So the nauseating and frustrating Mumbai experience, which left many of us feeling impotent with rage and anguish of not being able to anything is finally over. Finally something has happened which has actually made people angry and come out on the streets demanding structural changes in the way this country is governed. Even though the numbers may have been a wee bit too little for anybody to stand-up and take notice.

I was also extremely angry to begin with therefore I have not written anything for some time. I have allowed it to subside before actually putting my hand to the keyboard.

Indians are by and large very peaceful people and the resilience of Mumbai actually stems from the resilience of Indians in general, who are probably one of the most flexible people anywhere in the world , being able to put up with almost anything and continue with the business of life. It took our royals nearly 100 years to realise that the rug is being pulled from under their bottoms before they could put up a rag-tag coalition for 1857 revolt. It took the general population another 60 years to start doing anything about the humiliation and degradation they were being subjected to. After starting the process it took us another patient 40 years before we could hoist our own national flag and have our ‘tryst with the destiny’. This ability of ours to take shit and still be able to get up, dust up a bit and get along with the grind of daily life is sometimes mistakenly portrayed in the media as being resilience. This our ability to compromise and weasel through a situation without having to make difficult choices, which puts our life and limb at a risk for another day has helped us being very successfull in business field, which is dominated by people who exploit such situations.

At the time of independence the architects of our democracy made a big mistake by not jettisonning the british systems with them. So the police force with its ethos of subjugating and keeping the masses under control was retained and continues in its same role even to this day. Otherwise, where do you see in a democratric country police openeing fire to kill its own people with the impunity that it does here. The Indian Civil Service , whose sole aim was to fill the coffers for the british, was also retained and continues to dominate the country having resisted all attempts at specialisation and having subjugated all other government services.

The british system of indirect democracy works in their country, which is very small and is guided by very well entrenched value systems and traditions, whereas Indians with their tendency to compromise, take shit and cut corners could never be relied on to faithfully implement such a complicated system.

The system under the ‘leadership’ of Nehru quickly degenerated into personal fiefdoms and family hierlooms. With Nehru himself taking lead of ensuring that the power stayed in the family, by entrusting the reins of power into the hands of his daughter. Other more principled leaders like Sardar Patel and Shastri who were naive enough, allowed everything to happen right under their noses.

ICS meanwhile went around systematically denigrating one force that has stood by the country at all times, under the Nehru, who was deeply afraid of the Military, pushed the Army Chief out of the Teen Murti Bhavan and made him equivalent to the cabinet secretary, from his earlier exalted position of being second only to the prime minister. Not to speak of stripping the Military from all positions of decision making related to security and the running of the establishment itself, these days the generals are not even on the panel to advice the prime minister on security related matters. Compared to USA where the National Security Advisor is going to be a retired Marine general, we have a career Police officer on extension. The generals themselves were bought by the political establishment by the lure of gubernatorial and diplomatic assignments post retirement and have casually allowed the powers to slip from their hands so that now they are reduced to a status of beggars and have to go with a bowl through the IAS establishments to get their meagre salary hikes. On the operational front they have been reduced to a level of foot soldiers, who press the trigger when they are ordered to with no role in deciding on the security posture of the country.

The political establishment and the bureucrats have resisted all efforts by the supreme court to reorganise the police and make it a more speacialised and apolitical force. We have more agencies dedicated to gathering intelligence than any other country but with none of them having given clear roles, all of them keep fighting little turf wars, which results in confusing signals and lack of any accountability by anybody. Many of them are actively engaged in clandestine spying work on political enemies on the directions of their political bosses. So while the general population gets to face the bullet, the brokers of power use meagre intelligence resources to settle scores. ( Refer MK Dhar’s Book, Open Secret)

And mind you the bureaucrats and the police officers are supposedly one of the best that the country has to offer. They come through a very stringent even though outdated selection procedure, which ensures that only the best are able to make it through. Though most succumb to systematic rot that has set in and are overwhelmed by the daunting task of overhauling the system and making any structural/ systemic changes. Most prefer to go along with the tide and make hay with the politicians, while the sun shines.

