Ramana’s Musings

I launched this blog on June 8 2008. Three months have passed. This is my 70th blog since then. I have had more than 2000 visitors to this blog. Some have become regular visitors and commentators, and have become my blog friends.

I am now truly and hopelessly addicted to blogging, visiting other blogs and commenting on quite a few of them.

If there is proof needed that blogging shrinks the world, this is it. The friends have come from all over the world. Some of them, hesitate to comment on the blog but contact me by email and exchange views.

I wanted to express my gratitude to all these new friends and went to inspiremenet to get an appropriate poem to convey my feelings and this is what I found:

FRIENDSHIP WISH
By Author Unknown

May there always be work for your hands to do;

May your purse always hold a coin or two;

May the sun always shine on your window pane;

May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain;

May the hand of a friend always be near you;

May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

I recommend that you visit inspiremenet to get inspiring quotes, poems etc. I subscribe to their daily email which inspires me without fail.

Thank you dear friends.

I subscribe to a daily email service from delanceyplace that sends interesting extracts from books and publications. For those who are interested in such excerpts, I strongly recommend that they visit the site and register themselves to receive the same.

Just to give you a taste for some of the things that you can expect, here is what I received today, which is quite amusing and interesting at the same time.

In today’s excerpt–divorce customs, ancient and not-so-ancient:

“For nearly a thousand years, an Englishman sick of his wife could slip a halter around her neck, lead her to market–the cattle market–and sell her to the highest bidder, often with her willing participation. This informal route to divorce for the lower classes lasted, amazingly, until at least 1887. … [As reported by non-fiction authors Lawrence Stone in The Family, Sex, and Marriage and Samuel Menefee in Wives for Sale], a drunken husband sells his wife in the opening chapter of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), much to the astonishment of contemporary critics. Oblivious to the informal, unlawful marriage and divorce customs of the less literate brethren (’wife-sale’ dates back to c. 1073), they could not imagine such a thing happening on British soil in the nineteenth century, even though popular broadsides depicting the practice (one of which illustrates the cover of Menefee’s book) were still being produced and widely circulated during that same century. …

“[In the Old Testament, the law allowed for divorce because of infertility, and] Israelite men could divorce their wives for reasons far more vague than infertility. (Wives couldn’t divorce their husbands for any reason.) If, for instance, ’she fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her,’ there’s no need to hire a pricey lawyer. He simply ‘writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house.’ He’d better be sure this is what he wants, because he can’t have her back again. …

“The Bible, leaving nothing to chance, provides soldiers with a lesson on the fine art of taking enemy women to wife after the enemy has been vanquished. … You don’t just throw her to the ground and have your way with her then and there. You don’t throw her on the ground at all. And you don’t have your way with her for an entire month. No, ‘you shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive’s garb. She shall spend a month’s time in your house lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and possess her, and she shall be your wife.’ The lesson includes instruction on how to get rid of her, too. No bill of divorcement is required, but restrictions do apply: ‘Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell er for money; since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.’ ”

Susan Squire, I Don’t: A Contrarian History of
Marriage, Bloomsbury, Copyright 2008 by Susan
Squire, pp. 36-44, 227.

I have been honored with an award from a regular reader and I reproduce it here:
.

I have written this post to participate for the first time in Karen’s Coffee Chat contest.

I was the first-born and a male. In our part of the world, that is the passport to all sorts of goodies from the parents, grand parents, sundry relatives, neighbors and just about every body else. In my westernized family however it meant nothing more than just a welcome addition to the family.
What I remember most of my childhood is being responsible for my younger siblings.
I do not particularly remember other parts of my childhood with much clarity. A brother followed fifteen months later and yet another two years after the second. My earliest memories start from about the time when our sister was born six and a half years after I was born.
Being the eldest, I was responsible to maintain law and order with the two younger siblings and my first distinctly remembered occasion is when my sister was born in a nursing home. Our father and his close friend, K had taken us to see our little sister. K dropped us off at the entrance and went to park the car. We went inside, came out quickly as we were too noisy and the staff shooed us away. When we came out, K was just entering and my youngest brother shouted loud and clear that he should not enter the room as no one was being allowed inside. What was remarkable about this announcement was that he was called by the first name like my father would call him, unlike what we used to call him – Uncle K!
By and large we had a cheerful and happy upbringing till my sister was about 2 years old. She was diagnosed with polio and suffered severe attacks on her left side. I was again made her caregiver apart from my parents and was with her through all the exercises and other regimes that she underwent at that tender age. She would hate to put on the calipers and I would gently persuade her. As we grew up I would get her to box with me as part of her exercise and she grew up just fine. While her left side is still a bit weak, she is quite normal otherwise. The bond that was built then continues as strong as ever today, after 60 years!
By the time my sister was able to be on her own, I had to go to live with my paternal uncle to go to school and that is a separate story altogether. I therefore did not have too much a typical childhood, though there were the usual games, broken bones, windows, outings and other diversions. They were just at a much lower intensity for me, though my two brothers had their higher share of such fun times.
src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/2819343038_8088203c22_o.jpg" alt="Coffee Chat at writefromkaren.com" />

