Why do we need BMW or Benz? Is Maruthi Not Enough?

Whenever few people talk about cars at length, then definitely somebody or other says something like Why do we need BMW or Benz? Is Maruthi Not Enough? Till a month back, I used to think that, it is a waste of money to spend more than the basic limit on cars. I had to change my mind after one incident on Sep 7th.

On September 7th, one engineering student who is a son of a big business magnet was travelling in Honda Accord. He was driving very rashly, and at one place, he lost the control of the vehicle and it hit the divider and fell on a Tata Indica car that was coming in the opposite direction. There were four people in that car, and two people died on the spot, and one person died after few days. The driver escaped with injuries.

But, nothing happened to the student who was driving rashly. Honda Accord has all the security measures, and even in the worst accidents, the people escape with no injuries or very minor injuries. He escaped without any injuries, but, still, he joined the most expensive hospital in Hyderabad, and took the most expensive room that hospital offers, only to escape from the police and court cases.

My friend's friend's brother is one of the three people who died in that accident. After that incident, I realized that, BMW or Benz is never a waste of money. It is just that, since, we cannot afford it, we don't buy. But, if we can afford it, it is definitely worth the money. Had those people were travelling in any expensive vehicles which have all the security measures, nothing would have happened to them.

Airtel From Best to Worst

In 2005

I had airtel internet connection, and had a normal modem. I was told that ADSL modem is better, and I called the customer care at 11 PM for ADSL modem. Next day morning by 11 AM, I got ADSL modem.

Once I returned from my home town at around 1 PM. When I came home, I realized that, both airtel phone and internet connection are not working. The reason that I came to know later was, the wires were cut, and they had to get new wires and set it up. By 3.30 PM, both phone and internet connection were working. Within 2.5 hours, they came to my house, found that, the wires were cut, they returned to office and brought wires to my house, and arranged everything. For a home connection, by any standard, it was too fast.

In 2010

If you have not bashed the customer care already from the number that you have, or if your profile looks like you are a normal person, then by default, airtel activates many services for you. For any service, the minimum charge is Re.1 per day, and if they activate three services, you will be paying Rs.90 per month. If you call the customer care, they would say that, you have accepted the service when you received the call. If you say that, you did not get any call, they just do not listen.

Recently, I took a new airtel number. After some time, I saw a message on my cell. It is not an SMS. It is like a message that is displayed after the call is ended to display the balance and expiry date etc. It said some thing like, "blah blah blah..To activate this service, click ok. To do not activate this service, click back". If anyone does not read that message or does not understand the message, they would click only ok. That is the acceptance of activating the service, and they would just activate it.

You cannot call karnataka customer care from outside karnataka. You can call only from karnataka number. If you are outside, and if your karnataka number is not working, you have no way of getting help unless you goto karnataka or you take help of people in karnataka (except airtel customer care people). If your number is AP's number, then you just cannot call customer care from outside AP, even from working AP's number.

Around a month back, I got message that, I have to submit id and address proofs. I submitted within a week, and I was still getting the messages. I called the customer care and asked about it. They said, if I had submitted the docs, then I can ignore that message. Those messages are sent to everyone, and there is no filtering of the numbers. I was moving out of AP, and one day before moving out, I went to airtel office, and asked whether I need to submit the docs again. They said, it is not required. after, I moved out of AP, they blocked my number. I could not call customer care of AP from outside AP, and the customer care people in the state I am staying said, they cannot help it. I had to call my friends in AP and they called customer care number from airtel number (from other phones, it won't work) and with lot of fight they activated it and they told that, if I don't submit the documents, it would be deactivated in three days. Airtel people misplaced my documents, and now, I had to spend lot of time and effort and take help of many other people to activate it again.

I don't think other service providers are any better. Eventhough, the service of Airtel is very bad, still it is better among the worst service providers. So, I don't think I will shift to other service providers soon. I may keep other providers just as a backup.

Cheating in Business Vs Cheating in Captial

You and your friend wanted to start a business together. You started the business informally without much legal formalities, since, you believe your friend. After couple of years, when the business is at it's peak, your friend thrown you out of the business by paying peanuts. Since, your friend handled most of the legal formalities and everything was under his name, you cannot even take him to court. Essentially, you lost everything.

