So, yesterday as I’m sitting down to log on to the system—I get this payment reminder that I have an outstanding amount of rs. 299 or something on my balance, and that until it’s been paid I won’t be allowed to access my account, hence the internet—and this is the exact same shit that had been going on with my mother—the constant messages that she had to pay the remaining balance that was due within a certain date, or she’d be kicked out (the connection’s in my mom’s name, so I had no idea that this had been going on for quite a while) but if she had no unpaid debts then she could just disregard the sms’s, which she’d been doing for all these days…
Well, yesterday I get a call on her cell and pick it up, and it’s some girl from Beam informing me that my services are going to be cut if I don’t pay the outstanding debt… and I say what??? What amount, cos I just reimbursed you guys like one month back when I got the 6 month package instead of the one year subscription which I always get since I’ll be moving this year and I don’t know when or where, so wasn’t sure if you guys would be providing your services wherever I’d land up… and she said, no, but you see your amount is due and (I’m not sure what she said, cos I’ve been in her shoes doing her job, so I know how stressful it can get, but here’s what I heard) you’ll have to pay it or you’ll be disconnected from the internet… and I just couldn’t tolerate that.
And my blood-pressure just started to skyrocket now to a whole ‘nother level, like stratospheric kind of high, and I didn’t know what to do, so I told her, “so wait, you’re telling me that my connection’s going to be disconnected now, even though I’ve just bought another package from you guys last month, whose bill I have by the way… wait, just give me a minute, and I’ll go and get it… right, here it is, it’s a Balakrishnan who had made it out to me on the 5th of February for 3300 rupees, and nowhere did he stipulate that I would have to be paying you guys an additional 300 rupees no sooner than one month after it’d been installed… after which she hung up all of a sudden, so I thought that’d be the last I’d be hearing about this shit again, thank god.
But then yesterday as I’m sitting down to log on to the internet just before it’s time for the power cut (power cuts in India are a common thing in the summers, in fact the only place that I’ve heard of where the power’s never cut in India, is in Mumbai, and that’s the city, because my uncle who runs a factory on the outskirts does have to face it, at least the one or two times when I’d been there)… anyway, so the power cuts here in Hyderabad, in my area, are from 9 am to 10 am, and then from 2 pm to 3 pm… so that’s 2 hours, compared to some places which have to stay without it for 4 to 5 hours at a time… so as I’m sitting down to log on I see the same exact message that I’d been talking about with the girl a few days ago, and I’m livid, and I want to march up to the Beam telecom’s offices (which as luck would have it are right next door, like a minute or two from my place) and give them a piece of my mind… which is exactly what I end up doing…
I put on my slippers, and walk to the place (it has a bank on its ground floor, and then something else with a shutter on the first, and then an office which had just opened up for the day on the second… so I go inside and search around to see if anyone’s there, but it looked like the cleaning work was in progress, so I went and made myself comfortable in the office, and as I was just about to sit down a young girl appeared at the front desk so I went and asked her when the agents would be arriving so that I could speak to one of them, and I don’t know what she heard because she wasn’t able to understand English and told me that she’d get Madam, so I said, fine, and was waiting to see who’d come and it turned out to be someone who was very articulate and explained to me how the offices downstairs not having anything to identify themselves with always invariably end up getting their customers, to which I apologized and left, with her adding that they wouldn’t open for another half an hour at least, and me thanking her on my way down.
Well, I walked back home (the power was gone by now for the next hour) and so mom suggested that I do the upstairs mopping until then. I decided that it would be the perfect diversion for me to keep myself occupied till ten. An hour later, I decided to go back to Beam and decided that I was going to be as cool as I could, under the circumstances, and let off all the steam that I had accumalated… the lady upstairs was a big help… and so as I stepped into the Telecom offices again and went into the section where all the agents were housed (someone asked me whom did I want, and I said Balakrishnan, and was pointed to the last aisle) where I was lucky enough to meet this great guy called Kalyan who turned out to be a god send. Even though it took me two more visits to the office to get my problem rectified—he ended up not only giving me his cell number, but also saw to it that everything was in working order… someone was charging me for the shifting of the account that I’d told Balakrishnan about, even though I hadn’t done it yet; I think he’d made a note of it and people at the head office assumed that I‘d already done it. I had to come back a fourth time though only because I wanted to thank Kalyan personally for his help that day after my connection had been restored.
And the vegetable seller, well, she has her own stall outside my house, and has been here for over ten years now, I think. And I’ve been seeing her, and her husband since the beginning, with her eldest son at first, who now works at Hitech City somewhere, and then the younger one too, who’s now doing his final year of engineering (who I actually bumped into yesterday)… it feels good when you run into people who’re working really hard to get somewhere and are able to finally taste the fruits of their struggles sometimes.