Two letters written by Lt. Gen. (Rtd) Oberoi to the Editor, Indian Express, Delhi are reproduced below with the hope that a lot of viewers will get access to this opinion.

Letter No.1 for publication on September 2, 2008. Not yet published.

KUDOS TO THE SERVICE CHIEFS
- Stick to Your Guns

By

Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi

The chiefs of the army, navy and air force need to be commended and congratulated for their upright and bold stand for the men and women under their command, as reported on the front page of The Indian Express of September 02, 2008. The chiefs have represented strongly against the glaring disparities between military and civilian officers of equal rank and service, as listed in the notification relating to the implementation of the sixth pay commission (6 CPC) recommendations, issued after cabinet approval. This is as should be, for emoluments and status, especially the latter; affect morale, which is one of the immutable principles of war, followed not just by the Indian military, but all militaries of the world.

Since 2006, when the 6 CPC was in the offing, the chiefs had requested the government to ensure that the commission when set up should have representation from the defence forces. Despite making polite noises, the political leadership did not accede to this legitimate and logical request. When the setting up of the commission was formally announced, the chiefs went back to the government and again asked it to ensure representation, even in the shape of an advisor, if not a member in the commission. That this was a legitimate demand is amply borne out by the numbers involved. More than one third of government employees, under the purview of the commission, comprise serving military personnel. The percentage of military veterans, who also fell under the commission’s purview for deciding their pensions and related emoluments, was even more at nearly 25 lacs. Once again, the request was ignored.

When the pay commission submitted its report in March this year, there was an understandable uproar from serving personnel and military veterans alike. The government then set up a review committee under the cabinet secretary, but again without representation from the military. Why this ‘apartheid’ against the only organization that delivers and does so efficiently and effectively? The obvious reason, well established amongst the serving personnel as well as the military veterans, was appeasement of the bureaucracy by the political leadership, especially those from the IAS, who were loath to have a representative from the services, lest their plans of accumulating everything for themselves were foiled. That is how the bureaucracy works in our democratic country – everything for themselves!

What the chief’s are objecting to and rightly, is the lowering of the status of defence officers’ vis-à-vis their civilian counterparts. The IAS has, unfortunately, tried very hard since Independence and also succeeded to a great degree, in the lowering of the status of the service officers. They did so by making themselves indispensable to the political leadership and even being identified with politicians and political parties unashamedly. The politicians found this an ideal arrangement to further their activities for perpetuating their individual causes as also those of the party they belonged to. This is possibly the main reason for the deterioration of governance everywhere and corruption reaching stupendous proportions. In the bargain, the ‘aam aadmi’ remained ‘aam’, whereas both the politicians and the bureaucrats continued to become ‘khas’ in every respect! How unfortunate that democracy in our country has reached this rock bottom?

No doubt there were and are some political leaders who are above this self-perpetuating syndrome, but alas not enough to matter. As for honest, diligent and efficient bureaucrats, they disappeared many decades back, leaving the field wide open for clever and self-serving ones, whose dharma is to exploit and loot both individuals and the nation. I am sorry I have digressed from the main theme of this piece, but unless such activities are publicly exposed in and by the media, how will the nation know the truth?