The end result of systemtatic rape of this country was starkly visible through the 5 days of trauma caused by a bunch of hoodlums from Pakistan. The political bosses have consolidated their powers in increasingly narrow consituencies so that you see first families in almost all states. Not to speak of the first among the first families the Gandhi family. The whole set-up is even better than Monarchy or Dictatorship, which appears to be what it is. This comes complete with a very large fig leaf of ‘democracy’.

So much so that president of the Congress party now carries almost an Extra-constitutional authority, with even the prime minister and all congress chief ministers taking directions from her. Maharashatra chief minister offerred to resign to the party chief and not to the prime minister, which means that he, a people’s representative is reporting directly to an unelected authority. What can be a bigger slap in the face of democracy, which MK Gandhi was hoodwinked into supporting.

The rot can be assessed immediately by the way politicians confronted with the enormity of the challenge started shooting of their mouths. Maharashtra home minister called it an attack on Maharashtra. He conveniently forgot to mention that many non-marathis came to defend ‘Maharashtra’ in those gruelling days.

The lack of preparedness and lack of flow of information can be assessed by the live television reporting. When enormous amount of CC TV footage of terrorrists was available, and anybody could make out that they were prepared for a long haul resistance. Not to undermine the sacrifce of ATS chief Mr Karkare, it is hardly a role of a chief of a unit to go on a recce mission and get shot casually. Somebody may call it leadership, I’ll call it lack of preparedness, foresight and standard operating procedure under these circumstances. Didnt anybody clarify whether ATS is supposed to investigate the terrorists or actually take part in shooting wars with them. This lack of clarity of purpose plagues almost all agencies.

The much vaunted NSG came in with their modern weaponary, but also could not do much for next gew days due to lack of basic information such as floor layouts, exits and a painfull lack of night vision devices and gas masks, which would have enabled them to finish the job much earlier. Any modern Special Force does not go out without night vision devices, which is standard issue for ordinary American soldiers. Americans as a philosophy dont go out to fight on an equal footing, they go out to overwhelm the enemy. Our political leadership, throws under-equipped men at unknown threats and later goes out to malign thier deaths. ( VS Achuthanandan & earlier Amar Singh). The proposal for night vision devices no doubt would be hanging fire in some echelons of bureucracy.

Through out the drama, and even post events, the media is unusually obsessed with security at 5 star hotels and hardly a sliver is being shown of what is being done to increase the security of VT station, where many innocent and poor people have perished. The media in their zeal to be the first to report any development actually went ahead and compromised the operation with their obtrusive presense and giving live pictures to the handlers in Pakistan. The security establishment also did not cordon off the area, and everybody could be seen doing their own thing without any coordination.

When I was a kid, punjab was on a boil and terrorrists used to regularly attack targets of high value. During those days I used to wonder and thank god that nobody is enemy of the general public till now, otherwise there will be nobody protect the us. All my nightmares seem to be coming true.

With such systemic rot, it will some time before the killing will stop, as Pakistanis are prepared and motivated to ‘bleed India through a thousand cuts’, to quote Bhutto or some other dictator that they have had. With our short sighted foreign policy, none of our neighbours can be called as true freinds of ours. Even the country which, we have fought to liberate is our arch enemy and keeps shooting across the borders at BSF, and is involved in turmoil in Assam.

Is there hope?  I would love to think that there is, but I dont think so. As an ordinary Indians, we can die suddenly anywhere, anytime. If not to some brazen Pakistani, then on the hideous roads, in police firing, under shoddilly constructed buildings, due to food poisoning and hundreds of other reasons.

It is not a surprise that even though we have one of the biggest list of millionaires, we remain one of the poorest contries on the planet, with life expectancy and literacy levels comparing with some sub-saharan countries. These are the things, which the media, which is conveniently hands-in-glove with the political establishment forgets to highlight. They had no compulsions in shouting occassionaly about the ’systemic’ problems facing our country. but none have  carried a sustained campaign aganist the rot, ‘political monarchy’,corrupt civil services and politicians. The media and intelligensia some days ago was actually out on the limb praising one of the most vicious and corrupt Politicians, Lalu Yadav as saviour of Railways.

