Helmets, Heads and Rules

It must have been 1994 and we had just moved to Goa. I was a young professor trying to make a mark and enjoy life at the same time.   I had a Bajaj Chetak to get around.  My wife and I  found it was fun on the two wheeler to get around in Goa.  Life was without too much of care. On that fateful evening, my wife wanted some pictures to be framed and we were riding along the road next to the Mandovi towards Panjim and were near the Ribandar hospital building (where the B School I was teaching is located). 

Those of you who know the place would realise that the building  juts out onto the road and there is a small curve on the road.  A dumper truck was ahead of us. Suddenly, a trax or jeep which was over speeding appeared from the hidden side of the curve and that too on the wrong side of the road and the truck driver ahead of me had to brake suddenly.  He had to do that to save the lives of the people who would have most certainly been crushed if there was a head on collision .  The truck stopped so suddenly that I almost stood on my brake pedal to stop my scooter; but the force with which I applied the brake broke the pedal off its anchoring and my scooter did not have any brakes now.  The scooter had slowed down but the scooter still moved forward and smashed on to the back of the truck.  My head hit the low beam of the dumper.  My wife was wearing a saree (see how clearly I remember) and was riding sideways and managed to jump off unhurt.

As always, when I drive two wheelers, I had my helmet on.  The impact of the hit was taken by the helmet and I could hear the “thunk” of metal meeting metal.  In spite of the impact, I managed to escape with a cut inside my mouth from the plastic visor. I bled like a pig from that.  My students came of the cafe next doors and from the hostels and took me over to hospital.   The doctors took a look at my wound and decided that it would heal on its own and an X Ray of my head was taken as a precaution.  As I write this, I can still feel the small indentation in my mouth where the cut was. I was home in a couple of hours.  The pictures we wanted to get framed that evening remain unframed even after 17 years!

If I was not wearing the helmet, most certainly I would not have been home that evening.  Most likely the undertakers would have been on work that night trying to put together a smashed head.  May be I overdramatize? The least that would have happened would have been some work for the neuro-specialists of the medical college that evening.  I am not sure if Goa had CT scans then.  They would have been groping in the dark about the nature of the injuries inside my head.  I could have been out of action for a few weeks. May be I would have had to be flown to Bangalore or Mumbai for some specialist treatment.

Why am I reliving that evening which is not a pleasant one? Something I read on the FB from brought it all back.

Every year, in all the years that I have spent in Goa, I end up with some student or the other involved in a major traffic accident or the other. Sometimes several.  They get head injuries, nasty fractures of the jaw and so on.  Every time, the extent of injuries could have been reduced if they were wearing helmets.  I have lost students to traffic accidents.  It is such a sad day for any professor to lose students who show so much of promise.  I go out of the way to suggest that helmets are a protection whenever I meet them informally. Of course, I am ignored.  After I moved to another town, I got news that one of the students died last week in a traffic accident.  I barely knew him as I had not taught his batch; yet the feeling of sadness gripped me at the loss of young life. 

And the feeling of frustration that these young guys and girls do not take the minimum precaution. Today I am mad again, reading something on the FB.  The hostel warden of the B school where the death happened has introduced a new rule that students should not be allowed to ride out of the gates of the Institute on bikes without a helmet.  One of the students has put this out on FB and several people have, as usual, commented on this. Some of these are wise cracks on how long the rules would last! There is a law (which applies the moment they step out on the public road) that one is supposed to wear helmets; so clearly all these kids who go out without helmets are breaking the law.  When someone tries to put in a rule trying to help you keep on the safe side of the law and more importantly trying to keep you safe, they are taking pot shots at him.

When would these kids learn that it is better not to break the law and it is even better not to break ones head?  I am almost sure that I am alive today because of the helmet I wore.  I would not be writing this if I had not worn the helmet that evening. I almost broke my head that night.  May be I would not have? I am quite thick headed to believe that kids would still listen?

Bala@Jaipur

Customer Ecstasy is a Big Hahaha!

Marketing pundits will tell the average MBA class that the customer should be delighted, nay ecstatic.  But this lesson does not seem to be taken very seriously by the guys in the industry – they seem to be thinking that customer agony should be aimed for!

Have you bought any stuff recently and been assured that it is just right for you, by the smooth talking sales representative?  Like a mobile phone or a MP3 player or some such similar stuff?  Or maybe been assured of prompt after sales service, warranty or guarantee by these guys?

The showrooms of most of these popular electronics brands are located in very upmarket locations.  They ensure that their showroom is close to if not next to the friendly neighbourhood market.  Their displays are very nicely lit and air conditioned showroom keeps you cool till you pay up. The problems start when or if your equipment develops some problem. 

The AIKON name which was very prominently written on the front of the shop suddenly ceases to be AIKON.  The shop dissociates itself from you and AIKON also.  They tell you that they are Bundaldass & Co., and that the after sales service is provided by AIKON itself.  In your innocence, you ask him if he could send it across and get it repaired as the warranty for the product is still on.  He tells he cannot do so.  Bundaldass & Co., who sold you the equipment, does not offer to take it from you and send it over there.  The company or their sales representative does not want to make it easy for you.   It is your product and so you have to go there yourself. If you push too much they would show you some small print on your bill!  You ask them where the service center is located and you get an address written on the back of an old bill.  You would expect a Company like AIKON to have some printed leaflet telling you how to reach them and also have some phone numbers you could call them on.  Well, you expected wrong. 

Here is the catch.  AIKON, through Bundaldass& Co., which sells you their products from morning till mid night, keeps their “service centre” open only from 10 to 5 pm.  They suddenly turn “sarkaribabu” and you have to take time off from work to go there.  You try to locate the service centre which finally turns out to be in the back alley of some strange building.  After a couple of false starts you locate the place.  You have to park somewhere far off, as this service centre is in the middle of a crowded market and parking is impossible there.  You jump across a few puddles of some unrecognisable liquid and try not to get skewered by the clutch levers of the bikes parked there.  And you sometimes have to clomp up a couple of ill-lit and dingy looking flights of stairs to reach these guys. They do not tell you immediately you what is wrong.  You just have to go back or call them up after their “engineer”has inspected it. (I did not know you needed an engineer to check out something put together by just about literate girls in Korea or Indonesia or wherever)  You have to pay an advance before this inspection can be done!!! Post inspection, they tell you how much the repair would cost you when you can decide whether all this running around and what it costs you is worth having it repaired. Of course, sometimes you are told it cannot be repaired.  Just like that!!

All this in the name of after sales service.  Disservice centers ought to be the name for these places. Customer ecstasy, my foot.  If you have not paid too much for the stuff, just dump the stuff and buy a new one – you would at least escape the mad feeling of frustration.

Bala@Kozhikode