Reverting to the reason for this piece, I would urge the service chiefs to stick to their guns and not waver in their determination to get a fair deal for their men. The essence of command of troops is well known to them; otherwise they would not be chiefs of their service today. It is once again their dharma to ensure that they lead highly motivated troops, for then alone will victory be achieved on the battlefield and for making our nation safe and secure. The serving as well as retired military personnel, but more importantly the nation, looks up to you to not let the security of the nation be frittered away because some civil officials want to have their cake and eat it too!
______________________________________________________
The author is a former Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) and resident of The War Wounded Foundation.

Letter No.2 sent when the first letter was not published.

Dear All,

You must all be aware of the front page headlines published in the Indian Express of 02 Sep 08, relating to the three Chief’s objecting to some aspects of the cabinet cleared proposal on the pay commission recommendations. After reading it I had prepared an article and sent it to the Editor of the Indian Express. The piece is enclosed as an attachment. I had initially not planned to make it public till it was published, but I have my doubts if it will be published. Hence the change of heart.

The editorial in The Indian Express of 03 September 08 further reinforces my thinking. I have since sent a Letter to the Editor, a copy of which is appended below.

Dear Editor,

All the respect I had for your newspaper, with “Journalism of Courage”prominently featured at your masthead, vanished when I read the puerile Editorial titled”It’s the Uniform…..”in your edition dated September 03, 2008. The shock was greater when it followed the front page headline story on the same subject you broke only the day before. Did the bureaucrats get the editor in question in the interim or did he not consult the news editor? I cannot think of any other plausible reason as I am aware that your editors are usually well read and understand nuances of important news.

Are you really serious when you say that the military’s complaint regarding being deliberately downgraded is ’spurious’? It is obvious that the worthy editor has no idea about the military and how important status is for them.Neither it seems he is aware of what the military’s stand has been all these months. Throughout the sordid episode generated by the injudicious recommendations of the pay commission over the last six months, the military has not asked for enhancement of pay, only parity at levels that have existed hitherto. Therefore,for the editor to pass scurrilous comments on the officers of the defence forces and particularly against the service chiefs, is not only downright unfair but is an attack on their sacred uniform.

When the next war comes by, though no soldier wants one, the same editor will no doubt be singing paeans for the military, but perhaps it is fashionable to do down the military when peace prevails, not because of IAS and IPS worthies, whom he seems to worship, but because of the same military which he has attacked with his pen or is it the cursor on his lap top today?

Sincerely

Lt GenVijay Oberoi

Now that the Chief’s have taken up the case, we need to support them. Will the leaders of various organisations, movements etc consider organising support? There are many ways; the least that can be done is to send press releases supporting their move. There are other possibilities too, including organising events.

Vijay Oberoi

——————————————————————————–

Former Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS)
Former Director Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS)

Have had an eventful week-end and beginning for the week. I had a friend of fifty years come over from the USA to stay with us for a few days. He is planning on returning to India to retire here and is on an exploratory visit. He left for Hyderabad earlier this afternoon.

Both of us were struggling salesmen when we met at an Irani tea shop in Hyderabad. This was a popular meeting place for many salesmen and other regulars. We became good friends and eventually became relatives as well. We married cousins and so became brothers in law.

That is what set me off writing this post. In English, it is simple. We are brothers in law. In the Indian system, it is more precise. In Tamil we are shattagars and in Hindustani, Sadubhais. The Indian, with his particular obsession about relationships, calls this relationship, ‘Co-brothers’, when he is speaking English.

I have always wondered why we Indians are so particular about our relationships. Why can’t we simply use a word like uncle, or aunt or nephew or niece? In India, we have Chacha, Kaka, Mama, Chachi, Kaki, Mami, Bhanja, Bhathija etc.

Just some random musings on our peculiarities. What do you think? Should we follow the English system and simplify?

On the 24th inst. I had posted that I intend sharing three stories with my readers about Senior Citizens. As chance would have it, I have had to post two posts on the same story about SCB and Anand, and the way events are unfolding, it is likely that I may have to post more.

The third story that I had to share was this. I belong to a yahoo group consisting of ex employees of one of my employers. Most members in the group are retired from the same company and some like me left prior to retirement but, we were all known to each other for many years and enjoyed our being colleagues during the time of our employment with the company. A few such persons now residing in Bangalore decided to arrange a get together of as many ex employees as possible and thanks to the Internet, the number of persons thus located and contacted became quite large. The first meeting took place last year and the second one is to take place by the end of September.

