The Big Bang(alore)

Amazingly I have started enjoying my travels to the various parts of the country now. Last week it was Delhi and today I came back from a quick tour of Bangalore – The IT City in the south. The only choice that we didn’t have was in staying overnight at this place.

With the travelling too much one has become critical about airline services. Since Kingfisher Airlines is set as a benchmark for services, all of them are compared ruthlessly with it. Unfortunately then, I would say, we had a booking with Indian Airlines (IA). Least to say the hostesses were far from presentable baring just one in the early morning flight schedule. Just one of them looked keen in serving the passengers, the rest looked like they were doing a routine job. The food wasn’t too good and there was no inflight entertainment provided like Kingfisher and I must say that the private airlines are taking away all the laurels from this 50 year old airline. OK I know I am asking far more from IA but it has to survive in this stiff competition.

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Delhi Calling

Delhi HaatI had always wanted to see New Delhi, the power centre of Indian politics not that I haven’t been to this place before. But eversince the Metro has begun changing the lives of the delhites, I wanted to get a preview of how the city looks and feels now. A business trip to Delhi was the right moment to visit the city. I am sure that Delhi will become a world class city in the coming days. It’s exciting because of the way the political will has driven the development and left behind the bad memories of a city which had no future at all.

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PayPal Sucks

PayPalAnd I mean it. Last night I logged into my PayPal account to check how much moolah I’ve got. Surprisingly I saw a “limited access” message boldly written on the home page. Upon some frantic searching from some places I found out that I needed to provide certain documents to verify myself. That’s fine but when I clicked on the link to resolve the issue it just wouldn’t give me the checklist of items that I needed to produce. It is quite suffocating to know that my money has been unnecessarily blocked and I can’t appeal against it or speak to them.

My troubles worsened when my case ID couldn’t be found in the database which meant that I do not know why my account has been de-regularised. Inspite of writing 3-4 mails via the contact form on the website, I got the same replies for all of them. It was probably an auto-responder. It sucks to think that Paypal which is handling finances globally should resort to such practices especially when it knows that the users will be located in different geographies and time zones. At this moment I have lost all hopes of getting back my money. The least that I can do is set up another account and hope for some business to come my way. If somebody has faced a similar situation and has a solution please contact me immediately.

Weekend Movie Treat

Deewane Hue PaagalI am sure after reading this passage a lot you guys would term me as a movie buff. This is the third weekend in a row where I have watched a movie. This time it was Deewane Hue Paagal (DHP) with the affable (rascal) Akshay Kumar. I also wanted to see the FAME Raghuleela at the shopping mall by the same name. This mall culture has surprised me to no limits. We’re constantly bridging the gap between the manufacturers & the consumers in that goods are now easily procured.

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A Taste of the East

AntarmahalI went to see Antarmahal at FAME Andheri on Sunday – a bengali language film starring Jackie Shroff, Soha Ali Khan, Abhishek Bachchan among others. The setting is of the old bengal in the 1800s when the zamindari system was still prevalent. The film is based on a short story written by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay called Protima. It deals with the oppression of women by the hands of the zamindars and the hindu priests of those times. The most enduring aspect of the movie is the excellent light and shade cinematography by Abhik Sen. That really moves you well before you have settled down in your seat.

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