Top to Bottom: Indian Standard Excuses (ISEs)

In India, we are very much dependent on people because the ‘system’ does not work automatically. The ‘system’ could be public or private as well as ‘no system’ at all. It could be run by uneducated or illiterates, public service departments as well as by MBA degree holder corporate people and ‘customer care’ departments. Everyone is driven by the same socialistic approach without any difference. Whether they ‘assure’ you or ‘promise’ you, it makes no difference. You will invariably be cheated by the false assurances and promises made by Indians to Indians. Some Indians who have over-confidence on India’s so-called booming economical progress and reforms may not agree with me or may not accept these facts. Take for instance the uneducated plumbers, electricians, masons, contractors or even educated builders whom you hire to get your work done or problem rectified. They assure or even promise you that they will finish up the work 99 to 100% by so and so date or time, but you cannot be optimistic. If they give this type of statement, be pessimistic and do not expect that they are going to fulfill their promises or assurances. The next day, they will neither turn up nor inform you anything. The advancement in telecommunication devices has given an easy way to adapt unethical practices to lie or put an excuse instead of utilizing the technology to provide an efficient and ethical service. Now by sitting at home and without leaving the station, a person habitually claims that he is out of station if you try to contact him on cell phone. The illiterate workers or maid servants have the same attitude towards their duties. They will probably come to work for 10 or 15 days in a month and claim full-month’s salary by saying that they worked for the whole month. No morals, no work ethics! These are for the educated lots.

Likewise, if you are expecting a service from the so-called ‘customer care’ department or a service sector person of a small or big, local or multi-national company, you will experience the same behavioural attitude from them. If your washing machine has gone out of order, your fix-line telephone is not working at home or office, you are expecting a refund of deposit from your previous post-paid mobile company, a sales agent of your insurance company has assured you to pick up a cheque from you  towards your premium, or you are expecting a serviceman from your computer dealer to visit your office/home to rectify software or hardware problem – even if you are under warranty period, you cannot be optimistic that they will fulfill their assurances or even promises. For them there is practically no difference between an assurance and a promise because both are made falsely with an intention to deceive and in some cases to harass you. If you ring up and remind them after waiting for sufficiently long time or sometimes for days, you will receive a similar ‘Standard Excuse’ from a set of excuses, viz., I forgot; I was busy with so much work load; I was out of station; I had to go out of station for some urgent work the day I was to visit you and have returned today or only yesterday – now I would surely come to you tomorrow; my boss sent me somewhere; I was stuck up in an urgent meeting; my boss suddenly came from the head office so I had to go to airport to pick him up and hence I was busy for the whole day; my bike got punctured so I got delayed; when I was leaving my office to come to you it started raining suddenly; I was busy and did not see/receive your email or SMS; my mobile was on ‘silent mode’ so I did not listen to your ring; my cell phone’s battery was down so I could not inform you or pick up your call; my kid has spoiled or broken my mobile that I bought for Rs. 15000 so I do not receive any calls; although you get the ‘ring’; I was sick for 2-3 days; the spare part of your washing machine is out of stock or hardware of your computer is not available so I did not come; the spoiled hardware of your computer is covered only for 6 months or not at all covered under warranty; your cheque has been mailed or couriered last week and you will receive it within a day or two; many of our staff are on leave so I was busy today but I will definitely do your work tomorrow; the person dealing with such cases is on leave for a couple of days, so you have to come next week (no courteous request), I remain so busy that it slipped from my mind to visit or ring you; and so on, so forth. All these are ISEs – Indian Standard Excuses because these justifications are given or provided to hide the real reason or conceal the fact – a sheer lie. Had it not been ‘excuses’ the person concerned would have informed you in time or even late, repented and apologized (not a courtesy in India) and tried to compensate the loss or inconvenience by efficiently completing the task and by his/her polite manners. We cannot expect such manners or politeness from the uneducated and illiterate people or government departments who thrive on false statements or lie to cheat you. However, even the well-educated staffs with so-called corporate culture do not hesitate to utter sheer lies which you can easily detect as a  customer or client. An entrepreneur, a self-employed professional, an employee of a small company, educational institute or a manager of a big corporate – you can expect the same behavioural trait from everyone. No wonder why the noted motivational speaker Shiv Khera has commented that every home in India is a factory of liars. Every kid starts learning from his childhood how to lie without reason from his parents and elders at home. We grow in this atmosphere and also learn to doubt, suspect and distrust people around us because if we rely or try to trust everyone, there is likelihood that we will be swindled. People keep on telling lies in routine without any reason.