Since the list of members has been compiled by the moderator quite exhaustively, our email addresses telephone numbers etc have all become available to all of us. On my responding to one mail from the moderator, two old colleagues who I had lost touch with since twenty odd years ago, sent me emails wanting to reestablish contact. One of them also is the younger brother of a classmate close friend of mine, with who too, I had lost touch for over forty years.

Thanks to the Internet and the initiative taken by some well meaning ex colleagues, I have been able now to reestablish contact with three persons and I am extremely happy to have been able to do so, as the three others are too.

The point of this post is to emphasize, that the Internet when properly put to use is capable of bringing people together like this. In these days of isolation and alienation, such relationships are priceless and I wish to express my gratitude to technology that makes this possible.

What about you? Have such things happened to you too?

My post on SCB’s attitude towards Senior Citizens in general and to my friend Anand in particular has generated one anonymous commentator who gave me the telephone number of the General Manager, Credit Cards, advising me that I could speak to him. Another employee also commented that my friend Anand could contact her and she would ensure that he will get full satisfaction. One more contacted me via my contact box and suggested that I give him the name and telephone number of Anand. The first two comments are available in the first post and you can see that at least the lady with 15 years of service with SCB had the right attitude.

I responded to the third person who contacted me via the contact box and gave him Anand’s real name and phone numbers. Anand received a phone call from someone this morning which far from giving any satisfaction, has only aggravated the situation by that person asking for the email address.

My response to all that has happened so far is quite clear in my response to the comments made by Mike Goad.

The latest developments are as follows. Anand received a letter yesterday, dated the 25th inst from SCB advising him to accept ECS/Auto debit. The phone call to him came after the letter was received by him.

Now, to cap it all, I reproduce three mails in the sequence in which they were sent/received and I leave it to you to come to your own conclusion about the attention to detail that SCB pays to matters of customer service. I also suspect that there are too many people in the chain who do not know what exactly needs to be done at any given point of time.

Email No.1 from Anand to SCB

“I have been advised by your call center customer relations executives, Ms. V, Mr.M and Ms.S, on August 23, 2008, that since I am now a Senior Citizen, I can avail the facility of your credit card only if I authorize you to debit my savings bank account with you with any usage of the card. This is not acceptable to me. They have confirmed that my credit card has been deactivated, but have refused to send a letter in confirmation.

Under the circumstances, I am confirming that your deactivating my credit card is acceptable to me. I shall not be responsible for any misuse of my credit card, which after the last renewal has not been received by me.

I shall appreciate a letter in reply confirming that the credit card has been deactivated.

Thank you.”

The reply to this from SCB:

“Dear Mr. Anand,

This is with reference to your e-mail dated August 25, 2008

We understand from your communication that you are interested to opt
for ECS/Auto debit payment towards repayment of the dues.

Based on your request, we have forwarded your request to the concerned
department. The same will be actioned within 7 working days.

We request you to bear with us in the interim. One of our Officers
will get in touch with you shortly in this regard.

Assuring you of our best services always

Yours sincerely,

S K
Officer - Customer Care”

Anand’s hopefully last and desperate response:

“Dear Ms. SK,

Now, you are creating fresh problems. Please read my email again with a little patience. I do not, I repeat, do not, want to operate my credit card under your scheme for Senior Citizens only if they opt for ECS/Auto debit payment towards repayment of the dues.

I simply want you to confirm that my card has been deactivated so that I do not need to worry that it will be misused by someone. Why don’t you simply send me an email, or a letter confirming that my credit card has been deactivated.

Please take appropriate action and confirm, this time, proper action, thank you.

Anand”

Here is a classic example of modern managements entrusting customer service to call centers, major decisions being taken unilaterally without consulting or informing customers, particularly loyal customers of long standing, internally, no proper systems working to centralize the problem to take appropriate action and the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

My friend Anand and I had to change our bench from the usual one where we sit every evening at the joggers’ park due to a sudden downpour. We shifted to a bench under some trees. This bench was already occupied by an infrequent visitor, who we had seen at the park but had not met and made friends with.

The rain gave us an opportunity to make friends with this stranger and it turned out to be an illuminating meeting.

