; by the TV channel which runs when we enter the guest house.

Act-2, Scene-2
Location: Same
Time: Not relevant

Aditi-"Bhaiya ye kapade dho dijiyega"
Raju-"Nahi, wo huum, ladkiyon ke kapade nhi dhote hai"
Aditi (Disappointed and slightly annoyed)-"Acha koi baat nhi, par kapado ko iron to kar dijiyega"
Basant-"Woo, ladikon ke kapade iron nahi karate hai, kyuki jal jaata hai"
Aditi get even more annoyed but had to manage it herself.

The Debate-Test v ODI v T20

All right, all right; I am a bit late when already enough has been discussed on the issue. Questions have been raised over the future of pure cricket-Test and off late people arguing whether ODIs should co exist with T20 or be done away with. And then there is all this debate over excessive cricket and player burnout.
But, let us take a step back and find out why this debate. Players all round the world want to represent their countries and play as much as they can; and I don' think good players are in short supply. The national cricket boards would ideally want more and more quality cricket and also cricket which attracts audience and in turn revenues. And then there are viewers all over, cricket pundits, commentators etc. who want more and more of exciting cricket. So, if players want to play, administrators want to arrange and viewers want to see then why this whole debate on cutting down on matches and different formats hurting each other. And I feel every thing boils down to this-the number of players representing a country. Every team wants to field the best 11 players for each and every game of each and every format. This leads to 7-8 players constantly involved in one format or another all the year round. I strongly believe there won't be considerable difference between the skill level of top 30-40 players for any country. Agreed that there would be 2-3 super natural match winners but apart from these the skill level does not fall too steeply within the top 30-40. So, if the national boards can dilute there obsession with fielding the best 11 every time then a very simple solution exists to all the above problem. All three forms can co-exist and the number of matches/year actually be increased without the fear of one format competing against other and burnouts.
Every nation can rotate players for different series/formats. There can even be parallel matches between same teams in different formats (Ind vs Aus-test and T20 being played together)
But for this to happen every stake holder has to forgo a little bit of obsession with winning. Everyone wants good cricket and more cricket after all. Players would then not be forced to retire basis age, youngsters would get exposure to international cricket early on and there won't be appeals for less cricket/

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Chocolaty Life

Enough of MBA, life and grievances! Its been more than three months since joining Cadbury and its time now to move beyond the theories of b-school to the practicalities of job. And there's enough news from these three months. I would bring out all the experiences in a series of posts called "Chocolaty Life".
The most easiest format to jot down everything would be to move chronologically. But that would be too boring. So I have decided to make it a connected series of posts with incidents picked at random (so that the traffic doesn't die out :) ).
So lets get going with the series with the first short play.
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Place: Some village in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh
Time: Around 12 noon; sometime in July

Aditya- "Wahan pe kafi saara stuff mil jayega, chalo udhar"
Sunil- "Abe Solanki tune to kafi maal ikattatha kar liya hai"
So, what are we doing and what this stuff/maal is. We are in this village for a sanitation drive organized by one NGO called RUCHI. With masks on mouth and hand gloves we are picking up all the plastics crap that is lying on the streets and filling up our respectives polybags (The same black polybags used for collecting garbage).
The purpose of this drive was to sensitize villagers about the issue. So, we scolded/educated/guided everyone who came out of his house to see that 14 boys and girls from Cadbury were cleaning the street drains and gutters.
Some village lady-"Bhaiya aap safai kar rahe hai kya?"
This was asked to me on seeing me, along with three foreign students (all girls! from England associated with Engineers Without Borders- some orgnization involved with development work for underprivileged nations), cleaning up a gutter.
Same lady-"To bhaiya hamare ghar ke saamne bhi kuch safai kar dijiye"
Me (a little annoyed, the other three couldn't get annoyed because of communication gap :) )-"Haan kar dete hai safai. Aap roz gadagi karna aur hum roz aa jayenge safai karne" (I hope you got the sarcasm intended here)

So, this stuff/maal being talked about is the plastic litter. The drive ended at the village Pradhan's house. We along with the NGO workers explained the problems associated with plastic waste and asked the Pradhan to take forceful actions in this regard.
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*******Next day********

Place: In front of a temple in Baddi
Time: Around 2 in the afternoon

Rajeev- "Paani laao yahan"
Me- "Yaar ye joote uthar ke galti kar di, watt lagi padi hai"
So, what are we doing now?
We are planting trees. Its a plantation drive today and we are supposed to plant around 150 trees. Though we managed to achive only half of the target eventually :)
There was this open field where 3X3X3 holes were already dug and we were to plant the saplings, fill up the hole and water. But it was not that simple task. With the afternoon Sun shining bright and hot it was painful working bare foot. But why bare foot? 4-5 of us thought it would be better to work bare foot and keep our shoes clean. Quite a sensible decision indeed :(
Looking back it was a great experience and a tiring one too.
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So, why are we doing all this?
What is the purpose?
Who has organized the campaign?

