I am perplexed by all Foreigners (From now on I shall call them Mr.F[no pun intended]).
I always feel like hitting an Englishman. Or calling a American as Homer. Or calling a German as Hitler. Or calling the Thai, Malay or Vietnamese as Cockroach (or anything that moves around) eaters. Or a Newzealander as "precious" (in the same tone as gollum). Or showing the middle finger to a French guy.
I have always interacted with Mr.F. Some of them were my father's or mother's friends who had overstayed in India even after independence. They were very nice to me. They used to get this F chocolates which were very tasty & some strong chocolates which all of you must have tasted.
As I grew up, While doing apprenticeship there were 3 Germans from the home company who had come here to work on cultural exchange basis. They seemed really nice people. I used to take them to many places in the weekends. They were pretty much mischievous like me & so we used to enjoy nicely. We had been to Goa, Agra, Mysore & nearby places in that 6 months. They used to never pay for anything & I used to never ask them also. Transportation charges were borne by our company & only for extra curricular activities I had to pay.
Then in my next company, For the new project for which I was involved there always used to be interactions with Mr.F. Movement of people from either side was more & so I too had to go to plants in the Foreign World.
When I went there for the first time, I was silent & blocked myself to the work in hand. Weekends were just making sure I got perfectly ready for the Monday meetings. All these people with whom I had interacted in office remained just that - Office Colleagues.
The next time round, when I went to France, I was there as a backup to one of the guys & so
had lots of time in my hands. I tried calling these German friends over phone. I had their number because we used to exchange e-mails. They told me that they were busy for them to come to France, but if I went to their place they would join me.
So that Friday afternoon, I took a TGV in the SNCF station that was near my place & went to their place. Visa is not a problem because the present Schengen visa is for 15 countries. I called them from the train station. Their response was that I should catch a cab to their town & it will take less than 20 minutes. I went there. One among the two came, chatted with me & then said that as he was busy he needed to move.
Now for the next 2 days, I was left with no work or no friend to accompany me in that part of Germany. My return ticket was for Sunday evening. This hurt my heart badly.
Finally our US fellows come into picture. As I had learnt the hard way how these people behave with us, when our US colleagues came to India, I interacted with them but never asked them their plans for Weekends. I discussed with them only about work & no personal or special chatting.
As they had heard from some of their fellows who had come here earlier that I was a good guide for all activities they asked me about where I would be joining them. I gave a lame excuse that I had some personal work in my home & I feel bad for not for the inconvenience caused.
Later the next month I had to go to US for the same project, I stuck to myself because of my experience in Germany. But these guys called me to their homes for Halloween Party, one day for Barbecue party in the cold. I had been to with them to their pubs, shopping malls. The warmth they showered was really great.
Now the inference from this adventure is :
1.> Mr. F is just like us. Some are good & some are bad.
2.> Never judge an entire country by one or two of them.
3.> Be optimistic in whatever you do & how much you get hurt on the way.
Showing posts with label Myself and the world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Myself and the world. Show all posts
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Mobiles and me
What is the problem with me? I cannot maintain a single mobile number for more than 6 months?
Is it just spam that makes me change numbers? Or am I afraid that my past will haunt me? Or only people from whom I want to stay away keep calling me?
My Mobile History starts in 1999. Yes the year when Bharti started its service near my home. My first set was a Siemens C35. Nokia had not made such noise then. Other than this brand, what were on offer were a Vodafone (which was known as a UK brand but no history in India) & Motorola (The set was just like police walkie talkie). I went along with my friend to his friend’s home who sold the set to me.
Yes my first set was a second hand set. The cost was Rs.3500. I was getting a stipend of Rs. 2500 then. After buying the set, I needed a SIM Card to start using this set. I bought a Prepaid SIM card of Bharti (It was called Magic then). The number was 9845007541 The out going charges were Rs 6 Per minute & incoming was Rs 4/5 (not sure on that). A currency of 300 rupees used to workout for 15 days.
The connectivity was bad also. Inside the city, you had a favorably good connection. You had to speak loud for the other person to hear you. Hands free were not so clear then & there were no FM phones available. Just 2 kilometers from the National Highway, you would loose all connectivity.
All incoming were just missed calls. All outgoing were thru phone booths or office phones. Very few calls were received & that too calls were received based on where I was. If I was in a group of friends & needed to act important I would be receiving the call or else based on the number of rings the call came I would be able to gauge the message.