Time has come for a 2nd freedom struggle. The british have left but have left behind a system and a plethora of leeches, who look like us but are differrent. They feed on our blood and their hunger knows no bounds. They need to be pulled out and crushed.

I am a great fan of Fiat Palio. I owned one for the last 4 years before deciding to move onto something more economical like a Swift Diesel. Not that my Palio was a thirsty baby, just that it used to run on Petrol and given the way Petrol prices are I thought I should switch to Diesel.

You can read my older entry on Fiat Palio mileage HERE

I loved my Palio 1.2 ELPS extremely smooth ride and amazing handling. It took a really bad stretch of Road to perturb my baby. Most holes and ruts could not be felt at all, many were just a small sound, some were a bit of  a wobble but it took it in its stride without a jerk, jars, tail twisting or loss of direction. I could really throw it around the curves at 60 -80 kmph, without any fear, whatsoever. With curves I mean curves on Kerala roads, which are a bit more curvaceous than most.  I agree that I achieved the feat with 185 size tyres, which are a definite improvement on the stock 165.

Actually I was waiting for Fiat to launch the Grande Punto at the end of 2007, but that was getting postponed indefinitely, meanwhile I landed a good buyer for my old Palio and I decided to let her go, with some grief in my heart. I then immediately booked my next set of wheels in the form of a Swift DDiS. Immediately after my booking Fiat launched their own Multijet Palio. I thought that I should check out this vehicle before I take delivery of the Swift DDiS.

So I landed up at the Tata Fiat showroom in Cochin and the test drive vehicle was immediately available. I looked and saw this Silver Grey shape which looked similar to Palio.   Now the old Palio had a nice muscular, thickly curved bonnet, which lent it a very aggressive stance. The new vehicle’s bonnet seems to have been flattened a bit and the curves toned down, I think maybe to improve visibility. The grill looks good but looks like an afterthought rather than an organic part of the vehicle.

I opened the door and was greeted by a familiar layout complete with the Blue oval key. Only change is the Beige colour which they have tried to incorporate to lend a slightly modern look, but given the quality of plastic used looks a bit cheap actually. Cheap plastic looks better in dark Grey shapes rather than beige. If a company should use beige then the plastic should be similar to ones used in Chevy Aveo at least. Anyway……the layout is completely same as old Palio, they have not even given a digital odo/ trip meter. AC controls are same with heating and direction controlled by rotary controls.

Once I turned the key there was an earthquake and the whole Car shook once and then settled into a steady tak-tak-tak of a Diesel motor. The sound actually intrudes quite a bit into the cabin and the vibrations could be felt right through the steering wheel and the seats.

The ride quality remains as good as ever. Though the original fitment 165 tyres dont do much justice to the handling capabilities of the Palio. Under normal driving they are OK though, and the low profile of the vehicle and lower passenger seating helps bring down the centre of gravity and helps to hug the road . On Swift DDiS the 165 size tyres are positively dangerous, lacking in grip and frequently skidding under hard braking. Only when Swift is carrying four passengers it feels attached to the Road. So if you normally drive solo on bad roads, the the tyres should be upgraded to at least 185/ 70, or drive very carefully.

The Palio gear lever is the same though I feel with a smaller and cheaper gear knob. Gone are the precise gates and slick shifting. The lever is all wobbly and the gates are wide and sometimes difficult to find. Engage the first gear and release the clutch and you need not press the Acc pedal, the clutch immediately bites and the vehicle shoots of the mark. In-fact it is quite disconcerting. There is very little gap between fully disengaged and when it starts to engage, which means that the clutch needs to be fully pressed before engaging the gear and that it may be slightly difficult in bumper-to-bumper traffic where I drive only with the clutch. Also if the clutch is not released very smoothly the engine can also stall, like I managed to do once, even with a 1 lac kms plus experience on fiats. Swift on the other hand have come up with nothing I have seen on Maruti before. The gear lever is delightfully short throw, with nice smooth shifts, which click in with lovely TIK sound. The clutch also is light and has a good gap between fully depressed and when it starts engaging.

