On hot chapathis
Read this post by IHM. I love the rebuttals. I love the comments even more. As she says, it’s not about the chapathis. It doesn’t matter whether the chapathis are eaten hot or cold. I know many people (both men and women) who can’t eat their food hot. That is not the issue. The issue here is the commentator in question assuming that the woman must always eat last. I don’t get it. If you are hungry you eat.
Dinner time is bonding time. I come back around 8 30 every night. My parents and I have dinner together. They choose to wait. After I get married, maybe I too will choose to wait. Maybe I will be too tired to wait and leave food in a hot pack and go to bed after having had my dinner. Maybe I won’t cook at all. The problem here is men assuming that women want to do all this. Sometimes, even other women (mothers in-law) assume that it’s a wifely duty to wait until the husband has eaten. They call it tradition. I call it chauvinism. I hate to eat alone. It makes me cry. It makes me lonely. So, I wait. For dad, mom or husband. But, that’s just me. Why do men assume the wife will wait. Why do they expect her to stay up until midnight without eating. It’s inherently unjust. Don’t they realise that? There is no harmony possible if one person is forced to do all the work, and wait until the rest of the family has eaten. Agreed. Someone must cook. But, can’t you at least show empathy? If not love. Could you at least ask why she hasn’t eaten. Could you sit with her while she eats? Could you help her clean up? Could you at least leave her alone to eat in peace without demanding paan and dessert immediately? Is that too much to ask? Tell me please.
On that note, Nimmy has a post on How to be a better wife. I would rather not go into the details of all that I feel. But, let me express my indignation at being told to be a domestic Goddess and appreciate my husband’s…er…manly things. And also at being told to honour his right to rule over me and my kids. Rule? Did you say rule? I am sorry. I am not a kingdom, or a piece of cattle. Nobody has the right to rule over me. I am a living and thinking individual. I wish to bring up my children as thinking individuals too. Not as a cattle herd. This reminds me of Subramanya Bharathi’s words,
“Solladee Sivasakthi, ennai sudarmigum arivudan padaitthu vittaai.”
God has given me the brains. I will use it. I am sorry if it too inconvenient for the rest of our sexist friends.
Of secularism and terrorism
I knew editorial standards in journalism were pathetic, but I frankly did not expect a newspaper like The Hindu to publish total bullshit like this. This article is offensive at so many levels that I don’t know where to start.
First, the author seems to confuse secularism with impartiality. Secular means non-religious. Terrorism is never about religion, it is simply about power. Religion is only a means to an end. She becomes incoherent when she cites Mahatma Gandhi and the Kanchi seer in a completely irrelevant situation. She then becomes outright offensive in this sentence.
A few Hindu militants emerged here and there only after the aliens who arrived in India provoked them or forcibly converted them. But their number has been too insignificant as otherwise India won’t be the multi-religious country that it is.
She basically implies that all Hindu fundamentalism is caused by the presence of aliens, supposedly Muslim invaders and European colonisers. Such a wild accusation, especially published in a respected paper like the Hindu is condemnable. That’s not all. As if wanting to prove that she understands zilch about either politics of foreign affairs, she asks why Mr. Vajpayee chose to inform Mr. Bush of the parliament attack. She wants to know who Mr. Bush is to decide the fate of our country. It just makes me wish she would shut up.
Let’s get one thing right. Secularism or religion has nothing to do with terrorism. Terror must be dealt with firmly, irrespective of the religion of the perpetrator. Equating one with the other is criminal. The task at hand is not to shun or criticise one community. It is to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. Their religion must be of no consequence to us. Nor the religion of the arrested Sadhvi or anyone else who perpetrates terror attacks. When will we understand that talking secularism in such troubled times only makes things worse. The question now is only of whether we can meet the challenge posed by terrorism.Happy new year!!
Yay! I finally did what I was planning to for over a month. I have migrated to WordPress. I hope Nita, Krishna and everyone else who wanted me to come over are happy. The blog URL remains the same and so does the feed address. So, keep reading. Be back soon with more. And yes, here’s wishing you a very very happy new year. 🙂
A call centre saga…no…make that two…
Over the last week, I have been wondering if I should refuse to call any customer care centre as a mark of protest. The first of my two experiences was exasperating. But, the second, was infuriating. But, let me start from the beginning.
It was Monday morning. Our fax in office was not functioning. I had to call HP customer care and complain. More importantly, the printer was not picking up paper properly and I had to get an engineer to visit. The process took me 45 minutes. Here is how the conversation went. I call, identify myself and my company and politely ask explain my problem. My first call goes waste as the Customer care executive has no clue what to do. She promises to call back. Which she does. Here is how the conversation went.
Me: I have an all-in-one. The printer and scanner are working fine, but the fax is simply not going through.
Customer Care Exec.: Ma’am, you will have to follow our instructions so that we try to resolve your problem over phone.
Me: Uh, ok. What should I do?
Customer Care Exec.: Ma’am, there are three cables behind your printer; a fat one, a very fat one, and a thin one.
Me: (already exasperated) Which one are you talking about, the power cable, the RJ45 or the RJ11 telephone cable?
