Air-Conditioners: the Voltas experience

It is that time of the year when we, of the middle class, run to buy the Air Conditioners hoping to be able to cash in on an off-season discount.
Well, we had done the same the last year at this time, buying two ACs, one for self and one for son's room.
After a diligent research for a month, my son assured me that  the best product is a 1.5 ton Whirlpool Master Mind. We have a Whirlpool refrigerator which has been working silently and efficiently for the last 7 years 
Despite these two factors in favor of a Whirlpool product, I went for the 1.5 ton Voltas Vertis saying that it is a known product; it has been around for the longest period known; it is recommended by people who have been using it for years etc...
I guess these are signs of my growing old when I rely on the safety net of 'tested' rather than the 'unknown and untested'
Now came the ordeal of having them mounted. 
Be prepared for a lot of noise, dust and dirt for at least 5 hours and the cleaning that you are left with at the end of the work. There is dust everywhere. So I covered the beds, my desktop everything with a dust cloth before the work commenced. We had two sets of mechanics representing each of these companies and also two sources of noises of drilling emanating from two different rooms. Also if you aren't careful, they will leave the drilled holes agape.You need ensure that they seal those holes.
We barely managed to have food amidst all the noise and dust. At the end of the day when they left, I simply collapsed on my bed feeling drained from all that noise, clutter and chaos.
This is not the end of the story. In less than two months of use, in the middle of the night I woke up to a tremendous noise. Heart beating wildly, I started looking for the source of the noise and realized that the noise was emanating from the AC. Startled and fearful, I switched off the AC first and went out to the balcony to examine the reason. I found nothing in the darkness. The next day we found that one of the wings of the fan had broken and hence the noise.

The one-winged fan

What we found when it was opened

The damage done by the broken wings of the fan

Broken into smithereens

                      
In the peak of summer (in May 2011), sweltering for lack of an AC, I sought a quick resolution to the complaint. We had first called the show room where we bought the AC. They connected us to the service center.  They sent some mechanics home who asked me for the service certificate. I didn't know that when the people had earlier come to mount the AC, we were supposed to collect a service certificate for the work done. They refused to repair the AC without the service certificate. We then called the Voltas show room in Hyderabad. The next day, they sent the mechanics with a fan which looked all rusty and dirty like it has been used for years. Fortunately, they found that the fan didn't fit in this AC. They went back and again there was no response. I again called and this time escalated the matter to their supervisor/manager. The third day they returned with a new fan of the right fit.

The new fan

I have no clue of the quality of the new fan...again a piece of plastic.
Now that the guarantee has expired, if I lose the fan again in two months, I do not know how much the replacement will cost me.
The Whirlpool in my son's room purrs on silently.
The Voltas in my room makes the noise of a tractor so much so that one of the guests in our house could hear it in the next room and was unable to sleep because of it.
Better be safe than sorry. You decide what you want to buy.
After Sales Free Service:
Just happened to view this in a mouthshut review. Wish I had seen it earlier.  The guy who wrote that review did not tell how the service was done. Let me tell about that as well. Two guys came home and first asked for the now-famous service certificate. I had it ready this time. Now they asked for a cloth. I wasn't prepared and searching for a dirt-free old cloth took time. In almost the time taken to search for a rag, the service was done! They dusted the indoor unit and cleaned the filter. The filter is nothing but a sieve. I could have easily removed, washed and replaced it. Mugs of water were poured on the outer unit and wiped. All this took less than ten minutes. So it is better not to waste your time waiting for these guys to turn up. You can clean it better yourself.

Two books

Read two books, both interesting enough to allow me to complete in a week's time:

1. 'Honeymoon' by James Patterson  A 400-page fast-paced thriller which I completed in about 3 days. This was one of the books bought at the fair. I like Patterson's books but this book was a slight let-down with its flimsy plot

2. 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga: I had been meaning to read this Booker for some time and finally was able to lay my hands on it. Took four days to complete this approx 280 page book.This is a dark and brooding novel (though not pessimistic) and portrays the true picture of the poor villagers in India. The story is told through the eyes of a villager who has that spark in him to turn into an entrepreneur. And the most striking feature of the novel is this: getting into the skin of the character to describe the way the world is seen through the narrator's eyes. For this, either the author must have lived in those villages or done a great deal of research to be able to give this perspective. Great book.

