Thursday 20 September 2012

GREAT CUSTOMER CARE EXPERIENCE OF INDIAN RAILWAYS



GREAT CUSTOMER CARE EXPERIENCE OF INDIAN RAILWAYS

On 20th September, 2012 while on board Shatabdhi express (one of the most prestigious trains of Indian Railways) from Delhi to Chandigarh I had a very pleasant surprise how prompt the customer care services of Indian Railways (the largest net work in the world with largest number of employees) are.    When the breakfast was served (I and the consultant travelling with me  preferred veg-south Indian), and as can be expected the vada was burnt and hard like a rock and even the portion of Upma was like a one hard cake.   The sambar was ice cold and there was no salt in chatni.   While I left the vada not risking my teeth, the consultant called the pantry people and gave them a dressing down and called for complaint book.    As usual they did a bit of dilly dallying in providing the complaint book, in the mean time he sent an SMS to the customer care number of India railways northern region.


What followed is very hard to believe and very pleasant surprise.    First a thanks giving sms came within 1 minute, in the next 3 minutes a Supervisor of the train has come running in apologizing for inconvenience caused and proposing to replace the breakfast with hot one – we didn’t accept his proposal with food not being tasty at all.   While the conversation was on a call came from customer care enquiring from the traveler whether the problem was sorted out or not and the caller spoke to the Train Supervisor and gave him a good dressing down and ordered him to provide complaint book to us immediately.   


After 10 minutes when he went to the toilet, as always happens, there was no water coming out of the tap on top of the wash basin but there was a pool water on the floor.   He again sent a SMS and told me to see in the direction of toilet to see what happens.    Within 2 minutes 2 cleaners along with TT descended on our coach and set things right and TT personally came and said sir now you can use the toilet, and for the next two hour of the journey an attendant was stationed outside the toilet mopping the floor after every use by any passenger.    Whatever happened is just like a scene taken out of Shankar’s Anil kapoor starrer `Nayak’ (where CM for a day keeps calling government officials on phone and either keep getting the things done by them or dismissing them).   Though it sounded exaggeration while seeing the movie, it proved to be more than real since the call went not from a CM but an ordinary traveler.     I must admit that even while staying in 5 star hotels I never seen a complaint being attended so fast.   Incidentally 4 months back I stayed in Park at Kolkata and in 7 hours I stayed in the hotel, I had to complain 4 times and being fed up while checking out I put down all the issues running into a full page and gave it to the duty manager and till date there is no reply of any action taken by them.    As I am working in a hospitality chain,  I did not press the matter, least they may feel that I am making it an issue since I am working for a rival group.  

   
Having closely observed my father working in Central Govt with great amount of dedication and starting my career in a PSU, I was always opined that Govt and PSUs (whether it is any Government office, police, and defense) work far better than the private sector (in which there is so much of show-biz and less of content)   They are more organized, procedure oriented, methodical and meticulous, great record keepers and their retrievers.  All these despite very poor infrastructure facilities and incentives, and  they can do wonder if they wish to work.    The blame lies on us as neither we use the ways and means to make them work nor have the patience to wait and given them reasonable time to do the work before trying to bribe and get the things done fast thereby corrupting the system ourselves.    In the train yesterday there were not less than 70 people in the coach no one has complained and even when my co-traveller was talking things out with the TS, people were amused and must be thinking the guy must be crazy to make a scene.    They are unmindful that it is not only for him (we did not accept the additional breakfast offered to us), few such complaints going will instill discipline in the staff and the people who travel after that will be benefitted and the contractor who was supposed to supply good and hygienic food does not make a fool of us and make money at our cost.   No one expect everyone to become an APARICHITAN (again a Shankar’s movie) and throw the contractor who supplies bad food into a boiling oil container (that is the punishment prescribed in Garudapurana for supplying bad food, as per the movie), but atleast have the inclination to improve things by making complaint when it is so easily done by sending a sms from your mobile.   


Come to think of it how many people know that there are such customer care numbers for all regions of Indian Railways and how many of us use them?   The number for North is 09717630982 and South Central is 08121281212 (numbers for other regions can be found in the website of Railways).    So next time you travel in a train and find anything not to be in order, instead of cribbing or making it a just a point of discussion go ahead and complaint and see things being attending at an amazing speed.  


Enjoy your journey in the oldest, trusted and most economical mode of transport.

s. prabhakar
21.9.2012

Monday 10 September 2012




REVIEWS OF AWARA &
TRISHUL


After a long time, yesterday i saw two back to back Hindi movies on TV.   The first one is a more than 60 years old AWARA (1951) and the other one more than 30 years old TRISHUL (1978).





