All about living in this crazy, wonderful city called Bombay

April 17, 2005

MTNL Broadband

Yippee...finally an end to the local cable operator's tyrannical dominance over the broadband. Or what they claim is broadband anyway. In case you are unaware, the government has made it amply clear that only connections which give speeds of 256 kbps and more can be termed as broadband. Most cable operators are only giving speeds of 64 kbps and calling it broadband, which is illegal.

Anyway, those of you who have been following my tales of woe regarding Microvision - the local cable operator in Walkeshwar & Malabar Hill - whose broadband service is not only a joke but whose "customer care" mainly involves verbally abusing and then completely ignoring any customer who dares to complain about the fact that their connections are down for weeks on end despite the very steep rental - will be happy to know that I have finally found a solution.

The solution is MTNL's new Tri-Band Broadband service. The speeds are phenomenal (upto 6 MB), the tariffs are reasonable and the customer care etc. are exemplary. I have to admit that I had no hopes from MTNL, since its a government body and they are hardly known for their efficiency or politeness. But I was pleasantly surprised. They had promised a waiting period of two weeks to get the connection - but they ended up installing it in half the time. No repeated reminders needed from my end, and no asking for bribes etc. The linemen were extremely polite, thorough and helpful and so was the servicing desk at the MTNL office.

And there is no additional rewiring etc. required - just the installation of a DSL modem, which takes about 2 minutes. You can continue to use your phone as normal when the internet is disconnected and it now takes me about 45 seconds to download 5 MB of data :)

Touch wood!!

April 14, 2005

You know what's the suckiest thing in the world? A friend who stabs you in the back!!

Somehow I have been lucky that in all these many years I did not suffer this kind of betrayal....but yesterday somebody who I considered to be one of my closest friends backstabbed me so badly that I am going to be careful even considering forging a friendship with somebody new after this. Not only did she manipulate certain confidences that I had shared with her to suit her own needs, she also outright lied about me to damage my professional and personal integrity. And the sad power is that it is I who gave her the power to do that - by opening myself upto her, by revealing my vulnerabilities and, above all, putting her in a position of strength where her words about me have credibility with the concerned party. Basically, I think I just trusted too much.

Why did she do it? I am still trying to figure that one out. The only thing that makes sense to me is that in her twisted, competitive way she could gain an upper edge by running me down. The sad part is that I did not even know that we were in competition with each other in any manner.

You know, in some way its worse being betrayed by your friend than being betrayed by your boyfriend. We invest so much in friendships, we tell our friends everything - we even tell them things that we won't dream of telling our boyfriends. A successful love affair is usually built on a heap of compromises and adjustments, but a great friendship is built on simply accepting the other person with all their foibles, eccentricities and weaknesses.

This reminds me of something I had heard as a kid:

"Have your friends, treat them such,
Never let them know too much;
For if your friend becomes your foe,
The whole world your secrets will know."

I am going to treat these lines like the writ of God from now on.