OFF WITH THE OLD. . . . .

I am being wooed.

Sms-s, emails, phone calls, the whole works. Day in and day out. But my reaction is silence, an impassive silence, while I rub my hands together in glee.

When I needed your help, you never paid me the slightest attention, ignored my phone calls, and sent me vacuous emails full of no information.

Now you beg and persuade, plead and beseech me to renew my association with you.
Thanks, but no thanks.

I have found someone new, who is just perfect for me.

BSNL - my new service provider.

No more waits of up to seven days while cable problems (which were as frequent as once a month) were sorted out. No more of having to talk to courteous, yet indifferent, call centre employees, who insisted on being civil, full of empty politeness, but were of no help at all. No more calling them up and not getting any feedback.

I only have to open the Internet, and there I am connected immediately and am ready to surf.

Or so I thought . . . . When suddenly two days ago I found that I could not connect to the net. I called their Call Centre. The line was busy for very long, and I could not get through at once. But once I did, the person there, without being obsequious, very clearly told me (without any ornamental flourish - no ‘have a great day’, no ‘thanks for calling us’)that my problem would be addressed as soon as possible.

When I called the person who had come home to connect us to the service, he said he would come to check the lines. But before the appointed time he called to say exactly what the problem was. It was a major one, with the server being down, and so he would not be visiting since it was not a problem related to our line. I appreciated that service. The connection was restored without much delay the same day. A nice change. The next day the newspapers reported a major snag in the BSNL service, which had disrupted connections state wide.

I am happy now, though I realise that if our telephone lines go, so would the broadband connection. But I am prepared to take that chance.