Friday, April 30, 2010

screw vodafone, amchi NRM!


today's been a big day for me.

for one, i managed to con vodafone into giving me a dilli connection without giving them a single personal detail or document. ha! of course, my dear brother jopee had to give them a copy of his house lease and a pretty mug shot of himself to get me the new sim. but still, jopee punished vodafone by getting their guy to come over in the wee hours of the night to collect these. ha HA!

(jopee has a thrilling genius for extracting service from the most bloody minded customer service departments. he managed to get vodafone to do in one evening what i haven’t managed to pull off since the beginning of march. i’m seriously thinking of telling him to drop his wishy washy corporate job and monetize his superpowers instead. the ability to get vodafone to issue, verify and activate a new connection within 24 hours is the kind of niche and amazing talent that must get paid in gold bricks.)

but despite jopee’s dazzling performance and my utter delight at having outmaneuvered vodafone, i had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when i got my new dilli sim card last night. the very thought of letting go of my old number made my blood run cold.

come on! - jopee said - see if it works, i told the vodafone guy there’ll be hell to pay if it isn’t activated this evening!

frankly, even i was completely shocked by my reluctance. i've been going on and on about how it’ll be brilliant to get another number and keep it a state secret for years now. but as it turns out, i’m just not cool enough to go awol.

in fact, i’m terrified of the mess this is no doubt going to create in the days to come. i’ll have to change the number in my bank records to continue getting their mobile alerts. this will take some nifty navigation through never ending phone menus. only to get put through to the wrong department, or get redirected to online banking. yeesh. i’ll also have to unsubscribe to stinking vodafone live all over again – with vodafone working hard to fox me into staying subscribed. i’ll have to send out mass sms-es to at least 50% of the people in my phone book. which a bunch of them will not receive, or forget to save. i’ll have to memorize my new number. i’ll have to change it on my business cards, my mail sign off, my cleartrip account…%@#@$@!


don't be silly - jopee said - you can't be on roaming forever!


b-b-bbbbbut, that's my mumbai number! from now on, when my friends and folks call, it’ll be STDeeeee! 


the very thought of it made me want to cry. stupid, i know. so i figured i should just go the whole hog and keep both numbers.

think of it as a dual citizenship – i sms-ed a friend this morning – henceforth and until further notice, i’m a Non Resident Mumbaikar.


so like i said, today's been a big day for me. i won the battle and then lost the war to vodafone. i’ve been saying ‘screw vodafone, amchi NRM!’ all day to make myself feel better. you know what, it works. the advertising business has trained me well. as you can see i’ve gotten so goddamn good, i can sell myself my own bullshit. 


ps: i’ll thank you for not congratulating me on this remarkable achievement.


image source: www.vodafone.in

10 comments:

Kro said...

"yeesh"
YEEEEESH!!!
who says that??
reminds me of that evil dad in that movie where amol palekar has a pseudo double role

nrm
that's like a local nri.

mentalie said...

@kro, the evil dad was utpal dutt. and he said EEEESH. as all articulate bengalis do. and yeah, that's totally like a local nri :)

Blunt Edges said...

now that u talk of not congratulating u...i can't but do it...CONGRATS!!! :P

Anonymous said...

Aww...no No NOOOO...Dad rerun dad rerun...Arrrgh!

Yeah I know the above line doesn't make much sense. But that is what happens when I type out what runs in my head as is. :p

& NRM? Losing the war to the enemy? LOL & Yeeesh :))

Ire said...

Interesting!

Perakath said...

Ek dual-sim le lo. Aur teri dono number de do mere ko.

DewdropDream said...

I always thought it would be so cool if someone invented a phone that accommodated multiple SIMs.

Atrisa said...

I know what you mean! I left Ahmedabad a month back and I'm still on roaming :P And I haven't changed my ICICI net banking phone number from 2 yrs back. Haha. Welcome to the dark side ;) Better get used to be being a Delhiite!

Soin said...

last seven years i have the same chennai number.for the last four years i have not been in chennai.still the sim is in my wallet.free

mentalie said...

@blunt, arrrgh and $^%#@$!

@choco, your head sounds like a fascinating place...

@nikita, you should have a word with vodafone to see how interesting it can be ;p

@perakath, hahahah. good tip about the dual sim. your hindi is fabulous ;)

@dewdrpdream, it has been invented. please contact perapath for further details.

@atrisa, so you know exactly what i mean...am trying hard enough to come to terms with dilli, coming to terms with being a dilli-ite will have to wait! baby steps.

@soin, thank you, it helps to know i'm not the lone fool feeding vodafone's coffers ;)

last word by the acp

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