These activities were part of the CSR module of our induction at Cadbury India. The particular village was adopted as part of CSR by Cadbury. The campaign was organized by our colleges at Baddi in association with an NGO-RUCHI.


Next Up in Chocolaty Life- "Raju aur Basant ka Atyachaar"

My Grievances: Part II-"HAIR-ka-TEL"

It all started when I decided to take a HAIR-ka-TEL postpaid connection. By simple logic of time value of money, a postpaid should any day be preferred over a prepaid (assuming the rental cost is covered by the call rate difference or other discounts). But then simple logic does not always serve the purpose. Practical experience, more often than not, brings out the clear “filthy” picture. And that was the case with me. The RM showed the various plans available and to get all the required documents. The SIM card was provided on the same day and it was promised to activate the number within four hours. An upfront fee of 500 was charged towards activation. The SIM got activated the next day. The RM came again to take my signature on some document that he missed the day before. But before the poor RM could submit the missing document the HAIR-ka-TEL people found out the mistake and as per their policy of “Zero Errors” my number was blocked. (They must have found out that I was talking way too much on the phone and hence, as a CSR commitment, they blocked my number so as to protect me from excess exposure to electro-magnetic radiations). The number was activated the next day. I again started to exceed the maximum allowable “exposure” limit. This was the limit, of their tolerance. So they found out another way to treat me a lesson. They blocked my account, again, on account of address verification failure. (They actually visited my apartment, “during office hours”, only to find out the care-taker, who confirmed me residing there. But how can they believe him; I should have been there to confirm) So, I was again saved from excess EM radiations. Thanks HAIR-ka-TEL-“the super saviours”.
After 2-3 days they finally verified my residence and my number was up again. Soon the credit limit of 500 was breached and I was told to pay up within 6 hours. (Remember it is a postpaid and I have already paid 500+500=1000 even when I have used only half of this amount). I had to pay.
Since they also care about customers’ family and friends so they increased my credit limit to 1200 so as to enable me “discontinued talktime” for a longer duration. And I breached that limit too!
The next month they again lowered my credit limit to 500 so as to keep a check on my exposure to EM radiations. And on my payment they again realised the customers’ need to socialize and hence again increased the credit limit to 1200. As always I again breached the limit. So I got a message to pay within 24 hours. But I being a lazy guy paid only after 20 hours when I found out that my number was already blocked, AGAIN! (I think they thought that this guy is not going to pay and hence decided to block before the stipulated time; just to be “proactive”)
In between all this blocking-unblocking, my first bill arrived. The RM had given me a hard copy of the bill plan which mentioned two discounts- some local minutes at lower rate “AND” a double digit discount on billed amount. (Please note the AND operator). HAIR-ka-TEL also provided me with the bill plan which mentioned the above discounts in slightly tricky manner as below. The catch was to be found out only later.


So the catch was found out when I received the bill. I was given only the discounted local mins (that worked out to a hefty SEVEN rupees!). Just to mention, the discount billing amounted to a meagre amount of approx. 300 bucks; and that was not provided. So I inquired. I was told that “only one of the above two discounts” was applicable and “I” have chosen the local mins one (It was only then that I got to know that I had supposedly chosen the local mins options. May be they had done a deal with me in my dreams or nightmare as you call it). As of now the talks are on, let’s see where it ends.
BTW there’s one more CSR initiative being undertaken by the company. They are providing switching signals (switching on/off at the frequency of 1 switching every 2 mins) in my area. This reduces continuous exposure to EM radiations and hence keeps the exposure under control. The way it works is that whenever you make a call or receive one, within 2-3 minutes the call gets disconnected. You dial again, it disconnects again. And out of frustration you have to limit an half hour talk to 4 or 5 two minutes call.
I was happy with the prepaid connection and then I applied logic of time value of money.