In India, we have helplines for just about everything. Namashkar, mera naam .... hai, mein aaj aapki kaise sahayata kar sakta(i) hoon? My name is .... how may I help you today? Friendly, pleasant and polite enough. And that's where it ends. Before it even began! I am exhausted by the sheer amount of time and energy (not to mention, money) wasted in dealing with this first line of customer service executives who mean well but are able to help very little in real, substantive terms. Picture this: Me "I'd like some help please in locating my credit card, the courier company says they're unable to deliver it because of an incorrect address provided by you. I don't know the card number since its a new card. Could you trace it by the name of card holder?” Him "Sure, ma'am, what is the CC number? I need the number to proceed" Needless to say, its a fairly pointless dialogue and unless escalated to the level of the supervisor, a lost cause. And its not just credit card companies - this happens with mobile phone service providers, cable guys, public utilities, private banks and so on. The unwillingness, probably stemming from a deficiency in capacity, to grasp a customer's problem and instead rattle off a series of verification questions or worse still so-called problem-solving techniques which are in no way related to your query is incredibly frustrating and unproductive.
For the past 5 days now, I have been trying to get Tata Sky to repair what I think is a minor glitch with the recording function of my TiVo box. After all, how serious can it be if I understand the issue without any training whatsoever in the field of digital transmission and storage of content over satellite? (SK, you will be proud :-)) Service engineers have waltzed in and out of our apartment, set-top boxes have been changed, wires have been ripped out and furious exchanges with team leads at the other end of a phone line have followed, all to no avail. Why not? Because, we as Indians, do not analyse the problem. This is not taught to us in school. What we are taught instead is to memorize solutions (seriously!), blurt them all out and hope that one of them will be the correct answer. Sadly, not.
Since liberalization in 1991/92, we have been promoting our economy as services-oriented, a haven for outsourcing with a focus on large pools of a cheap, English-speaking labour force. To make this model sustainable and profitable in the long-run, we simply cannot ignore a focus on the quality of training imparted to this labour and equally importantly, on the quality of service which they provide. When the West talks about frustration in dealing with Indian staff, lets for a minute, forget about their underlying distaste for our accent and possibly appearance and address another issue here: that of the utter lack of problem-solving aptitude which is all-too-apparent within the first few minutes of getting into a conversation with a helpline agent. Do organizations not lose huge sums of money if every single case is taken up with a mid-level manager? What then, besides benching, is the purpose of hiring hoards of little or badly-trained junior staff? This is employment generation and retention at its worst. Companies often complain that newly-recruited staff is not employable, i.e. the training they bring from their education institutions is so ill-suited to the demands of a real work environment, that they “spend” millions on (re)building this workforce. But I believe that to create a truly skilled worker, they need to “invest” and invest well.
On the Tata Sky front, the manager is now going to come over and attempt to fix the problem. If that too fails, Aamir Khan and Gul Panag, you will be subpoenaed. Stay tuned.
At the stroke of the midnight hour
08 June 2010
07 June 2010
Monsoon Magic and Water Woes
The first spell of the southwest monsoon (ver. 2010) rains hit South India a few days ago. Mira Nair made this very special season famous with her heartwarming movie "Monsoon Wedding" - but nothing beats the experience of being caught in a downpour for the very first time after a scorching, unforgiving summer! The earth comes back to life with a heady fragrance of the raindrops hitting the dry mud. Birds chirp away: the cuckoo bird, the mayna bird, the parakeet, all vying for attention as SK and I sip our morning tea on the terrace. Leaves glisten in the sunlight while squirrels run up and down on the tree trunks chasing each other and steering clear of the stray kitty hiding in the bushes. Then there's monsoon food (naturally). Kanda bhajees (for all Punekars out there, atop Sinhagad where the best ones are to be had!) and piping hot momos with thukpa, at Dilli Haat in Dilli. Also, romantic bread-wine-cheese evenings indoors listening to soothing strains of melodious music while watching the rain fall. Or outdoors grabbing a quick bite at the hastily put up food stall with hard-to-resist samosas and jalebis! 'Nuff said.
