Thatched House

The meeting started exactly at 1:00 pm as scheduled. The chairman made a few opening remarks and the participants took their time one after the other, not hurried but also not wasting time. There were four speeches. The chairman also shared a thought from experience, fitting to the occasion. There was a song and a recitation, both done very nicely. Then there was ‘vote of thanks’ during which refreshment was distributed to everyone. And so, in exactly 47 minutes, I came out of the function held today at Secretariat conference hall in observance of World No Tobacco Day (supposed to be tomorrow, 31 st May, but observed today because tomorrow is a Sunday). Time management was excellent.   The reason I kept track of the time wa s that I attended a jubilee program last winter which went on for 4 hours, and another church program recently which lasted 3 hours. Next time, I will think twice before going for a program in those places. If I speak for half an hour too long...

Me to Airtel   28/05/2015 12:22:50 PM Dear Sir/Madam, On 26th May at 10: 50 AM, I got the sms from 121: 'Airtel 3G pack will expire tomorrow . Recharge with 3G before expiry & carry forward unused 3G bal....' So, immediately I recharged with Rs. 155 and got this sms at 11:01 AM 'Your airtel mobile 8974450*** online recharge txn ID 193297 of Rs. 155 is processed successfully....' But this morning (28/05/15), I received this sms that I don't have any internet balance: 'Aapke Internet pack ki validity samapt ho gayi hai! Ab usage aapke main a/c se katega....' So, I called 121 and asked the balance. There is 2G and 3G balance but why is the unused 3G balance not carried forward? Yours faithfully Dr. Sao Tunyi Airtel to me Date: Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:52 PM Dear Dr. Sao Tunyi , This is in reference to your email dated on 28/05/2015 inquiring about the carry forward of the ...

Guest Editorial, Morung Express There was a time when people would remember each other’s phone numbers and birthdays. Before that, there was a time when people would remember the date and all the tiny details of events. The Japanese invasion, British expedition, the Indian army operations, and all the important date in the Naga national movement are still fresh in the minds of old folks that leave the Google generation dumbfounded. Whole stories are in memory so that good old story tellers can narrate them like reading out a novel. But we have facebook to remind us of friends’ birthdays and we sometimes forget our own phone number. We look up to Google for any information under the sun. But nothing comes out from memory when the occasion demands. So, we keep our phones/laptops like they are an extension of our brains. Ours is a generation which lives on sound bites. Twitter people cannot bear to sit through a long sermon. We hate narratives. We want our storie...

Morung Express editorial http://morungexpress.com/mobile-and-internet-woes/ Have you ever heard on your phone, ‘Sorry for the inconvenience of our poor network, we are refunding the amount to your balance’? Absolutely never! You pay for every dropped call and lack of voice clarity. For phone calls which are received but you are not able to talk because of poor network, you pay each and every time. Even though the network is as bad as a Chinese radio station signal, the telecom providers’ ability to cut your balance is Mach 3 razor sharp. Sometimes, you don’t see any signal and your call didn’t go through, but somehow they manage to cut your balance. When there is a drizzle, the 3G signals seem to be pulled down by the tiny water droplets. When there is heavy rain, even the 2G signals are flushed down the drains. But 4G advertisements are starting to come out. The commercials will get louder and louder until you are brainwashed to think that if you don’...

When I go to office every morning, office colleagues wish me ‘good morning sir’. I also wish them back, ‘good morning’. When I meet my superiors, I wish them ‘good morning madam’ or ‘good morning sir’. And they wish me back, ‘good morning’. What is there in this to warrant a blog post? It is not a weight y issue but what I observed is that some class II and III colleagues would greet me as sir since I am a class I person, but some class IV staffs like peons would greet me ‘good morning’. There is no ‘sir’. I would let things pass.  Now, if the issue is that I want to be called ‘sir’ by all those who are below me by rank, I wouldn’t have taken the route of writing a blog pos t because it is less likely reach the intended audience . It is not an issue to wish a class II or III person as sir/madam. Due to seniority, we may wish a colleague as sir/madam. Or when we are visiting another office and meeting an equal rank person or lower, we may greet her as madam out of respe...