Good that I read this book which restored my faith in contemporary Indian writing. Had read 'The Suicide Banker' a while ago and had despaired...the book was more like a documentary on rural banking with some bizarre twists to the story and was such a yawn. It took me about three weeks to complete the thin volume.

sad-sad :(

Remember those sad-sad heroines of the 50s Indian movies wearing a black cotton saree and a contrasting blouse with patches stitched on both carrying a bundle of clothes at her side loitering around aimlessly with a sad-sad face and singing sad-sad songs...Zindgai dene wale sun ja teri duniya se dil bhar gaya...Teri duniya mein jeene se yeh behther hai... and other such songs?
I feel like that today :( par kyun?

Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge...just loved it!

This movie title is opposite to what it depicts in the movie. I thought it is about the not-so-educated seeking 'fraandships' with people of opposite gender.
To my surprise, this movie involving college-going youngsters comes as a breath of fresh air as it captures the positive energy of these young people, their enthusiasm, optimism, their belief that the world is not unconquerable, their resilience...
A neat movie, maybe no great script but the pace is kept up. The actors behaving and dressed as 20-year-olds do in their real life...no item dance, no double entendres. In one sentence, the story-line is about how the youth hide behind Facebook to communicate through chats and not through real-time conversations.
I wish such movies were marketed better so that we feel inspired to go to the theaters to watch it as a result of which we could have more such movies made.
A cute, beautiful and a positive movie which forced a tear from my eye.

Falling prey to the marketing strategies of today: a Rs. 135/- worth lesson

Look at the cover of the book and  the blurbs at the back. Make a note of your impressions from both.

If you agree with my first impression, I'd feel redeemed of deciding to buy the book based on these impressions. (Notice the 'National Best Seller' tag on top of the cover?)

My impressions from the cover was that the book is about the enthusiastic abandon which infuses the lives of the college-going youth. I felt it was a light and one time read. When you turn to the back of the book, it gives you glimpses of naughty-naughty happenings. (Eg: Have you ever experienced what happens when a porn movie is mistakenly played in front of your grandma and the CD player refuses to stop?). I can cope with such stuff... I thought. What I got instead was mind boggling to say the least. 

Two things ought to have warned me. The dedication of the book to all his family etc. "who always thought I was good-for nothing." Second, the title of the first chapter says '36-24-36.' This too didnt set the warning bells ringing.  It took me all of three pages to decide that this book was a bore. Yet, I plodded on as I didnt want to give up on a book on which I had spent my hard-earned money. 

I am not sure what language the book is written in? British English, US English, Indian English? Who is the intended reader? The grammar and punctuation pale in fright at being repeatedly assaulted and mutilated. Even the basic noun-verb agreement meets with a royal disdain. Lacking a command over the language, yet seeking to impress...so what does the author(?!) do? Right-click, substitute with bombastic sounding synonyms or perhaps words from the thesaurus which actually make you ROTFL with their absurd connotations. But of course, the author promised you a hilarious story in his gimmicky blurb, didn't he?

In the middle of the book, he turns a CB, envisaging the book turning into a super- hit movie. He holds all the pages in his hands and like the clerk at the post office, with a relentless frenzy starts stamping sex sex sex on each page. The moment a woman...any woman... appears on the scene, our hero is ogling, touching, kissing or having sex with her. When the maid was mentioned, I thought in my mind...not her! But then the hero spares none. And this despite having a steady girl friend. But then such trivial things don't stop our Casanova. In the middle of stamping sleaze all over the plot(?!), he perhaps realizes that a movie requires something more than sex, so the next is a murder, a suicide, a sacrifice... think of all the elements of a C-grade movie of the 80s and you have all the shit ( I didn't say it, it is the author). A good measure of gross thrown in as well... just in case, you know. To top it all, refer to the author's blog. The atrocious language, the chat lingo asking you to " Don't judge whether it is right or wrong, just keep your head by your side, and keep reading" I have definitely lost my head after reading this book.This is not all, at the end of his write-up he threatens ..." i will try my level best to entertain you in the future." To that,  all I can say is, "Oh Shit, Not Again!' 

