It was quite a simple and sweet first day I spent in Calcutta..sorry Kolkata. 17 of us from XLRI reached here in the morning by Haltia-Ranchi-Howrah express. Nice day - one age of empires game, two hours of sleep during the day, awesome home-made south indian lunch after quarter of a year - nice roam in Park Street (the Brigade road of Kolkata) and then a crow shitted the plans.
Supratik, one of our God-level class-mates was (s)hit by an unassuming crow's droppings. To get him rid of his designed hair-do, we (around 7 of us) stopped for him. We then went to the Park street Metro station, we missed a train by a matter of 20 seconds. Waited for 10-12 minutes for the next train. On reaching Kalighat (where we put up in our friend, Atul's place), we could not get a direct auto to his house and had to walk about a furlong in a light drizzle. On reaching his house, we immediately started on our pathetic journey of my life. The car went, fooled and drooled - my laptop was having a stupid problem : It was not getting switched on - irritating rains and impossible-to-close windows of a raunchy yellow ambassador which deserves a place in the Indian Museum of Kolkata(very close to Eden Gardens)
We started from Kalighat at 1715 hrs and reached the Dum Dum by 1845 (after paying a very reasonable 300 to the humble taxi driver), only to hear that we would not be allowed to board the 'Ever-on-time, Customer-friendly, Exquisite service providers' by the name Dukkan, Air Deccan. The lady at the boarding counter had all the rights in the world to deny us board, but the haughty way in which she replied, unheeding to the pleading requests of my friend Jai and a behaviour which would make even JJ, UB and MB jealous - made me understand what a dissatisfied customer would like to do and can do (hope some one is reading this post)
We had to cancel the tickets, 'supposedly' got the refunds (My credit card account is yet to be credited), made ourselves pinballed between Indian, Jet, Sahara, Spicejet, Phone booth, Kingfisher and ultimately decided to board the tomorrow morning's Spicejet flight which would start at 0540 hrs. An additional expense of Rs.1500 for lack of punctuality from our side and Crow's shit.
This, I think, is called the famous 'Butterfly effect' (from Chaos theory) or infamously by the name "Bullwhip effect" (from Production Management!!!)
"Punctuality may not get you laurels, but lack of it may cost you dear" - that's the learning for the day
P.S.: By God's grace, my computer booted and I am using the Kolkata airport's wireless connectivity for sending this post and hope I could get a charging point to charge my lappy.
2 comments:
The Crow shit effect.. sure looks similar to the famous hypothetical butterfly effect. happy journey anyways.
Selva.There is always a lesson or two to learn from Air deccan. They,in a way, make us realise the need for Humanitarian treatment,if not God-like treatment at Airports.Statements like "We have reached Delhi IGI airport domestic terminal.We apologize for the 2 hour delay.We are 10th in the Queue to Touch Down " are pretty common with Dukkan.
This airline is playing a major role in making the non-debut travellers shift to Premier airlines , for sure. I wish Captain takes this seriously. After all, we are not flying for free.
To reach the Airport late and to miss the flight can be acceptable but not the shabby treatment at the hands of a dumb Airline representative..
Anyway , wish u a happy journey 2moro..I guess ur Parents and ur scorpio ll b waiting for u..And , that little sweet girl of urs..
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