Last month, I hopped over to Guwahati in Assam, where the northeast monsoon had already started. I don't know anything about this region except what I studied in geography class way back in high school but just the drive from the airport made me want to move there. Lush green landscapes, misty skies, lofty mountain tops and genuinely cool breeze. Little rivers of fresh rainwater were being formed all around me. Its then that I wondered, what happens to it? Do we just allow it to drain off into the soil? Although the northeast gets a got deal of rain every year, paradoxically, it faces a severe clean water shortage, I was told. Not surprisingly then, I saw houses with pipes running across the lengths of their roofs collecting rainwater and emptying it in tubs below for future consumption. How do we go from being a state of want to a state of plenty? What we need is a change in our mindset and a change in our behavior as well, i.e. to save when we have plenty so we aren't caught scrambling in times of dire need.
What is unacceptable is that while parts of our country are flooded annually, there are vast areas which go without water for years on end. Even more criminal is seeing utter wastage of water during transportation - more often than not, water tankers in Delhi have ill-fitting or no caps. As a result, you could practically give yourself a good hose-down if you manage to ride behind one of these tankers as they make their way on somewhat-bumpy roads to quench the thirst of thousands of denizens who queue for hours for a single bucketful of water. Just the sight of children and the elderly all lined up in the afternoon heat should be enough to make us demand that we have better maintained tankers and better enforcement of water utilization. But how many of us bother to get our private water tanks serviced regularly so that they don’t overflow from the morning water supply provided by the authorities? How many of us pay our water bills on time, if at all? Do we care, even for minute, if we don’t face the problem? The pervasive culture in Delhi (and I suspect across many cities in India) is to avoid paying the government even a penny wherever possible and yet complain about the lack of public utilities in the system. Making a large purchase (consumer durables / jewellery / others) and then insisting on a fake receipt or a cash payment – so we don’t pay VAT and the shopkeeper is only too happy to comply since he / she doesn’t need to get books audited and can in turn pay lower taxes. Do we have any justification for complaining about bad roads if we don’t pay road taxes? Ditto with water and electricity consumption.
On a larger scale, we need ways to use (and harvest) water more efficiently. I’ve read that notable efforts (water harvesting, recycling) are already being undertaken by various stakeholders, including large hotel chains and corporations. In the agriculture sector, one such example is SRI or the system of rice intensification methodology for increasing the productivity of irrigated rice cultivation by changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients, in turn leading to major water savings.
This is the biggest investment we can make for ourselves and future generations. Save a drop today for an ocean tomorrow.
Last month, I hopped over to Guwahati in Assam, where the northeast monsoon had already started. I don't know anything about this region except what I studied in geography class way back in high school but just the drive from the airport made me want to move there. Lush green landscapes, misty skies, lofty mountain tops and genuinely cool breeze. Little rivers of fresh rainwater were being formed all around me. Its then that I wondered, what happens to it? Do we just allow it to drain off into the soil? Although the northeast gets a got deal of rain every year, paradoxically, it faces a severe clean water shortage, I was told. Not surprisingly then, I saw houses with pipes running across the lengths of their roofs collecting rainwater and emptying it in tubs below for future consumption. How do we go from being a state of want to a state of plenty? What we need is a change in our mindset and a change in our behavior as well, i.e. to save when we have plenty so we aren't caught scrambling in times of dire need.