Customer Care Exec.: Pardon me ma’am, but I don’t think you understood. There is a fat cable…
Me: (interrupting) Yes I know. But which one do you want me to check? The phone cable, the data cable or the power cable.
Customer Care Exec.: (Finally catching on to the fact that I am not completely illiterate.) The power cable ma’am. Please follow it to the other end and check if it is plugged into the mains.
Me: Are you mad? I am telling you my scanner and printer are working fine. How would that happen if the printer is not turned on? Will you please send an engineer to set my fax right and to check on my paper pick-up mechanism?
Customer Care Exec.: Sorry ma’am, we are only authorised to send our service engineers for hardware problems. Is your fax having a hardware problem or a software problem?
Me: How the hell am I supposed to know? You must tell me.
Customer Care Exec.: But, we can’t send an engineer unless we know ma’am.
This conversation continues for a good half an hour before she has a brainwave and decides to log the complaint for referral to her supervisor. Soon enough, she returns.
Customer Care Exec.: I am sorry ma’am. The paper pick-up seems to be a hardware problem. We will send an engineer and he can fix the fax also while he is there.
Me: Thank you.
Customer Care Exec.: And ma’am, we have a special offer. Would you like to go in for a low-cost inkjet at just Rs.7999 for pesonal use?
And and that point, I give up trying to reason with her. I am calling from an office that will soon have close to 200 employees. And she proposes a personal inkjet?? I do wish these call centre executives would use their God-given brains once in a while!
Now, the second incident. The call centre in question is Airtel. I was getting unsolicited calls from a particular Airtel number. The calls were sometimes exasperating, but mostly irritating. The subscriber has obviously got my number from somewhere and the calls I got were bordering on sexual harassment. I decide to report abuse to the Airtel customer care, despite the fact that I have a Vodafone prepaid connection. The conversation goes like this. The emphasis, needless to say, is mine.
Me: I am calling to report abuse by an Airtel subscriber.
Customer Care Exec.: I am sorry ma’am. We cannot reveal details of one subscriber to another.
Me: I don’t want the details. I don’t care who he is. I want to register an abuse complaint against him. That’s all.
Customer Care Exec.: Ok ma’am, I will register your complaint. I will send an acknowledgement number. Please save it. Thank you for calling Airtel, have a great evening.
Please note, that at this point, he neither asked for my name, nor my number, nor even the number of the person I was complaining against.
Me: (almost shouting now) Will you please listen? I have not finished. I want to file a complaint. A complaint of abuse. This is sexual harassment.
Customer Care Exec.: I understand ma’am. But, we cannot do anything. You must go to the police.
Me: Are you telling me you will not register a complaint against the subscriber?
Customer Care Exec.: How a subscriber uses his number is not Airtel’s responsibility.
Me: Are you willing to go on record on that?
Customer Care Exec.: Yes ma’am.
Me: Well, all right then. I will register a police complaint. I will include Airtel as accomplice, as you are refusing to register my complaint.
Customer Care Exec.: Ma’am, understand your problem. You must go to the police. Handling cases of sexual harassment is not our business.
Me: Do you have an email id where I can put this down in writing?
Customer Care Exec.: www…
Me: I was an EMAIL ID, not a web URL.
Customer Care Exec.: oh. ok then, 121@airtel.com
Me: Ok.
Customer Care Exec.: Thank you for calling Airtel.
The phone line is cut. The executive has still not taken my name, number or the number of the person. The name of the executive is with me. He revealed that after asking three times, while they are in fact trained to identify themselves personally before proceeding with the call. Is there something I can do? The call centre executive I spoke to treated me as if I was the criminal, not the victim. He hasn’t bothered to get the basic minimum details from me. He has in fact, on record, absolved himself and Airtel of all responsibility for how a subscriber uses his number. If the problem was a terror threat and not sexual harassment? Will Airtel behave the same way?
Spread the cheer…it’s Christmas time!!
Yay! I have been awarded again. And since it’s Christmas time, I am spreading the cheer by awarding my fellow bloggers. Here we go…
The proximity award and the Cup
Nita awards me the Cup and the Proximity award. I love the proximity award. And I am certainly glad my readers love me. Thanks people. 🙂 I pass these on to Imp’s Mom, Chandni, Mad Momma Silverine, Alankrita, Krishna and IHM.
Butterfly award
Trailblazer and Nita give me the butterfly award too for being the coolest blog they know. 🙂 Thanks. Me feeling shy now. Here, I pass them on once again to Alankrita, Krishna and IHM. I seem to be giving them a lot of awards. And to Nita of course, whose blog is super duper cool.
Certified Honest Blogger award
And, saving the best for the last, Trailblazer gives me the certified honest blogger award. What do I say? I am absolutely thrilled. Thank you so much Trailblazer. It is greatly satisfying. This is perhaps the most satisfying award I have ever got. Thanks again. And I pass it on to the Minking Than, and Idea Smith. Good work dude! It’s quite obvious you think. I award Alankrita, Krishna and IHM, again! But anyway.
There! I am finally done!