Both vehicles pickup is awesome with huge tank like roar filling the cabin as you push in the A pedal. The noise starts to get bothersome  very early in the Palio and by around 1500 rpm in Swift and may actually intrude in the driving pleasure as I love to listen to some music while tootling along.

Once you have reached a decent speed you need to brake. The Palio brakes are powerful and have an immediate bite like the clutch. I feel there should be smooth gradient in the brake force starting with a touch to some hard pressing. Old fiats had this nice gradient. With the pressure you could smoothly vary the braking force. Here the pressure comes all of sudden. A peculiar thing which I noticed was that brakes don’t disengage immediately when I released the pedal. There was just a fraction of a second delay before the wheels felt free from the iron grip. THe sales person said that it could be a problem with this vehicle only. Swift’s Brakes are also quite good and have the nice gradient which I have mentioned earlier.

AC is good and does not affect vehicle performance much in both cases, but pick-up from low rpms in high gears becomes slow, but that is hardly important as it is very rarely that I need to it. Palio says 184 Nm torque compared to Swift’s 190, but its impossible to make out the difference.

Palio also has this nice double barrel head lamps which illuminate the road nicely, though in true European fashion are highly focussed, designed not to blind the fellow coming from opposite side. But in India we have lot of ignorant and arrogant drivers who drive with high beam on. Swift’s headlights are a nice cure for such drivers. It throws a very wide diffused high beam which can blind such drivers coming from the opposite side and motivate them to dip their own lights.

Swift for all its good looks is built quite flimsily with door panels that actually stretch when the door is closed. Something or the other keeps making a nagging rattling sound. The bumps which could not even be felt in a Palio are a heard and those that could be felt,  positively make a jarring noise in the Swift. If the road is rough when you are taking a turn, you might end up loosing control of your tail, as it bounces out tangentially. Suspension is very hard and 36 psi of tyre pressure in the front does not help at all.

Swift seating is high with a lot of visibility, which helps handle this very wide vehicle. The seats are OK though not as comfortable as a Palio. The driving position is also not very good. I with 6 ft of height have to stretch for every control if I adopt a relatively comfortable driving position. Palio’s controls are within easy reach, I could comforably adjust AC controls by resting my hand on the gear shift.

Swift may probably have little advantage in Fuel economy as it rides on bigger diameter tyres and has overdrive in 4th and 5th gears, whereas Palio has it only in the 5th. Palio though may have better city driveabilty, but with almost maximum 19 Kgs of torque (same as Skoda 1.9 TDi)  both vehicles can be driven comfortably in any gear. Frankly with so much of Torque available, Palio could have done better by having Overdrive gears in 4th also. This when previous 1.2, 1.6 all had overdrives in both 4th and 5th gears.

Swift is serviced by Maruti, which has very wide network of fully equipped Dealer workshops and they have been servicing the vehicles for more than a year now, whereas in case of Fiat, all Tata dealerships have yet to get Fiat products and many still dont service them.

Multijet is a sophisticated engine and I would rather trust Maruti with the service than some Fiat trained Tata dealer workshop who is used to working on miniature truck engines.

Feature for feature Palio MJD wins hands down, with the top end SDX being almost Rs. 20000.00 cheaper than the Swift VDi. Come to think of it the Swift Ldi does not even have basic safety features like the passenger seat head restraints, Central Locking, Tachometer and prismatic rear view mirror and luxuries such as power windows and cigarette lighter, which even Palio SDE comes with.

Anyway my test drive was over and I decided to take delivery of my Swift DDiS.

First impressions of the Palio Multijet ?? It makes a lot of noise and vibrates a lot, I feel even more than the old 1.9 Palio D.  Even Swift makes similar sounds but they don’t intrude into the cabin until around 1500 rpm, which is where I do most of my driving. At least I could not feel the vibrations in Swift. Palio seems to have forgotten some of its good points, while Maruti seems to have picked up a lot..