What is unacceptable is that while parts of our country are flooded annually, there are vast areas which go without water for years on end. Even more criminal is seeing utter wastage of water during transportation - more often than not, water tankers in Delhi have ill-fitting or no caps. As a result, you could practically give yourself a good hose-down if you manage to ride behind one of these tankers as they make their way on somewhat-bumpy roads to quench the thirst of thousands of denizens who queue for hours for a single bucketful of water. Just the sight of children and the elderly all lined up in the afternoon heat should be enough to make us demand that we have better maintained tankers and better enforcement of water utilization. But how many of us bother to get our private water tanks serviced regularly so that they don’t overflow from the morning water supply provided by the authorities? How many of us pay our water bills on time, if at all? Do we care, even for minute, if we don’t face the problem? The pervasive culture in Delhi (and I suspect across many cities in India) is to avoid paying the government even a penny wherever possible and yet complain about the lack of public utilities in the system. Making a large purchase (consumer durables / jewellery / others) and then insisting on a fake receipt or a cash payment – so we don’t pay VAT and the shopkeeper is only too happy to comply since he / she doesn’t need to get books audited and can in turn pay lower taxes. Do we have any justification for complaining about bad roads if we don’t pay road taxes? Ditto with water and electricity consumption.
On a larger scale, we need ways to use (and harvest) water more efficiently. I’ve read that notable efforts (water harvesting, recycling) are already being undertaken by various stakeholders, including large hotel chains and corporations. In the agriculture sector, one such example is SRI or the system of rice intensification methodology for increasing the productivity of irrigated rice cultivation by changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients, in turn leading to major water savings.
This is the biggest investment we can make for ourselves and future generations. Save a drop today for an ocean tomorrow.
02 June 2010
Gaon Ki Gori
Does India live in its villages? Does asking this question 62 years after Independence make its rural economy and population more relevant? No, sadly, it doesn't very much. But the village definitely has potential. What lives in the villages is India's massive votebank. Repeatedly abused, often ignored and rampantly (mis)used. A recently released study by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) looks at infrastructure, governance and other challenges facing India's cities and metros and proposes, amongst other policy reforms, a sweeping overhaul of the way cities are managed (including appointing CEOs and the like) and pumping in massive amounts of funding to make them ready for the 590 million-odd people that will reside in them by 2030. A detailed analysis of the migration from the village to the city or the semi-urban area, an all-too-common phenomenon for lack of opportunities/growth prospects/survival mechanisms in the villages linking it to such studies will go a long way in addressing these critical issues.
However, as much as I am a city gal (skyscrapers do make my head spin and Lutyen's Delhi has spoiled me beyond words), my heart and sanity to a large extent are beginning to need a regular infusion of the gaon. There's a purity in the air there that cities cannot match. I am not just referring to the weather but to attitudes as well. Depending on one's definition of quality of life, I'd say, its so much better in many rural areas than in our cities! Yes, its difficult to get power and water a lot of the times. And many village folk do not have access to basic services including primary health care centres, toilets, banking, grocery stores. But the food always tastes nicer, people are kinder and gentler, there's plenty of greenery (in most parts), lots of animals and beautiful birds, a sky full of bright stars. So the gaon also gives me a sense of hope. One day, I hope to muster up the courage to spend an extended period of time there (I still fall prey to the city's offerings: pools and nice roads, nice cars, shopping) and in the process learn about the way villagers lead their lives, with respect for the environment, in today's concrete, urban-centric world.
However, as much as I am a city gal (skyscrapers do make my head spin and Lutyen's Delhi has spoiled me beyond words), my heart and sanity to a large extent are beginning to need a regular infusion of the gaon. There's a purity in the air there that cities cannot match. I am not just referring to the weather but to attitudes as well. Depending on one's definition of quality of life, I'd say, its so much better in many rural areas than in our cities! Yes, its difficult to get power and water a lot of the times. And many village folk do not have access to basic services including primary health care centres, toilets, banking, grocery stores. But the food always tastes nicer, people are kinder and gentler, there's plenty of greenery (in most parts), lots of animals and beautiful birds, a sky full of bright stars. So the gaon also gives me a sense of hope. One day, I hope to muster up the courage to spend an extended period of time there (I still fall prey to the city's offerings: pools and nice roads, nice cars, shopping) and in the process learn about the way villagers lead their lives, with respect for the environment, in today's concrete, urban-centric world.
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