March 28, 2007
This is a continuation of my previous post. If you haven’t read the first part yet, this post might not make that much of sense. Not that my other posts make much sense anyway.
After the incident with my neighbor, my owner came outside to check out what was happening and asked me to check out if the fire engine was on its way. Our house was located in one of the side roads and I had to go to the main road. I trudged along grumbling and was at the main road within minutes. It was around 630 and there were very few vehicles on the road let alone a fire engine. I think that was the only time in my life I was looking out for a fire engine and for a moment I forgot how it looked. I searched in vain for a big red vehicle without any success.
After waiting for 15 minutes, I returned home to find some people in khaki uniform asking for directions. I then realized these were the fire fighters and when I told them about the dog, one of the guys looking visibly upset started mumbling. Apparently, they had been searching for the house somewhere else because the owner hadn’t given the proper landmark. I apologized for the confusion and they walked in. There were 4 guys in all carrying huge ropes with their other paraphernalia.They started discussing how to retrieve the dog and they made a knot in the rope and let it down with the hope of making it encircle its body.
By this time, a size able crowd had gathered outside the gate and from the balconies of the nearby apartments. The firefighters were able to encircle its belly and pulled it. since the rope wasn’t at the center, the dog slid off the rope just before they could pull it outside and fell once again into the well with a huge splash. The firefighters decided this wasn’t gonna work and tried to encircle one of its leg this time. After a lot of unsuccessful attempts they were able to do it and this time it didn’t have any problems in balancing though it was hanging upside down while they were pulling it out.
At last, they pulled it out and the dog just wanted to run away from there probably because it was too embarrassed. It couldn’t run as the rope was still tied to its leg and one of the guys removed the knot with some difficulty as the dog was already miffed after spending hours in the water and naturally it was wary of any one or anything that came near, above or under it.It was gone in a flash and we were stuck with a huge problem of emptying the well water. My owner had to pay those firemen and one of them suggested using a portable motor to pump the water out. He gave us one of his plumber friend’s phone number. We thanked them profusely and by the time they were gone, we were still daunted by the problem of the water in the well. We couldnt use it nor could we drain it without pumping it into the overhead tank.
I was thinking enough was enough and returned back to my room around 8 a.m. to find some 10 missed calls in my mobile. I ended up calling all my friends on my birthday and had to explain to a few of them as to why I couldn’t pick up my calls. After a day, my owner told me that she would be emptying the water by pumping it to the overhead tank and letting the taps open. She also wanted to add a lot of chemicals in a cloth bag and dip it inside the well to cleanse the new water. It was good in a way she told me about it becoz the next day I opened the taps to find red colored water just like in the evil dead movies. Trust me, this can scare the living daylights out of you.
Finally after a couple of days, the water was safe to be used again or so we thought. I think it was safe because, if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here now writing about it 
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March 5, 2007
As promised earlier, this post is about my craziest birthday till date. This happened when i was staying as a paying guest 2 years back. The owner of the house was an old widowed lady who was as cranky as any person could get. However, I got along well with her during the first few months as I was the only person beside her in the house.
I used to get back home around 9 p.m. after office and I guess she was glad I didn’t hang out till the wee hours of the morning. Even if i had wanted to, I couldn’t have, as the entrance to my room was inside the house making her open the door every time I came home. This was really inconvenient but it was all I could get when I started looking out for an accommodation, having a week’s time at my disposal.
I had moved in during Nov and within 2 months or so, it was time to celebrate another year of my glorious existence in earth. I usually don’t like to be disturbed by phone calls when I am sleeping and I keep my mobile in silent mode just before I goto sleep. I figured my birthday didn’t warrant any exception either and I promptly exercised my ritual. I don’t know how long it slept but I was awakened by some hard knocks on the door. I opened it to find my owner appearing perturbed. ‘Shriram, I think something has fallen into the well. It sounds like a cat. Can you come with me to check it out?’ It was 5 a.m. and I was too irritated to be woken up just to check out some stupid cat that was trying to take up early morning swimming lessons in our well.
Staggering with great difficulty I reached the well which was covered by some cardboard sheets inside the compound of the house. Only then did i realize that there was a well in the house and that the water from the well was pumped to the overhead tank to be consumed by us. Surely, there was an animal inside the well splashing the water and trying to climb up though we couldn’t see what it was as it was pitch dark. My owner switched on the flashlight and we could see a stray dog looking at us pathetically and sounding the same. It could’ve fallen while trying to jump on the cardboard that was used to cover it. My owner suggested ‘I have a rope and a bucket. We will try lowering it inside’. I nodded still feeling sleepy and we lowered an iron bucket and it appeared to have hit something and it became heavy. Heave ho ! All we got was a bucketful of water. So dazed I was that i didn’t realize that if the dog was too smart to jump on the bucket and sit smugly in it, it wouldn’t have fallen into the damn well in the first place.