As much as I loved my Palio 1.2 I cannot forget that once it took Fiat 2 months to arrange for a rocker arm, and all the while I had drive with a damaged Rocker arm. Its only a Palio that could have survived being driven around with a damaged Rocker arm and it could have been only Fiat, which could have left its customers in a lurch like that. I could have forgotten that had they come up with something superlative, but this is quite ordinary, even though it costs less than the comparable Swift.

So even though I am diehard fan of Fiat and my heart says Palio, my brain ruled in the favour of Maruti Swift in-spite of all the wekanesses, for the sheer peace of mind that comes with it. I will allow Fiat some time to grow and become more experienced in manufacturing, selling and servicing before spending my lakhs of Rupees with them  Maybe it will be a beautiful Linea…..or something absolutely ravishing like the Bravo. But that is in future

I googled RDF and came up with all sorts of answers such as Resource Description Framework & Reality Distortion Field, which I think is a very apt for what I saw the other day.

Parachute, a well known brand promoted by Marico Industries is advertising one new ‘Hair Therapy’. Hair loss they say is caused by RDF. I have searched the net and came up with everything else but hair loss. To see whether it is something they have invented, i searched on Parachute+RDF and came up with Military sites related to paratroopers and other such junk, but no RDF, which causes Hair Loss.

I cannot remember the Brandname of the product that they are advertising, but I dont think its worth remembering.

The ad centres around 4 good looking women, who have been made to appear educated and independent. I wonder if the women who are as independent and as educated would not love to know what is this new devil called RDF, which is causing their hair to fall like dead leaves in autumn, before dumping the latest Parachute product on their already deteriorating pate.

They do show some very microscopic fine print in the ad at the bottom of the screen, but the women were so distracting that I could not read it.

Shah Rukh Khan appears on the screen and starts talking in his melodramatic best. He talks about this new Formula One team promoted by Vijay Mallaya. How this team is the best that could have happened to this country. How this is going to represent the dreams and aspirations of 1 Billion Indians. How India has arrived at the world scene, by having this new formula one team.

How is it a sport which barely anyone in this country follows or understands claim to have brought its 1 Billion on to the world stage? It’s Billion, half of whom; a staggering ½ a billion live well below Poverty Line, which means that they find it difficult to find one square meal a day !!

It does not mean that the other half are well off. At least 40 % of the other ½ a billion, a good 200 million, struggle through the day, trying to make ends meet.

Can Owners and promoters and Ambassadors of Team Force India, claim to represent such people who have hunger gnawing at their stomachs, disease in their bodies and worries lining their heads, when this India does not even have time and television to watch their exploits (whenever it is going to start).

The only people who have arrived are Vijaya Mallaya and Shah Rukh Khan.

I am not against having formula One teams but how it is being promoted as a pride of this absolutely impoverished country. How success and sheer wealth of a few is being represented as being one of the whole country. Frankly the way Vijay Mallaya goes around strutting his stuff is vulgar to say the least. Not to forget that he is also an MP of the Rajya Sabha. I wonder what kind of representation he is giving to Karnataka, in the upper house?

Shah Rukh Khan I thought was a man of integrity in the slimy world of filmdom. I thought he did things with his head, but No if you throw enough money, he will say anything on the screen.

Formula One as such is an unfair and elitist sport where the winners and losers are more or less already decided at the beginning of the race. What chance does anybody starting in the eighth row have of winning? What chance does a team who is using Ferrari’s or Honda’s last years engine has of competing with them this year?

How can a sport where people start one behind the other, claim to represent One Billion hopes and dreams? It can only represent those who are on the pole position, at the head of the starting grid.

Do they know what are the hopes and dreams of the rest of one billion ?

It seems they do.

Where are we headed……

Three Cheers for Thackeray and co. who could not bear the anonymity of their Marathi Name ‘Thakare’ and changed it to sound and appear more distinguished and English.

Are these the same people who are appealing to Marathi Pride (or Inferiority complex)?  Do they actually know who was Shiv and what did he stand for?  Does he really know the meaning of ‘Navnirman’? So this young Thackeray did not get his share of moolah in the original ‘Shiv Sena’ so he decided to float his own gang of hoodlums.  How does he differentiate himself and his pack from the original Shiv Sena, who was already venomously xenophobic ?  Very simple….take your xenophobia to the streets, be one up on the Shiv Sena.

