Chronicles of Nikhil Baliga

 Swami Gulagulaananda said: " Jaago Grahak, Jaago " Pick up any book on startups, and you'll always find customer-centricity as a core tenet for a company. " Give the customer what they want, and the rest shall follow " advise the pundits. While evolving from resource crunched scrappy startups to competition-trampling behemoths, companies often develop a  flippant attitude towards their customers. If you are lucky, you will even experience it blossoming into effrontery. In this post, I want to share my excruciating experience with Samsung, and how a consumer can fight back Goliath. Wardrobe Dry A year ago, we decided to upgrade our washing machine. Our IFB machine had been serving us well, but we still need to put our clothes out for drying. Rather than opting for an additional dryer, we thought of going for an all-in-one washer-dryer machine. These machines have modes called Wardrobe Dry , and as the name suggests, spit out clothes so dry that you can directly ...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: "MakeMyTrip  Customer Service Sucks! Period " About ten days ago, I wanted to book a couple of rooms for my parents for a visit to Mangalore. As a regular user of online services like MakeMyTrip  Cleartrip and Go Ibibo, I decided to open three tabs in my browser and check prices across all three portals (Something that we all do). I was, obviously, signed in as I wanted to redeem my wallet points. After seeing that MakeMyTrip was the cheapest, I decided to go ahead with it. I saw that the cost of the room in MakeMyTrip in the booking page was Rs 3162. The screenshot shows the price breakdown. As per this, the room originally costs Rs 4366. They then added their own charges, applied some coupon automatically and also reduced my wallet money. The final bill, inclusive of taxes, came up to Rs 3162. I was happy as any regular customer would be when they see the original price struck off and a new price shown next to it. ...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: “ (this quote has been censored) ” A couple of days back, the chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Pahlaj Nihalani, was sacked and replaced by another person. It seems that a section of Indian film industry and media celebrated this fact. It turns out that Nihalani was branded ‘ Sanskaari ’, an of late derogatory word, often used to represent a person with a 'regressive mindset'. The reason? The official reason for his sacking was that he was muzzling the creative and artistic freedoms of cinema. Basically, he denied U/A certifications to movies that had scenes and language that was deemed inappropriate. The official reason mattered because the incumbent government formed by the BJP has been accused by leftist liberals and the so called intelligentia (I have lost respect for that word now because leftist liberals and intelligentia are associated together) of imposing Hindutva on ‘ minorities ’. While there is a lack of a shred of ev...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " That moron asked me not to be judgemental about him " We love watching movies and I am sure that you have watched this scene that appears in several motion pictures; The protagonist walks into his house and is shocked to see a dead man with a knife sticking out of his stomach. He drops whatever he was holding and rushes towards the slumped body he has identified as his father, an eminent lawyer who fought injustice with a fiery passion. It is obvious to the son that his father was murdered by some land baron / politician who was rubbed the wrong way by the deceased, but he puts those thoughts aside for the moment. He has a slight glimmer of hope that his father might still be alive and worries that he is in pain. He crouches beside his father and pulls the knife out of him. At that exact same time, a police inspector and a couple of constables arrive at that scene on a supposed tip-off. " Hands up, you are under arrest " he shouts as...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " With great ownership comes great sense of responsibility " Expectations vs Reality We like things to be perfect. We have a certain set of ideas of what perfection is. These are expectations. Then there is reality. The greater the gap between reality and expectation, the greater the disappointment. When there is disappointment, there are four things that can be done. We can sit quietly and remain disappointed.  We can try and do things to bridge the gap.  Change expectations Whine about it. Sitting quietly and remaining disappointed is not a great option. It quietly sucks out your morale and eat you away from within. There are many who do this; they end up feeling worthless. They resign to their fate. A good example of this would be women in Saudi Arabia. The society in which they live is in a certain way and they are, or feel, so powerless to change it that they have accepted their fate. Changing expectations is what Buddha suggeste...

Swami Gulagulaananda quoted his Kannada teacher: " Swaatantryakku swechchegu bahaLa vyatyaasa ide " [There is a great difference between freedom and doing as one wishes] What separates human beings from animals? What separates a civilisation from jungle? The answer, is rule of law. Rule of law is a set of artificial rules we have come to establish over ourselves in a bid to control our natural urges. Well, animals have rules to a certain extent - Like pack leader is above others, etc. But none that are as evolved as human beings. The rule of law has been the reason for the evolution of humans from yet another animal to one that dominates the world. The rule of law is a set of rules created by people for themselves. Why? Why would humans need rules and regulations? Why can't we just be like the animals? Animals are free to do as they want. Don't you think by imposing rules on ourselves, we are unnecessarily complicating lives? The answer is efficiency. If we did...

Swami Gulagulaananda quoted: " Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting a lion to not eat you because you are a vegetarian " While the original quote is " ...expecting a bull not to attack you... " but I like the lion one better. Highly recommended reading -  Aavarana - The Veil It takes all sorts to make a world is an old proverb. There are all kinds of people out there - Good, well behaved, polite, smart asses, witty, dull, dumb, arrogant, cruel, sadistic, masochistic, sadomasochistic and so on. Then there is a second proverb - Birds of the same feather flock together. We typically see these examples right from our childhood and college. The smart ones hang out together and topics of discussion are studies or study related. People call them nerds. Then there are a group of sports-guys and studs who ace in the field but flunk in exams. It's very rare that you see people from both groups hang out ...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: "" The term "Freedom Of Expression" is among the most misunderstood terms - especially so after the advent of Social Media. The problem is that people don't know where to draw the line for freedom of expression. This is true for a couple of other freedoms as well. Let's have a look at the most common example - Religion & God. The presence or absence of God cannot be proved or disproved conclusively, at least at this point of time. However, it is reasonable to say that we can prove or disprove what God has not done for sure. For example, you can say for sure that a particular disease is not because you didn't pray to God but rather because of a certain bacteria. However, there are so many things unexplained phenomena in this universe that have not yet been explained fully by science. It is, therefore, important to retain an open mind. Could it be done by God? Possible. Should we accept that as the answer and complacent...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " The moral fabric is netted, the sizes of holes not constant " Let me start off by saying that the attitude in this post is intentionally cynical As kids, we are taught a series of moral lessons - " Don't hurt others ", " Don't steal from others "... and as we grow up " Don't covet others' wives " and so on. As children, we are taught to take these statements as truths, we don't question them, we simply accept them. The reason being that we don't have the maturity and experience to validate them. So we accept them, and we follow them. As we grow up, we gain both experience and maturity. At this point, we can begin to validate our lessons and accordingly strengthen those that matched with reality and discard those that didn't. AI junkies will consider this as strengthening of synapses and those who've read 'I'm OK, You're OK' will relate this with the PAC model. ...

Baba Gyani Triviani said: " Auto-rickshaws and auto-drivers are unstable, the former because of three wheels, the latter because, well, that's the way they are... What? " " There is one, go and ask him ". " Do I have to? Alright alright, stop poking my ribs " I said. I looked at the auto-driver again. The uncouth man with a shabby shirt and unshaved face was sitting idly, looking at nothing in particular. He scratched his face with all five fingers of his hand, for he didn't have any more to spare. Then he stuck his little finger into his ear and drilled it for a few seconds, pulled it out and without much thought took it to his nose and sniffed at it. I made a face and turned to look at my wife. " What? Stop staring and ask him! " she said again. I began walking towards him, being deliberately slow, hoping against all hopes that he would suddenly start his vehicle and ride away. But no such thing happened and I eventually covered th...