How do you want to criticize him? Do you want to beat him or kill him? Please keep that anger for few more minutes.

People of different areas together developed one city and that city started generating lot of revenue for the entire state. Now, the people surrounding that city want a separate state for themselves so that, they get exclusive rights on that city, and other people will lose their share on the revenue of that city.

This scenario is exactly same as the above scenario. If you had become angry by reading the first scenario, please show the same anger on the people who are looting in the second scenario.

Don't talk Negatively

If somebody likes you so much, then don't talk negatively with them about them. If you tell them like, You will not get it, You cannot do it, or You will lose it, then that may really happen.

Anti Trust Law Against A.P.S.R.T.C

A big bank comes up with an offer that, if anybody purchases anything with their credit card, then they would get 2% cash back on the purchases. Other small banks cannot give the same offer, because, it would incur too much loss for them. With that, everyone takes the credit card of the big bank. Once, the small companies go out of business, the big bank cancels all the offers.

If there are multiple players in the market competing with each other, then the consumer gets the best deal. If a big player kills all the small players, and there is only one provider for the service, then the consumer never gets the good deal.

Anti trust law makes sure that, a big player does not kill the small players and becomes monopoly. Practically, Anti trust law is not required if there many players of equal capacity. It is required, if there is only one big player or all the big players are united.

In Hyderabad, everyday many people travel between Mehdipatnam and Gachibowli Financial District (where lot of IT companies are there). It is one of the few routes, where the no.of passengers is huge. Travelling by bus at any time is a pain in that route. During peak time, it is not even possible to enter the bus. That's why, most of the IT people take share autos to travel in this route. Few months back, suddenly, I observed the reduction in the no.of share autos in this route. I was wondering what happened suddenly. The reason was, APSRTC increased no.of buses significantly, and people can sit and travel during the peak time. I thought it was the greatest thing done by the APSRTC in years.

After a month or two, APSRTC reduced the no.of buses back to their normal. But, once in a while, I see many buses in that route, but, not everytime. After that, those who are travelling in that route by using public transport (bus or share auto) are waiting minimum half an hour to one hour.

When the APSRTC increased the no.of buses significantly, people started using buses instead of share autos. So, the business of share autos went down in that route, and probably, they shifted to different routes. Once the no.of share autos went down in that route, APSRTC reduced the no.of buses. For an auto person, who does not have any other income, he would prefer consistent income every day, rather than with ups and downs. If they are getting consistent income from the route they are traveling, they will not change their route to less consistent one. So, after the reduction of the no.of buses in that route, the share autos did not increase. Because of that, those whoever is traveling by that route are waiting minimum half an hour.

APSRTC is a very big player and it is a monopoly in public transport (in Andhra Pradesh). The share autos are very small players. When APSRTC increased the no.of buses, the share autos had to move to different route. Once they moved to different route, APSRTC reduced the no.of buses to their normal. It essentially killed the small players without increasing the service.

If this has been in US, APSRTC can be prosecuted and severely fined under Anti Trust Law. But, unfortunately, India does not have strong laws in this. If we have that law and really apply on everyone who violates it, then except P.V.Narasimha Rao, Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, all the prime ministers would be in jail forever.

Workaround for those who travel in that route

If you are going from Mehdipatnam to IIIT/Wipro/Infosys, take the share auto that goes to Kondapur, and get down at Gachibowli or Kothaguda. From there, you can take another share auto to IIIT/Wipro/Infosys. If you are returning from Wipro/Infosys/DLF, take share auto to Kothaguda, and from there, you can take to Mehdipatnam. Never get down at IIIT. If you get down at IIIT, you will be stuck, since, it is difficult to get share autos to Lingampally/Mehdipatnam/Kothaguda from IIIT. If you get down at IIIT, and want to go immediately, then the only option would be going to Infosys and from there taking share auto to Kothaguda.

This option will cost more. But, we don't have an option, since we elected the party which follows socialistic economics.