Things do not seem to be so simple as they are made out to be. Why is he targetting only the North Indians (People from UP, Bihar)…because these people are poor and powerless to oppose. They clean the streets, drive taxi’s & rickshaws, work as construction labour, carry head loads, sell vegetables and are literally carrying the city on their shoulders. They have virtually shunted out the more relaxed local Marathi out of the trades at the lower spectrum, by their hard work and sheer endurance to inhuman living and work conditions that the city subjects its poorest to. Very few Marathi’s with their pride (or conceit) will work these trades.

Some of them are second or third generation and have got some education and are now begining to bite at the white collar jobs that most educated Marathi’s held in Private sector and government.

Why dont these people target Gujratis, Marwaris, Parsis, Shetty’s……….Its not that simple…. they are seriously monied. Mumbai pays 60% of India’s Income Tax, where does this tax come from?? Its easy to attack a cart puller but very difficult to put a hand on an Ambani or Tata or Birla for that matter. Marathi mannoos will not have any where to work if these people shift shop.  And kind of corruption that we have in this country its not too difficult to understnad that nobody attacks the hand that feeds.

So at the end its about Predation…..Thackeray wants to survive in an increasingly divided country and polity and he does what is easiest ot do. Marathi pride is the only one he can appeal to. Kill a few street labour in the bargain damage a few properties and voila I have a political career !

So what is this Marathi pride and respect for Marathi culture? I for one admire Maratha Valour stemming primarily out of my knowledge of Shiv and the Maratha Light Infantry. I love their Pav Bhaji, Wada Pav and spicy fich curry and am titilated by Lavani theatre. I dont speak Marathi  but I know many North Indians and others who can.

What more does Marathi culture stand for to a common man? I wonder if even Thackeray & Co can explain that? Have Marathi people worked to popularise their culture? Who watches Marathi films? Who reads Marathi literature?

I think Thackeray & Co will do much better justice to Marathi culture by opening a touring theatre company.

So are we headed for disintegration of this country?

Gujrati pride, Marathi pride, Tamil pride, Uttar Bharat pride, Naga  pride, Oriya Pride, Bengali Pride, Asamiya Pride, Kannada pride……..the list is long. We have already seen the effect of Punjabi/ Sikh pride on this country and are bearing the brunt of Kashmiri pride……

DO we need any more prides?

Why dont these people die early deaths?

Normally I do not approve of starting another column with same topic, but here I would like to make an exception.

As I came back from work I found my wife happily going through my blog and sniggering away at something that somebody had responded to. On closer inspection it turned out that my earlier column has been noticed by the Whirlpool guys and here was no less than Customer Care head responding to my small column.

 He writes, “Dear Customer, Could you please let me know your name and telephone number so that we can arrange to address your complaint asap. Thanks!”. 

Anybody who has gone through the previous article will immediately know that the events in question have already happened and the refrigerator in question has also been repaired. But here is this highly educated gentleman who refuses to understand that. I do not blame him. He has probably tried to get the general idea of the nature of this useless column by reading the first few lines and concluded that it’s a complaint as usual….Ha how boring!!…why don’t people die before they complain……. He probably is heading the ‘Customer Care’ department, which is understaffed, overworked and underpaid and simply does not have the time to go through the full 1000 words.

Anyway he is apparently quite powerful as I received no less than 4 calls one after the other starting from bottom to the top man, the head of Customer Care of Kerala itself. It was fun to listen to their polite concern about the general health of my refrigerator and whether it has affected my emotional balance.

Apparently none of them had read the full article and were groping in dark what was actually that I had written and where. It seems Delhi did not send in the complete picture.

Anyway if they had actually intended to do something about it they should have responded to my Complaint posted on their website 2 months back or at least installed telephones that go to somebody’s desk.

So this is the end…..my friends of the whirlpool story. Let me pick some other ‘Customer is the King/ queen’ company to bash next time.