In my friends circle, a call from any number other than home number meant
3 rings meant “Come out. We are in the normal meeting place.”
2 rings meant “Call me back.”
Incessant rings meant “Emergency. Call back urgently or receive the phone”
Even in my home, when I went to other states the incoming was based on number of rings from my home number.
2 rings meant “All are OK here. How are you now”
5 rings meant “Come fast. Missing you here”
Continues rings meant “Emergency. Call back urgently or receive the phone”
SMS was not used other than the templates or wishing a friend who is out of state a happy occasion.
Then the worst part was receiving a call when you were out of the mobile circle. For a person calling from here the cost was just 1:20 in a normal phone for 3 minutes, but for me who received the phone it would end up from Rs 20 to Rs 50 based on how far I was.
Even recharging a prepaid connection when out of circle was a headache. You just could not buy recharge cards available there & use it. You had to call somebody from your friends group, plead them to buy a recharge card here, then scratch & tell you the entire 16 digit number which you had to enter there to recharge the phone.
I used that number till Reliance came out with the 500 rupee set. That ended my first usage of the mobile number. In the meantime mobile sets kept changing & frequency became too drastic. Initially I used to change sets every 3 months, later it came down to 15 days. Even before I could complete games in the set, I was changing them. In the duration incoming became free & outgoing came down very drastically. Even STD rates just fell flat.
The reason why I abandoned the mobile connection was because the initial value of having a mobile waned away & the amount of calls which I received because of so many contacts in my Friend / Office / Relative circle really forced me out of the mobile arena.
Once I distanced the phone, I felt much happy & stayed away from Mobile phone.
The next venture into phones was because of my close friend & also of my girlfriend. Until then she had no mobile & so I too did not require it. I used to meet her on her return from college & that was enough for that day. Once she came out of college & began to go to work, the timetable of our meet erased. Meeting her became a headache & her parents started suspecting things.
She called me one day & told me that she has got a Tata Indicom number & that I too had to buy the same to remain connected to her. Moreover the offer provided free calls between Tata to Tata.
So with this pressure, I & my close friend who until then did not have a phone decided to buy the Tata mobile which gave 2 years connectivity with no recharges & calls between Tata & Tata were free & unlimited.
I decided to keep this number very private & so less of calls & only required calls.
Without my knowledge this number got circulated to my old friends (who were plenty & whom I had distanced myself because of lot of reasons. Someday I will write a post on this), new friends & relatives. Again this turned out to be a hell of problem. Always on the phone & lot of wastage of time.
My girlfriend’s family decided to get her married & found a suitable groom for her. She hesitated first but later told me directly that she is going forward with the marriage as she does not want to hurt her family. Hence I should stop calling on her number.
This was the final nail in the coffin for me. I became a total devdas after this for nearly a year. I became very lazy in my approach to any work, too restless to sit in any place for long & too bored to even receive calls which came my way. ( I will discuss this in a other post)
Luckily I did not quit my job. I stayed put to my job & began to focus all my unhappiness into a motivation to do the job much better & being lazy much simpler.
All the accolades that came my way were taken in the same spirit that I took when she told me good bye.
Professional Life began growing in an incredible pace, but my personal state of mind became too stale & stagnant. No victory or sorrow would affect my stale mind. Deceit was what I felt then.
My new company gave its own mobile for me use & the old Tata phone became too heavy for my pocket.
Finally I left the Tata number & threw the SIM in a gutter.
Presently I have no personal mobile number for any of my family to call nor am I giving away my company mobile to anyone. So I only receive calls from my company’s people any time & reply back. Calls end in maximum 2 minutes.
But my final question is - Is this my single case only or are there many people like me ?
Send in your comments.
Is it just spam that makes me change numbers? Or am I afraid that my past will haunt me? Or only people from whom I want to stay away keep calling me?
My Mobile History starts in 1999. Yes the year when Bharti started its service near my home. My first set was a Siemens C35. Nokia had not made such noise then. Other than this brand, what were on offer were a Vodafone (which was known as a UK brand but no history in India) & Motorola (The set was just like police walkie talkie). I went along with my friend to his friend’s home who sold the set to me.
