The View

We moved to a new house recently. The main reason for moving was to get some peace in the house. Our earlier house, though small and sweet, had serious problems of neighbors. They used to be up the entire night watching TV and talking loudly over the phone. Request and arguments did not make any difference. That is when we decided to move to the adjacent block and this time our requirement was simple. Forest facing, corner flat. If you are wondering what this forest is, it is a 'mini-forest' as it is famously called. You can get a glimpse of it on Google Earth. Finally we did find a flat that met our requirements and additionally, it also has a beautiful view of the forest from the hall and the balcony. Though the rent is on the higher side than we wished for, we took the plunge.

Since it is a corner flat, there is abundant light and air. It has three balconies, so I can increase my stock of plants. We have reserved one balcony as the hobby balcony. This is where I do most of my knitting these days. The view of the forest from this balcony is lovely. There is total peace here, except for the crows, sparrows, cuckoos and squirrels. No, squirrels don't make noise, but they visit us often to see if I have kept some nuts for them, you know, just in case. I had put out some dates in the sun to dry and after a few days, there was not even one left! I keep a diya for the tulasi and one squirrel promptly comes every day and sucks out the oil in it. It has a schedule - every single day it comes at the same time. I wonder how these animals keep track of time. Advanced biological clock?



Thanks to the light and air, my plants are doing very well here. We bought this plant 3 years back hoping to see lovely flowers on it. No such luck until we moved to this house. It has a beautiful pink flower now and the plant looks much healthier.



And this is the beautiful view from our hall balcony. It is all green as far as you can see. With yesterday's rain and today's cloudy weather, the view is breath taking.



I know, this post is too personal for my taste. I have been staying at home since a week now (that is fodder for another post) and have been enjoying every single moment and I wanted to gloat! This bliss is partly because of the isolation and the peace that this house provides. And did I mention the view?

Work is worship

We all know how government offices work. But have you ever called a government call center? I did. For the past two weeks, I and my husband have been calling the BSNL call center every day. Yeah, you read that right. Every Single Day.

We have BSNL broadband connection which was working just fine. Except for the frequent outage on weekends, it was fine. One fine morning, it refused to connect. Authentication failure, apparently. There was no reason why it should just stop working.

We called their call center the first day. It took us around 15 minutes to get through the terrible music and speak to a human. He made us go through the standard procedure - reenter all data and reboot the modem. When that didn't work, he promptly told us that the server is down. The same thing repeated the next few days. Thus started the saga of get back home from work, dial the number, listen to the wonderful music, finally get through the call, explain the problem, do the standard procedure and realize the server is down and then hang up.

I gave up and almost decided to dump BSNL and go for Airtel. My husband has a lot of patience than me and kept trying. Two days back, may be it was my husband's luckiest day, our call was answered by a person who knew what he was talking about. He told us that all usernames which have underscores and hyphens in them have been disabled. That made sense because there was no reason why the connection should stop working one fine day. He said he has to create a new username for us, but couldn't do so now because the server was down. He asked us to call the next day.

So... we called yesterday and our luck apparently ran out and our call was answered by some moron. We told him about this username thing and he had no clue what we were talking about. No matter how we tried to explain, he just refused to create a new username and even said that usernames can be created only at the local exchange. My husband asked him to handover the call to the person who answered our call the previous day. That guy gave some lame excuse that the other person was not available or some such thing and we hung up.

We sulked and sighed and finally decided that we are going to say bye-bye to BSNL. That's when our phone rang. Guess what? It was the same guy who told us about this username problem. He took the trouble of looking up our number and calling us. He even created a username and again guess what? It worked! Ecstatic is not the word, but I will use it anyway. We couldn't thank him enough and asked him if there is any way we can let his supervisor know about this wonderful deed. He gave us an email id where we can send a thank you mail, but I don't think anyone is going to read that. So here I am, thanking our angel and our saviour from the bottom of my heart and my husband's heart.