Sleaze by any other name would smell equally awful.

2012

2012, the advent was on a rather sober note. It vastly differed from what I was used to all these years...spending time with family, celebrate together, or simply lying in front of TV.
This year I was away on a more serious occasion when all the family members gathered for the one-year ceremony of my FIL.
It felt funny to be in Vijayawada which is so unlike our Hyderabad. Even when you attempt to sleep early, the bursting of crackers and the joyous noises from celebrations do not allow you to. On the other hand, the new year was brought in so quietly in VZA...no noises around. Even within the house, people were so tired with the rituals all day that they climbed into beds by around 11 pm  Spending time with the extended family also felt a bit strange as the siblings now had such vastly different styles of living, vast differences in thinking... Beneath the polite, superficial binding, I strived hard to reach out to that core which means reliability, trust and faith. All that eluded me. Well, this only strengthens my belief that each to his own in today's world.
To look back on 2011, career-wise, it was rather tepid with no great challenges in the new role. Especially after the challenging and super-tight schedules of last year.
Money-wise, I was reaping the benefits of the hard work put in last year, and hence was good.
Relationships...those that mean to me have stood by me and I thank God for those reliable ones.
Health, despite all my negligence, has been quite kind to me. Need to take greater care of the physique.
In 2012, I resolve to be optimistic of the outcome of my efforts and surge ahead with a strong belief that life can only get better.

Top bina Lap

We have integrated so much with the digital world...I realized this when my laptop crashed. The motherboard that is...and that means a LONG wait as this was the office machine.
The machine was an archaic Dell 430 model. I had initially resisted getting a laptop from office. One, it would mean 24/7 support. Second, I have a very lady-like resistance to learning a new gadget. Gadgets, however simple, freak me out. But then I was given one. I had to learn first, that it has a charger. Two, that I need to learn how to plug in the network cable. Three, plug in the external mouse. I felt like a hardware engineer connecting all these wires to my laptop.
But slowly as I got used to it, I learnt I could operate it without having to keep the charger plugged in, learnt that the wireless can be configured and that the mouse can be done away with. The sleek laptop slowly crept into my bed to become my companion. Work or browsing was now being done while lying down.This serpent position quickly gave way to the supine with the laptop on the tummy. The elevated tummy gives an unhindered view of the screen :)
Well, as I slept on my side, the laptop also moved and I started reading from the tilted screen. When it blocked the fan and made the machine hot, I would turn to the other side. The laptop now replaced the book. Books started getting downloaded and read in bed. It was easier as I didn't need to get up to switch off the light after the book was read. I simply had to sleepily click 'Hibernate' and slide the machine to a horizontal position. The newspapers were discontinued as I could read the e-paper in bed.
And thus my laptop and I became 'do jism ek jaan'. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, and perhaps that's why the laptop decided to die on me.
The first reaction was, 'you cant do this to me...com'on,  come back to life.' It didn't budge. When the network and support team looked at it, they confirmed my worst fears. The mother board has crashed and will be replaced after you obtain all the required approvals. Sigh! This flagged a loooooooong wait. Now how do I go to sleep? I have to read for at least an hour before I can sleep...what do I do now? I dug out my books again and tried to read them. But the light that the backdrop provided to all my e-books was missing and I started finding it difficult to read by the light in my room and then the hassle of switching off the light before I go to bed. :(
The withdrawal symptoms started, with me becoming grouchy and grumpy at not having slept well in the night without my laptop.
After nearly a 2 week wait, I decided to go and get myself a new one. ( And, this is from someone who resisted buying a laptop for nearly 15 years of computer use) The main purpose was to read in bed and hence the smaller, sleeker, lighter Acer D257.

                                                                                  image courtesy: engadget.com

Now don't ask me questions like what memory, what storage etc. All I know is, it has a 10 inch display and came with a web cam (haven't used the web cam yet). Ordered through flipkart and got a pen drive free with it :)
I now sleep in peace with my newer, sleeker and lighter companion.