I'm almost (but not entirely) ashamed to admit this, being a self confessed pseudo intellectual, among so many other pseudo states that I inhabit (pseudo secular, pseudo theist, pseudo philantropist, pseudo this that and the other....) - actually, there ARE times when of an evening, I do switch on the idiot box and bask in that blue haze of light that flickers....
I try to watch "serious stuff" - you know, those documentary shows on NatGeo, Discovery, History etc, especially when my pseudo misanthrope son of mine is watching the tube alongside me... thankfully he's not around here, these days, in fact he's about as far away as can be possible, on an entirely different continent (still in the same hemispehere, though!) so, I need no longer pretend to be interested in the mating habits of penguins or arachnids, in the secrets of quasars, quarks and stuff like that...
Which doesn't mean that I sit, all engrossed, teary eyed, mouth open ajar, watching some "poor" bahu or saas and their shenanigans.
What I love to watch, really, are those programmes that come on BBC Entertainment or Z Cafe etc. English programmes which I find myself more in sync with than those of American origins... stiff upper lip, what, eh?! "Sherlock", "Hustle", "Inspector George Gently", "Dalziel and Pascoe".... I've enjoyed these serials for a couple of years and, typically, look forward to a Saturday/Sunday night (when I can) with a glass of the right stuff (ably tended to by my now missing bartender son), those typical Brit jokes that merit a smile (never a guffaw) of quiet mirth....
And so, there it was, a few days back, I switched on the damn TV, switched on the even more damned set top box (isko laga dala toh life..... jinga lala?) and Channel 205 was a complete BLUE BLANK!! I mean, what the blazes?!!
I am, among other things, a pseudo stoic as well. So, I grasped the remote more firmly in my palm, thumbed my way up and down the entire range of channels, up and down, and up and down again, in an increasing state of irritation and mounting apprehension.... they were all there, every single one of those unwanted channels.... Doordarshan, Zee TV, Sony TV, even damn you Fashion TV, CeeBees etc... I even stumbled across no less than 17 Tamil channels, 6 Malayalam channels, countless Telugu (thelledhu), Kannada (gotilla) etc... but the Beeb seemed to have vanished - pardon this poor pun - into thin air!
Wait, I thought for a moment! Is BBC News still on? (Not that I watch it, different story that) But yes, BBC News was still on air. But, BBC Entertainment? Like one of those magic shows where Criss Angel or Dynamo make the Taj Mahal vanish, some mysterious power had done the vanishing trick with all my shows!!!!
My whiskey vanished too, in a trice, as I knocked one back and howled in a silent cry of distress... and then I entered into a surreal world of conversation with Tata Sky Helpline.
You call, if you're in the Western Zone, to 020 (Pune) 66006633. And you get to speak to a computer (don't ever complain of India's humongous population!). Which tells you, in that disembodied voice, to dial 1 for Hindi mein jaankaari ke liye, dial 2 for English etc... so, the Brit in me ensured I dialled 2... that disembodied voice continued to spew information that was almost entirely useless till I did a little bit of cheating. I dialled the option for a new connection and managed to get to speak to a human being finally..... who (but naturally) spoke to me in chaste, shudhdh Hindi.... in a voice that was perhaps trained to set the listener's nerves on edge...
We sparred for a few minutes on the protocols... why don't you speak to me in English? I asked. Surely sir, I shall speak to you in English, he assured me, and said main aapse maafi chahata hoon for the inconvenience caused by speaking in Hindi. How can I help you, was his next question. So I ventured to tell him, ask him in fact, why am I not getting BBC Entertainment.
A simple question, I thought. All he needed was to give me a simple, straight forward answer...
He wanted to know what was my subscriber identity number. I did not know why that was relevant. So we went around the issue again, a few times, by which time he'd reached the end of his English and I'd reached the end of my patience.... my good friend, dear departed Dipankar, he of the immaculate wit, used to describe certain people as "Father of English", his back-handed way of describing someone who fu#@* up the language right royally!! The gentleman with whom I was sparring was one such Father of English so, I surrendered, sequentially, again and again... first we ended up speaking in Hindi..... then I gave up the battle of the subscriber identity number and went searching for the same and gave that to him...
and waited.... and waited... while he "put me on hold" - with my permission of course, while he tried to "help" me with my query. We're already 4 minutes into conversation now, mind you. And he comes back, finally, "unholds" me and says with that absolutely unerringly identifiable smugness in the voice... "Ji, mein aap ko yeh batana chahoonga ki Tata Sky mein BBC Entertainment Channel ab uplabdh nahin hai!"
I was sitting down and so I did not fall. In an extremely pseudo polite voice I asked him "Why not". And then we went around sparring again, in circles, round and round. Finally, in a rare admission of defeat he put me on hold again while summoning reinforcements. His supervisor came on, another clam when it came to sharing information, but definitely a clam made of better stuff. Some five minutes after Super Clam came on, and still none the wiser, I admitted a complete rout, surrendered abjectly and hung up in almost total disgust.... almost total disgust because, in those wonderful 10 odd minutes, I had developed a grudging admiration for my antagonists at the other end... If ever someone wants to develop a training module (Any HR guys out there, reading this?) on "How to drive a customer stark raving mad while keeping one's cool?" I suggest you call Tata Sky (Western Zone) on 020 - 66006633.
What can I say? Isko laga daala toh life...... pagal jhaala!!
PS: can someone tell me, which are the really good saas-bahu serials worth watching now? Eh, what? I'm sorry, Old Chap, but we're off for the nonce, toodle oo!
No comments:
Post a Comment