This post is not about how BSNL just decided to change all usernames without informing the customers or the customer care staff. It is not about how incompetent most of the call center staff are. This post is about that one person who stands out from the rest of the crowd because he cares about his customers, takes his work seriously and thus made a difference in someone's life. Vinod Kumar B R, if you are reading this, you retained a BSNL customer. More importantly, you taught us what is the meaning of 'work is worship' and made us realize that we should apply the same thing at our work place, and also that we can leave a mark in this world and make a difference no matter who you are. Thank You.

It's not about the money

A few weeks back, my maid decided to go on a vacation. She would be gone for a week so I asked her to find a replacement. She found a lady who was part of the housekeeping staff who was willing to do so.

The lady religiously came to work for the next few days. She wasn't great with her work, but I had to put up with what I had. She was talkative and very rude. I didn't bother much about her behavior since she would be gone after a few days anyway. On the last day of her work I paid her for her services. I didn't have change, so gave her a big note and asked her to return the change of Rs.20. I told her to hand it over to my maid. She nodded and left.

I informed my maid about this money business and asked her to collect it from the lady. For 3 weeks there was no sign of this housekeeping lady. The manager informed me she was on leave. I was almost sure I will never get my money back. Meanwhile, my maid happened to spot the lady somewhere and asked her about the money. The lady flatly refused! When my maid told me about this, I was furious. I had decided to let go of my money, but when I heard this from my maid, I pledged to get every penny that the lady owed me.

I searched for this lady high and low and finally found her one day. I asked her for the money and she had the audacity to ask me, "Why should I give you money?" I was shocked. That was MY money, isn't that a reason enough? I wanted to tell her that we don't grow money on trees, but before I could give her a piece of my mind, the manager interfered. He asked the lady to return the money and she did.

As I was walking back with the money clutched in my hand, I heard this lady mutter, "So much of drama for just 20 Rs.?" I wanted to tell her "It is not about the money", but I have a feeling she wouldn't understand.

Being nice to rude people

During our routine post-lunch chit-chat, my friend made a gem of a statement - “It is easy being nice to nice people, but how can you be nice to rude people?”

I had been thinking about it for some days now and I was shocked when she made that statement. It was as if she was reading my mind. Many people would term it as a co-incidence, but I believe that incidents happen for a reason. This was no co-incidence. This was His way of sending a message across. But, I digress.

So, as soon as she said it, the words struck me. Few of my acquaintances are extremely sweet to me- always ready to help in any way they can, and I too reciprocate. I try to be nice to them as much as I can and all is well.

For the past few days, I am trying to be nice to people, and no where near being successful. I try to think before uttering a word so as not to offend anyone. But, whenever I encounter rude people, caution goes flying out of the window. Their act might be intentional or unintentional, but the point is they are rude. I find myself reciprocating in this case too. I use harsh words, sarcastic tone and I get a warm, fuzzy feeling for settling scores with them.

I know a few people who are nice to everybody. Even if someone is rude to them, they smile and act as if nothing happened - not a glimpse of anger, no teeth-grinding. I wonder how they can be nice to people who are mean to them?

Harsh words don’t upset them? Or they do get upset, but are capable of hiding it so well? Do they smile and bear with it only to bitch later and vent their anger? Do they feel superior to the other set and prove their superiority by forgiving? Do they feel sorry for the lesser mortals and hope they rise above the sins? Or is the secret word empathy here?

I will go on asking questions, but will never get a definitive answer. In effect, we come back to the statement we started with: “It is easy being nice to nice people, but how can you be nice to rude people?”

Your thoughts?

Live a happier life

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

When these words figure in the About section of this blog, the blog can't be anything but interesting.

Zen Habits is a blog which strives to make its readers happier, inculcate good habits, share tips about leading a simple, yet fruitful life and in general, improve their quality of life. These might seem to be harder to achieve goals, but the author with his simple-to-read and easy-to-follow posts makes it look like a cake walk.

I had been trying to wake up early everyday. As a godsend, I found a link to this article on lifehacker. The post is so powerful that it tempts you to wake up early and catch the sunrise. I am going to follow the tips given in this post and see if I can make waking up early a habit.

Another gem I found is the article on developing compassion for others. I just love this quote from His Holiness Dalai Lama:

"Today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can." - Dalai Lama