Is there any way we can change this widespread and unethical system of throwing false excuses and uttering lies every now and then? Can’t our educated people in business and profession learn to say the truth, be courteous, and politely apologize for the assurances and promises they fail to keep due to any valid reason while feeling sorry for the inconvenience caused to their clients or customers? After all, it only takes a courtesy phone call to inform to your client. Why can’t Indian business houses and corporates train their old and new employees to stay away from Indian Standard Excuses and to follow this as a ‘code of conduct’ in their career? Is this very difficult to implement? It only requires self-discipline for every individual employee while a strict instruction from the management to penalize any employee if s/he is found to give standard excuses (ISEs) or if the company receives any complaint from a client/customer. We need to purify our system to make it ‘ethical’.
Courtesy costs nothing but pays much. 

~Gunjan Gupta, Esq.

Is Indian Prime Minister accountable like the U.S. President?

It has been learnt during Barack Obama’s India visit (Nov.-2010) that when the U.S. exports 10 Billion Dollars worth of goods, 50000 jobs will be created in America. But when Indian exporters export, perhaps no additional jobs are created in India. Rather exporters want Indian currency to remain down and weak for their own vested interest. Developed countries of the world have stronger currencies such as British Pound, Euro, Dollars of USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, etc. If India wants to be in the list of developed countries as is projected in the coming decade, Indian Rupee (INR) has to grow stronger. Perhaps the Indian government including the RBI does not intend INR to grow stronger. In 1980’s, US$ 1 was equivalent to INR 8, while in 1960’s, it was less than INR 5 per US$. Soon after independence in 1948, INR 1 was equal to USD 1 and Pound 1. The steep rise in exchange rate began in 1991 onwards during Reformed Economy of Liberalized India. The INR started losing its value since 1952 when the political leaders borrowed money for the first time from the World Bank and other developed nations. By 2010, our own currency Indian Rupee has become so weak and devalued that it has lost its purchaing power even within the country. It is quite common to witness Indians comment, “Even a beggar does not accept 1-Rupee these days”. It is a very shameful situation for us. No one in any developed country dares to think or comment like this about his nation’s currency. India has zero value for all its coins (in the eight denominations of less than a rupee) – which is the recent development in 21^st century. Days are not far when our 1 & 2-Rupee coins will also have zero value and become extinct – just like ‘Paise’ coins. Indians are shown fictitious figures about inflation to represent it low. Being an Indian, I realize as India’s share market grows, Indians are shown higher GDP growth rates while the inflation levels are sneakily made lower by our government and officials. The food grains and other food items are traded in Commodity Exchange (MCX). This results in exorbitant rise in prices of edible oil and food grains making them out of common man’s reach – whereas India is designated as an ‘Agriculture Country’. In reality Indians observe that prices of everything – whether food items (agricultural produce), FMCG products, automobiles, or real estates (including rented properties) are constantly rising by leaps and bounds. In 1970’s, one Kg. common salt was available in 10-20 paise (one-tenth to one-fifth of a Rupee)!! Today the common salt (of course iodized version) is costing INR 10-12 per Kg. In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi had challenged the British government and shaken it with his historic “Dandi March” when the British imposed a salt tax on salt. But today, we have no Mahatma Gandhi to protest against Indian government’s taxing policies – especially on essential commodities that torture us and particularly forcing the lower strata of Indian population to remain below the poverty line, starve and suffer the most. In this way, one day Indians will find that the inflation level is declared at ‘zero level’ but in reality they will have sky-high prices of everything. Possibly on that day, a 10-Rupee currency-note will have a purchasing power of today’s 1-Rupee coin. No wonder Indian government would blatantly declare India’s GDP growth rate as 14 to 15% and inflation rate at 0.00%. No public protest, no voice – despite being the world’s largest democracy. In developed nations as well as in a nearby progressive  country, UAE, the commodity prices remain standstill for a long time and rarely fluctuate so frequently as they rise in India.

Indian government is trying to create an illusive image to show the world that India has progressed much by showing exaggerated GDP growth rate and high ‘Sensex’ figures generated by foreign investments (in its share market). This growth does not mean that most of the country’s population is satisfied or at least getting employment for minimum survival level. The U.S. President Obama is just trying to lift India eulogistically by calling it a ‘super power’ for meeting his and his country’s vested interests. This is an irony that a beggar, who borrows money from the World Bank and other rich countries, is giving alms to the ‘Rich and Famous’!! Unless India repays its borrowed debt with accumulated interests, it cannot be a developed nation. The litmus test will prove this when INR will be equal to the USD in the ratio of 1:1.