Our new friend is now 81. He is a Sindhi who came to Jaipur from Hyderabad, Sindh, in 1947 after India and Pakistan became two countries. His father started a small business in 1948 and our friend made it grow and flourish. A typical story of many such refugees who had to leave their homes in what is now Pakistan and move to India.

He is blessed with two sons neither of who stays with him at Jaipur. He is a widower and lives all alone in a palatial home in Jaipur and having sold off his business to retire, spends his time shuttling between Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Pune. His two sons live in these two cities.

The illuminating story that we heard was the sad change in his life style. Neither of his daughters in law is able to provide the kind of food that he was used to getting when his wife was alive. Moreover, his attempts at training the servants in both households have not been taken well by the daughters in law who fear that the help may leave if he does not handle them properly!

Our new friend’s loneliness and sense of rejection by his family came out loud and clear and broke our heart. There was little that we could do other than to invite him to join us whenever we were at the park and if he would like to visit us at our homes.

Such stories are very common among widows. This is the first time that either Anand or I had come across the same story from a man. Just goes to show that one has to be very lucky to be a Senior Citizen and be happy among friends and family.

I have had an amazing start to this week. There have been three stories that I wish to post on my blog about Senior Citizens, Service and relationships. I shall do so in the next three posts unless something more urgent or interesting comes up.
The first of the stories is about a very good friend of mine who is a Senior Citizen. He is 75 and one of the gentlest people that I have ever known. I help him with his email and some other formal correspondence as he is completely lost with computers and requests me for help, which I am very happy to extend.
My friend, let us call him Anand, opened a bank account when he was 15 years old as a Minor’s Savings Bank account with his father as a joint account holder and guardian with the Lloyds Bank in Mumbai then known as Bombay. In the sixty years hence, that bank has undergone many changes, merging with, being taken over etc and went through new names such as Grind lays, ANZ, and finally, now it is Standard Chartered Bank. For sixty years, Anand has remained a steadfast loyal customer of the bank despite the many metamorphoses that it has gone through. Most of the employees there today were not perhaps born when he opened his account!
His Savings Bank today, is carrying a credit balance of over INR 300,000. He also has a couple of other long term deposits with the bank.
A few years ago, when Anand wished to go overseas, he had applied for and obtained a credit card from Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), which allowed him to use it for foreign exchange use over seas. Being a very careful spender, Anand has always been sparing in the use of the credit card and in settling the bills whenever they came, well before the due dates.
Early this year, SCB advised Anand that his Silver Card was due for renewal and considering his record, SCB was very happy to offer him a Gold Card with additional facilities. Anand accepted the offer and completed the formalities. Unfortunately when the card came through a courier service Anand was not at home and the card was returned. Since then, there have been phone calls and reminders between Anand and some Customer Service Call Center about this card and suddenly, last week, Anand received a call from the Call Center advising him that the card will be issued to him only if he gave SCB a letter authorizing SCB to debit his Savings Bank Account with any charges on the card.
Naturally, Anand was very upset and regretted his inability to issue such a letter. He requested the caller to send him a letter with reasons as to why this requirement has suddenly come about. The Caller advised Anand that this was BECAUSE ANAND IS A SENIOR CITIZEN! This was more shocking and Anand insisted, that a letter convey this to him. The caller, no doubt just a Customer Service Representative, expressed her inability to arrange for one. She advised Anand that since he was unwilling to give the desired letter, THE CREDIT CARD WAS BEING DE-ACTIVATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT!
Anand had had enough and came to me with a request to type out a letter confirming this development and placing on record the fact the card had been de-activated. He desired to do this, as he did not want to suddenly discover that someone else had been using his deactivated card. I did as he requested and Anand promptly took the letter to the local branch of SCB and requested acknowledgment of receipt in a duplicate copy. The local branch REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE LETTER. They advised him to write a letter to their Card Center in Bangalore with a copy to some Customer Service Executive in Mumbai and also send an email to the Credit Card division.
Anand came back to me for these letters and email and all that was done last night. He has sent off the letters and copies by Registered Post and now is hoping that he will receive some response.
Is this how a Multinational Bank of repute should treat its loyal and long-standing customer? Should not the Call Center be taught to treat customers in a better way? Should the local office of the bank not handle a customer’s problem without being bureaucratic about it? What do you think Anand should do with his Savings Bank Account with SCB?