                                                          
AWARA is a very absorbing and at its time a path breaking movie.   Both Raj Kapoor and Prithvi Raj Kapoor (the forefather of the blossoming Kapoor khandaan) were at their best.    Apart from the towering performance of these two, all others too were at their best viz., the magical Nargis-Raj Kapoor chemistry (how i wish our Emraan Hasmi and young crop of actors see this movie and learn how to emote romance on the silver screen without jumping violently on the heroin and smooching at drop of the hat), Shankar Jaikishan’s magical music – songs fantastically rendered by Mukesh and Lata (the all time hits like Awaara hoon, ek bewafase pyaar kiya, Hum tujse mohabat karke sanam, ghar aya mera pardesi, ab raat guzar ne wali hai)and background music  (famous for using 80 pieces live orchestra for the spell binding dream sequence), the great camera work (don’t know who it was) using dim lights, shadows and close ups of Prithvi and Raj Kapoors and extensive use of smoking in clubs and dens to depict the evil side with the great results).     Normally when father and son duo act, it is the father who dominates and hand holds the son who must be very shaky (like Amitabh-Abisek, NTR-Balakrishna, ANR-Nagarjuna, Shivaji Ganesan-Prabhu), but it was to the credit of Raj Kapoor that he held fort, not only stood against Prithvi Rajkapoor, but also stole thunder in many confrontation scenes.     Added to his acting, Raj kapoor, at a very young age,  produced and directed the movie.   The Central theme of movie is so powerful that it has been repeated many times in movies like Dharam karam, Paravarish, Zameer  etc.   Each song was a classic  and  is popular even today.     Apart from being big hit and a cult movie, it has been huge success in USSR and for many years the song `Awara hoon’ was like anthem and Raj Kapoor was the only popular Indian known to them.    When we talk of villain, K N Singh (whom most of the youngster may not be knowing) did a great job, though he could not sustain much after this movie.   


                                
The other film which I saw one more time and enjoyed (after a very long gap) was Amitabh-Sanjeev Kumar starrer Tirshul.    Amitabh was at his peak and on a roll and it is one of his biggest blockbusters and he along with Sanjeev Kumar really spelt magic.   Whereas in Awara,  Raj kapoor was a vagabond in Trushul Amitabh was orphan and both have issues with their respective fathers.      Trishul has a powerful storyline and scorching dialogues by the then undivided Salim-javed Jodi.       The famous confrontations and dialogue baji for which Hindi movies are famous were in full view in Trishul.    Both Amitabh and Sanjeev Kumar were at their best and not giving an inch to the other.      Their performance was unmatched till Shakti was released in which too the magic was re-created between Amitabh and Dilip Kumar (in which both powerful dialogues as well as silence was also used in scenes like when Amitabh comes to meet Dilip kumar after his mother gets killed – the entire scenes was essayed without a dialogue).   Then ofcourse after a long gap it was followed by Mohabatein this time it was a dual between Amitabh and Sharukh Khan.     When Shakti was released Amitabh was praised to skies for being able to stand before towering Dilip Kumar and match dialogue for dialogue and expression for expression.    And in Mohabatein, Sharukh too held his fort admirably especially in the scene where he ends the conversation saying `from where I am seeing you, I find a defeated father standing below the potrate  of his dead daughter)

Coming back to Trishul, the story writers have cleverly shown the hero taking revenge on his father by destroying his business empire through unethical mans and making him pauper since father ditches his mother to become rich.    Amitabh, who was already a `angry young man’ brand at that time, has spilled venom right through in a very polished way and Sanjeev Kumar, as usual, given another sterling performance, graying his hair, closely following Sholay.      Others like Rakhi, Hema Malini, Sacin and Poonam Dhillon are just ornamental.   Prem Chopra, as he has done in every movie, has a punch dialogue at the end, `lijiye sahib yeh raha bandook, woh raha apka vijay, bus aap ko nishana laga ke trigger dabaneka takleef uthani padegi (service at the best as he was engaged to kill Vijay/Amitabh).      With such masala ingredients, as can be expected, it was a huge hit, and one of the land mark movies of Amitabh following Zanjeer, Dweear, Sholay.  
It has that famour song GAPUCHI GAPUCHI GUM GUM ……..which I recently sang with my wife in a family get-together.  


S. PRABHAKAR
10.9.2012