American President is ‘accountable’ towards American people. He has come to India to generate jobs. But is Indian PM or any minister in government accountable towards educated Indians who are passing through the ordeal of joblessness? Leave aside the uneducated and illiterates. Indian media and government are trying to portray that we have excess jobs in India which we have probably snatched from the Americans (at least they believe so in the U.S.). Now by helping the U.S.A., India could possibly return those excess jobs to the Americans. Do we have 100% employment and 0% unemployment rates? Certainly not. India’s ‘power-hungry’ political leaders who thrive and prosper on corruption, are not at all the Statesmen. They accumulate wealth for their next 7 generations but are never bothered for India’s present generation. Half of India’s population lives below poverty line. They hardly manage to get a meal a day or not even that. This is all related to unemployment issue. Indian government has failed to resolve this significant problem in 63 years of independence and is not likely to resolve in the next 2, 3 or 4 decades. But on paper with the help of false media publicity, India is keen to declare it a ‘developed nation’ by 2020 by concealing its burning issues like poverty, unemployment and corruption. I only wish if an Indian minister or the Prime Minister would have done something like the U.S. President to seek jobs or to generate employments for the India’s unemployed to help eliminate at least unemployment and poverty.

~Gunjan Gupta, Esq.

From infuriating hyper-advertising to ‘Social Responsibility’

Excessive or hyper-advertising leads to irritation. It has been observed during festive seasons that some advertisers believe too much mass advertising is directly proportional to high turn over – even in 2010 when the world over and especially in developed world, Social Media Marketing has taken precedence over the traditional mass advertising. But in India, not only the local companies but also multi-nationals like SONY (Bravia) seem to have high reliance as well as dependence on outmoded mass advertising. 

As a TV-viewer, how do you feel whenever you observe that a TV commercial is ‘repeated’ more than once during every ‘break’? A regional jewellery company (PC Jeweller – operating only in some states) has really ‘bored’ the viewers with its hackneyed and dull TV ad which was bombarded thrice during each break before Diwali-2010 – so much so that it has actually started “irritating” the audience to the extent of ‘aversion’ caused by nuisance. I call this “Advertising Pollution” which also badly affects and cripples children’s minds. In India, for generations, jewellers have bad names for cheating their customers in various ways until the Bureau of Indian Standard introduced “Hallmark” for Gold jewelleries to safeguard customers. No jeweller runs any promotional scheme to charge 1 Carat less for the gold jewellery that you have purchased (for example 20 Carat rate for a jewellery of 21 Carat). Instead they are likely to charge you 1 or 2 Carats higher than the actual Carat of the purchased gold jewellery by befooling you. Moreover, they can literary waste huge money on mindless TV advertising to “irritate” the audience or prospective customers to a great degree. Isn’t there any law in India that safeguards the TV viewers from such onslaughts of TV ad bombardments by the advertisers on every channel? If the companies have excess money to waste like drain-water, why can’t they channelize the excessive funds for the welfare of society they make money from? Why can’t they show their Social Responsibilities or philanthropy? They are only concerned for their own profits and bottom-line by squeezing each and every customer.

~Gunjan Gupta, Esq.

To speak, a language is no longer required...!!

Indian TV channels have excessive bombardment of commercials (advertisements), 24 hrs X 7 days. There is less time for ‘contents’and more for the Ads. With exorbitant mass advertising, I wonder how Indians remember and recall those ads to make a decision while in the marketplace or doing shopping.

One such ad by an Indian mobile service provider company claims thru an ordinary-looking, flop hero (called ‘Sar-ji’ or rather ‘Paer-ji’ – in Hindi) who plays a dumb role in the ad that “To speak, no language is required”. “Now anyone can talk in any language”. Sounds silly...!! Interpreters of the world: have you heard this? Time to lose your jobs! Now using this mobile technology (?), every Indian can talk in English and those who wish to study overseas, need not take tests like TOEFL, IELTS, etc. Now anyone can easily talk in any language, for example, in Mandarin (Chinese), Japanese or Spanish. What an idea…! This could also facilitate to talk in and understand the languages of other vertebrates, such as birds and animals. Beware of Indians. They have made a remarkable progress in India and left the world behind...!

~Gunjan Gupta, Esq.