I was on a lookout for a new refrigerator as my old one was proving to be too small. So we decided to purchase a bigger model and promptly decided to make use of Onam season discount sales that we have here in Kerala.

Since Whirlpool is a highly advertsied brand  and we liked the looks and the price so we brought it home.

It was working very nicely for a week then suddenly one day the door hinge broke. I mean the DOOR HINGE, not anything even remotely high tech such as a compressor or the condensor. I would have felt better had some technology gone phut on me. No here was a measly door hinge.

Anyway I promptly called up the service franchisee here in Kottayam and they promptly sent a person to check up who promptly informed me that the spare hinge is not available and it will take 20 days to recieve it. I blew my top but since I am inept in Malayalam abuses I could not convey my true feelings. In present age of overnight couriers it is funny that a spare part should take 20 days to come from anywhere.

I decided to send a feedback directly to Whirlpool India and called up their Gurgaon numbers mentioned on the warranty card. I got sick of calling but I could not even manage to get an operator. I went high-tech and opened their website and lo and behold, they had a consumer feedback and complaints form, which I filled up and submitted with a lot of anxiety. As was expected I did not recieve any reply and am still waiting.

Anyway I was now totally on edge and decided to take up the matters locally and called up the service franchisee and poured all the venom I could manage in English and Hindi. He understood that if nothing is done he will face a court case and will get beaten up.

Next day the service fellow sent the spare, but which he did not fix properly, so that cool air was leaking between door and body. Again after some bouts of shouting, the fellow came again and refixed it, this time correctly.

So after suffering 4 days with a broken Refrigerator, I had my peace of mind.

Not attending to complaints and giving all sorts of excuses may be an indian trait, where consumer rights movement is not very active. But an american multi-national ignoring such a thing is a bit too much. They would have had to probably pay compensation to the customer for causing injury in US or Europe. I should have filed the case but I decided to save my 500 Rs. and some court time, the lazy bum that I am.

Probably they spend so much money on advertisements, branding  and salaries of their fat executives that nothing is left after that to do customer service.

Conclusion : Do not buy a whirlpool Refrigerator. At least if you are in India.

You can also read the second part of the experience here

UpDate : Inbetween the same door hinge broke again. And on 23.08.2008 the same door hinge broke again for a third time.

The General has done it again, his second coup. For a country used to martial law and presidents wearing uniforms the reaction has been startling to say the least. We have these lawyers, judges, educated middle class and chic women dressed in equally fashionable hijabs hurling stones at police and army. In fact in most of the coverage on international TV you see only the intelligentsia of the country taking to the streets. Poor and generally downtrodden types are conspicuous by their absence or have they resigned themselves to their fate, which will remain the same, whoever is in the government?

A cynic that I am would think that the protests are stage managed and meant to give post General mileage to the protesting high heeled guys. But keeping that aside I really admire the zeal with which the educated middle class, the professionals, who would think ten times about getting their hands dirty, people who would carry on with the business trying to ‘Manage’, finding a middle path,  have come out enmass to protest against the General’s high handedness.

Actually General did this at a wrong time. I think Pakistanis have evolved. They got an education, have travelled, are on the net and learnt about the world more than Mullahs would allow them to, right under the noses of the Military-Mullah combine.

Compare this to Indian intelligentsia, educated middle class, Business class and professionals. Comfortably going about the business and even profiting from the rank corruption that is pervading our daily lives. Not a day passes when I do not see an instance of somebody making a quick buck out of somebody else’s misery. We are no better than a dictatorship or maybe a dictatorship of say something like Old Iraq, Cuba or even China is better than the stifling polity that we call democracy. The whole thing has become an ugly symbiosis of sorts. You scratch mine and I’ll Scratch yours.

A doctor who overcharges and over-prescribes is happy to pay a politician or a babu to get his measly clinic certified as a research centre. A businessman who has never paid any taxes is also too happy pay police to lathi charge his own workers. Not to speak of politicians, who it seems were born without souls. Corrupt lawyers, judges, babus, police, even some in the army….where does it all end. When was the last time we saw educated middle class protest against anything other than price rise?

Why should I blame others when I myself belong to the same group?