I chanced upon the fact today that there is an India in the US. Literally! And not one, a full six of them. These are cities, one each in Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and 2 of them in Texas!!

 

Curious I went on to look if there too is a Calcutta, the city of my love and my life. And Lo! There are four of them in the US. One each in Ohio, New York, West Virginia and Indianapolis.

 

Don’t believe me? Ask Google devta. 

And you thought that the Americans don’t think international?

The situation in Sector V has become so bad that it is unbearable. At least to elected representatives, one could have complained with a veiled threat, but to the babus of Nabadiganta, it is useless. Its being run as an incompetent private fiefdom by thoroughly incompetent bureaucrats. The beautiful showcase of Buddhadeb babu is in a complete mess ……and that’s an understatement. I have learnt a new thing incompetent buruacrats. Don’t hold open house sessions, lest people get at you. Nabadiganta is doing it, ditto for Falta SEZ authorities.

 

Our BPO is not working, because trees fell yesterday and took with them optical fibres travelling on them!!!!!!!!! The pity is, I am too ashamed to even tell this reason to clients.

 

I have a simple cure for Setor V, but that’s a common sense cure. The tragedy with common sense is perennial…..It’s so uncommon. First, put a ban all overhead wires and cables, read wires dangling on lampposts and trees. And the event of a fire, fire would literally travel from one building to another with assistance from these wires. And no fire-engines would be able to reach because the streets would be clogged with cars parked illegally, because building owners decided not have packing space!!

 

Second, all pavements should be free from so called gardens. Sidewalks are for pedestrians and they should be able to walk. No private person or entity has the right to encroach upon the right to safety of pedestrians by encroaching the sidewalks and converting them into so called ‘gardens’, fenced with barbed wires and grills.

 

And these two commonsense things won’t even cost money, the shortage of which is a favourite excuse of the corrupt and incompetent.

 

Did you know they borrowed the word from Rabindranath Tagore. Kavi Guru truly meant ‘new direction’. I just hope sector V is not emulated by anybody else.

The only country that always surprises me for its agility and capability of improving systems and bringing new concepts is the US. The concept basically is to keep improving customer service to a point that others can’t but follow elsewhere in the world.

 

Simple, but very important for travelers – the hotels do not anymore require check-out, once you have checked-in with your credit card signed in. They drop the invoice in your room from under the door early in the morning, which you can check, leave the keys in the room and simply walk out of the hotel. If any charges are incurred after the invoice has been given, they can charge it to your credit card. The objective is simple, make the process so smooth that their manpower costs can be cut, while saving time for the customer.

 

Another thing I found that the smallest of transactions can be done in the US using credit card. Elsewhere, thye would want a minimum amount for a credit card transaction and invariably it takes longer than with cash. Not in US. So much so, that if a transaction is below a certain threshold, for example $10, they don’t even ask you to sign. The mantra is speed.

 

The Speed of Trust.

The first testicular guard was used in cricket in
1874, whereas the first helmet was used in 1974.It took 100 years for men to realize that the brain is also
important!

(Contributed by Alok Maheshwary from London)