Yes my first set was a second hand set. The cost was Rs.3500. I was getting a stipend of Rs. 2500 then. After buying the set, I needed a SIM Card to start using this set. I bought a Prepaid SIM card of Bharti (It was called Magic then). The number was 9845007541 The out going charges were Rs 6 Per minute & incoming was Rs 4/5 (not sure on that). A currency of 300 rupees used to workout for 15 days.
The connectivity was bad also. Inside the city, you had a favorably good connection. You had to speak loud for the other person to hear you. Hands free were not so clear then & there were no FM phones available. Just 2 kilometers from the National Highway, you would loose all connectivity.
All incoming were just missed calls. All outgoing were thru phone booths or office phones. Very few calls were received & that too calls were received based on where I was. If I was in a group of friends & needed to act important I would be receiving the call or else based on the number of rings the call came I would be able to gauge the message.
In my friends circle, a call from any number other than home number meant
3 rings meant “Come out. We are in the normal meeting place.”
2 rings meant “Call me back.”
Incessant rings meant “Emergency. Call back urgently or receive the phone”
Even in my home, when I went to other states the incoming was based on number of rings from my home number.
2 rings meant “All are OK here. How are you now”
5 rings meant “Come fast. Missing you here”
Continues rings meant “Emergency. Call back urgently or receive the phone”
SMS was not used other than the templates or wishing a friend who is out of state a happy occasion.
Then the worst part was receiving a call when you were out of the mobile circle. For a person calling from here the cost was just 1:20 in a normal phone for 3 minutes, but for me who received the phone it would end up from Rs 20 to Rs 50 based on how far I was.
Even recharging a prepaid connection when out of circle was a headache. You just could not buy recharge cards available there & use it. You had to call somebody from your friends group, plead them to buy a recharge card here, then scratch & tell you the entire 16 digit number which you had to enter there to recharge the phone.
I used that number till Reliance came out with the 500 rupee set. That ended my first usage of the mobile number. In the meantime mobile sets kept changing & frequency became too drastic. Initially I used to change sets every 3 months, later it came down to 15 days. Even before I could complete games in the set, I was changing them. In the duration incoming became free & outgoing came down very drastically. Even STD rates just fell flat.
The reason why I abandoned the mobile connection was because the initial value of having a mobile waned away & the amount of calls which I received because of so many contacts in my Friend / Office / Relative circle really forced me out of the mobile arena.
Once I distanced the phone, I felt much happy & stayed away from Mobile phone.
The next venture into phones was because of my close friend & also of my girlfriend. Until then she had no mobile & so I too did not require it. I used to meet her on her return from college & that was enough for that day. Once she came out of college & began to go to work, the timetable of our meet erased. Meeting her became a headache & her parents started suspecting things.
She called me one day & told me that she has got a Tata Indicom number & that I too had to buy the same to remain connected to her. Moreover the offer provided free calls between Tata to Tata.
So with this pressure, I & my close friend who until then did not have a phone decided to buy the Tata mobile which gave 2 years connectivity with no recharges & calls between Tata & Tata were free & unlimited.
I decided to keep this number very private & so less of calls & only required calls.
Without my knowledge this number got circulated to my old friends (who were plenty & whom I had distanced myself because of lot of reasons. Someday I will write a post on this), new friends & relatives. Again this turned out to be a hell of problem. Always on the phone & lot of wastage of time.
My girlfriend’s family decided to get her married & found a suitable groom for her. She hesitated first but later told me directly that she is going forward with the marriage as she does not want to hurt her family. Hence I should stop calling on her number.
This was the final nail in the coffin for me. I became a total devdas after this for nearly a year. I became very lazy in my approach to any work, too restless to sit in any place for long & too bored to even receive calls which came my way. ( I will discuss this in a other post)
Luckily I did not quit my job. I stayed put to my job & began to focus all my unhappiness into a motivation to do the job much better & being lazy much simpler.
All the accolades that came my way were taken in the same spirit that I took when she told me good bye.
Professional Life began growing in an incredible pace, but my personal state of mind became too stale & stagnant. No victory or sorrow would affect my stale mind. Deceit was what I felt then.
My new company gave its own mobile for me use & the old Tata phone became too heavy for my pocket.
Finally I left the Tata number & threw the SIM in a gutter.
Presently I have no personal mobile number for any of my family to call nor am I giving away my company mobile to anyone. So I only receive calls from my company’s people any time & reply back. Calls end in maximum 2 minutes.
But my final question is - Is this my single case only or are there many people like me ?
Send in your comments.
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