It began to dawn slowly and the sounds of birds was subdued by the cacophony this dog was creating from inside the well. We went back inside and i didn’t know how to take the dog out as i had never been in such a crazy situation ever before. Luckily my owner called up some army commander she knew and that guy suggested calling the fire brigade. I figured out what the term presence of mind meant then. We called the fire brigade and gave them our address. I meanwhile went outside to check what was happening. It had dawned completely and the howling attracted our neighbors. One of them came outside and hollered ‘I think something has fallen in your well. Is that your dog? How did it fall in? Are you doing something about it?’ ‘Yes smart Alec. It is our dog. We love it so much that we thought we’ll marinate it in our well water overnight and have a hearty repast.’ I ended up saying ‘It’s a stray dog. We’ve informed the fire brigade.’ Jeez! I wonder why people can’t mind their frigging affairs. I should’ve woken her up at 5 a.m. and asked her to do something about it.
(to be continued here)
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February 26, 2007
After working for 4 decades in the motion pictures industry, Martin Scorsese has finally been recognized by the academy for his contribution to mainstream cinema by winning the Best Director award today for his crime thriller The Departed. I ranted a couple of years ago about how the academy comfortably neglected his works and this year I was hoping for a better result.
I am really glad I wasn’t let down this time. The icing on the cake was when The Departed was selected as the Best Picture of the year. It is one of Scorsese’s best works in recent years and i felt it was definitely the best movie of 2006 when i saw it then. The Departed collected 2 more awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
Incidentally the Best Film Editing award recipient Thelma Schoonmaker has been working with Scorsese for the past 35 years. She will also be working with him in his new projects The Silence and The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt which will unite Scorsese with his new leading man Leonardo Dicaprio for the fourth time. There are also talks about a sequel to The Departed.
By the way, if you still haven’t seen The Departed (I can’t figure out a compelling reason for this though), what are you waiting for? Do buy the DVD right away. Isn’t an academy award a good enough reason?
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February 21, 2007
I hope this comes in handy to someone. I searched the net in vain to find out if it was possible to change from a bsnl prepaid mobile connection to a postpaid one. I now know it is. Hence this post.
I initially had a hutch prepaid connection 3 years back which i converted into a postpaid one coz they kept on changing their prepaid tariff as and when their pug’s tail wagged. I was also sick of their connection as I had frequent call drops. The good thing about hutch was their customer service and I didn’t have any sort of problems changing mine to a postpaid plan. Though their network never seemed to follow me, their customer support executives did and made the whole task damn easy.
I later changed my number to a bsnl prepaid one and had it for 2 years. About 2 months back, I realized a postpaid connection would suit my needs best. Logged on to the bsnl site only to find that a conversion was not possible as both the SIM’s are not interchangeable. I then approached the nearest customer service centre only to be told that I had to apply for a connection afresh. However, if I was able to prove to them that I was indeed the genuine owner of the prepaid connection, I would get the same mobile number.
To do this, I had to either give a residence proof of the same address from where I had taken my prepaid connection or give letter in writing stating I was staying in that address when I took my prepaid connection. I chose the latter as I had moved out of my earlier address. They check this with their records and if they match, they come to know you own the connection. Must be rocket science.
Anyway, I paid the necessary deposit along with the other documents and got a postpaid SIM. Then I had to keep waiting for a week/10 days for them to de-activate my prepaid connection. The best part of this was that they realized they weren’t able to do it as I was using the prepaid SIM (remember the previous para about rocket science?). I had to surrender my prepaid SIM and voila, they were able to de-activate it.
In short, the good news is that you’d be able to convert a prepaid to a postpaid connection though it is a bit complex, tiring and tests your patience.
Things to note:
BSNL customer service centre’s accept new applications only from 10 to 14:30(or 15:00) from Mon-Sat.
Be prepared to wait a week or two at least to activate your postpaid SIM.
You need to provide a written letter saying you would like to change your connection to a postpaid one.
You need to provide proof of your residence (when you took your prepaid number) as well as one for your current address, if both are different.
You need to provide one photo ID proof.
Hope this helps. Do add a comment if you have any further queries about the process and I shall try to help you out.
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This is the personal blog of Shriram who digs travel, music, movies, trains and tea.
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