My country is better than yours....

Does anything work in order out here?

Nothing works. The mobile phone network doesn't, the internet doesn't, online websites don't, nothing does.

On the way back home from work today, i was on call and the call must've dropped a million times. I get back home and the internet wont connect at once. I must try 3 times or more to connect to it. Whats worse? It wont connect at all after 10pm everyday. And i pay for more download capacity after 10PM.

For the last 3 days i have been on call with the great Reliance people where this extremely patient lady reminds me how important my call is and that i must stay on the call because i am such an important customer. Then, when she finally allows me to proceed, another lady tells me how i can check the data usage on the Reliance website. Well lady, exactly how do you expect me to check the data usage ONLINE when you stupid network wont connect to the internet?

And this irritating circus plays out every single day! Everyday!

When i see these management honchos and business tycoons raving about how India is moving closer to be a global force to reckon with, maybe someone should ask them to go take a stroll through the numerous slums in every city, take a deep breath inside the city and get through one call when you realise that suddenly the network is just not there.

As Sandeep said today, the CEOs of these mobile network companies should be made to get onto call to strike a business deal and talk about how stable their network is, only to have the call dropped off at that exact instant. That's apparently the best way to make them realise how poor the services they provide are.

How do they call our country great when the most basic amenities aren't made available to all? How do they call our country great when the monthly income of most of the nation is probably less than 1000rs? How do they call this country great when volvo buses disposed of by the Europe countries are dumped into cities here and we rave and rant about it?

Our refusal to understand and adapting to a changing world will leave us stuck in the same rut as we are now. We are still stuck to blind faiths, century old customs which have no relevance to the current era and maintain enough public hygiene to give a housefly some disease.

I was reading this interesting article in the newspaper. More a situational article:

3 Indians and a foreigner were sitting in a train compartment. The Indians kept asking irrelevant questions to the foreigner such as the train system in his country, the food available there, the language spoken there, etc. And by some inexplicable logic arrived at a conclusion that India is much better in those aspects, especially in culture, than his country is.

After reaching this brilliant conclusion, they crushed the paper they had used to wrap some food and threw it on the floor, dropped the plastic cups onto the floor and slept.

The poor guy looks down only to see what was a neat floor turned into a garbage bin, sighs and goes to sleep.

So much for our culture, huh? Is this how we define ourselves?

Anyway, that was the article.

The reliance lady is still telling me how important my call is by the way... Isn't she bored. For the number of times i've heard this over the last 45 minutes, i should feel like the President of India.