Virtual wars

I passed the daabwaala (the guy selling green coconuts) this evening to get a haircut. He was oblivious to the world, busy playing PUBG. I stopped and stared at him for a good 10 seconds. He had no idea!

You know how hair salons in India are (or maybe you don't). You go for a simple haircut. They take a fistful of your hair and assess it with the seriousness of a physician examining a patient. People and places change, but the narrative remains the same. I have extremely dry hair, I need to apply serum and a variety of other things, I need to do certain treatments, need to color my graying hair, blah blah blah. The way he was diagnosing me, it felt like I would be the next popular choice for the movie Bala. He looked at me through the mirror with a thoughtful expression, giving me a multitude of haircut options, asking if I wanted curls and spikes and what not!

I have seen this too many times. People with straight hair wanting curls and people with curls and waves getting their hair ninety degrees straight.

I was running out of patience. I told the guy, “Look! I am a 50-year-old teacher. My job requires that students take me seriously. I have not come here to get a "chokri-look" and I have about 40 minutes to spare. Hair health comes from good food and sleep, not from serum. I need a simple haircut. Remember, I need to look my age and not like some 20-year-old!

The guy was too stunned to say anything after that. He said I am the first person who asked him not to give a chokri-look. Then he talked about his home in Darjeeling, how he landed up here, that Shontu Pal was the previous guy who cut my hair and has now moved to the Kolkata branch, how their landlord has banned cooking meat and fish at home, how he craves for his native food, that he gets one month off every year, etc. He asked me if as a Bengali, I miss eating Bengali "non-veg" food. After all the small talk about dry hair, there was something we both connected over, not having access to our native food. I didn't have the heart to tell him that due to my privileges, I was less alienated from my food. That I did not have a landlord and I could order Bengali food from a restaurant whenever I wanted.

He forgot to take my "before" shot but took some "after" shots after getting on a stool. He was barely five feet tall. The great thing is that he showed me his Instagram page and asked if he has permission to post my "after" pics. Given that a lot of people have no idea about consent, it was a very nice gesture. The guy refused a tip.

I stopped at the daabwaala's on my way back. His head was still bowed subserviently to PUBG. I asked if he ever fears that his neck will fall off his shoulders. He laughed. I asked what if someone steals a few green coconuts while he is distracted? He looked up at the sky and said rather philosophically, "God is watching everyone. He will punish."

"God is watching you too, that you are distracted and not giving full attention to your work," I said rather unceremoniously.

He shrugged, scraped off the flesh from the coconut for me and went back to fighting virtual wars.

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Daably distracted

I went off for an evening stroll and enjoy daab (green coconut). Found a daabwaala (seller).

"I want a young coconut with moderate flesh," I said. I didn't want a ripe daab that has now become a coconut, nor did I want one with no flesh at all.

The guy barely looked up. On auto-pilot mode, he tapped and picked a coconut, cut it, and gave it to me. He had his earphones on, and his eyes were glued to his cellphone. He was smiling, lost in his own world.

I found it rather odd. I finished off the water and asked him to take out the flesh. He did so rather reluctantly, on auto-pilot mode. I finished it and asked for one more. I was pretty sure he looked mildly annoyed.

"What are you watching so intently?" I asked, curious.

"PUBG," he said. And I needed to hear no more. We have a PUBG-addict in our family too. My brother-in-law.

"Sabzi?" I asked knowingly. The dirty look he gave me, you should have seen his face.

I gave him a 500 rupee note. He showed me by hand gesture that he may not have change and he doesn't want to get distracted looking for change. I gave him a 100 rupee note. He barely managed to return me a twenty.

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Why I am not likely to fly Qatar Airways again

There are mistakes. And there are expensive mistakes. 

The shortest life span of a US-India airplane ticket I bought was 4 hours. Things in my life changed in those 4 hours. I had to cancel my ticket.

Flights from the US usually come with a free cancellation clause for up to 24 hours of initial purchase. I have done that with Emirates and United. You just cancel your ticket online and get a full refund in a few days. No questions asked. This is the first time I was flying Qatar.

Apparently, Qatar Airways works on a different model. There is a button "Hold Ticket for 24 Hours" that I never saw. It could be that I was distracted, stressed, or maybe it was written strategically so that a first-timer who does not know will not notice it. Large business, after all, care about making money. They do not care about customers. Perhaps they design their websites accordingly.

When I cancelled the ticket after 4 hours, the system said that it will refund me the price of the ticket minus $305.00. It seemed odd. I called customer service. Apparently, Qatar Airways does not have a 24-hour customer service either. If you do not call within normal business hours for eastern time zone, congratulations, you have just been screwed. Again, the customer service is not really meant for serving the customer. 

By the time I could have talked to a human the next day, I might have crossed the 24-hour mark. I had to decide quickly. Note that I still had not realized that I have overlooked the "Hold Ticket for 24 Hours" button. How would I? When I had bought that ticket 4 hours ago, I had every intention of making that trip. I was doomed the moment I bought the ticket. Whether I was stuck to the plan or not, my money was stuck there.

If you watch air crash documentaries, it is never one thing gone wrong that brings down an airplane. It is usually a combination of different things, a chain of events gone wrong, often combined with human error. My situation was something like that. 

It took a couple of email exchanges and phone calls the next day to even understand what had happened. I admitted my mistake, told them that I am a first-timer with Qatar, it was a weekend and I could not talk to a customer service agent to understand what was going on. They train their staff well to maintain a robotic voice and keep apologizing for my inconvenience when they are far from being apologetic. For every line I said, they kept apologizing for any inconvenience. 

I wrote to the E-commerce support. I explained what had happened and said that it was my fault. I wrote about four emails in a week. In every email, I admitted to my mistake for not noticing that “Hold Ticket” button. Yet, after a week, I got a vague, impersonal, copy-paste email with words like “we regret to inform you,” “as per policy,” and “we look forward to welcoming you on-board on one of our flights soon.” I wonder if policy is meant for people, or people are meant for policy.

My final reply to them was short. I wrote that I hope this profit of $305.00 will supersede the loss of a customer, and hopefully, they never have to welcome me on-board.

Here was an opportunity for the airline to rise above their policies and make a lasting impression. I even told them that I was willing to buy a new ticket with the correct dates right away, a ticket that would cost me 5-6 times this $305.00 penalty. The math was simple. The intention to help was never there in the first place.

Sheryl Sandberg, in her convocation speech at MIT this year, said something that hit home. To quote her:

“They [the community leaders] understood that the most difficult problems and the greatest opportunities we have are not technical. They are human. In other words, it's not just about technology. It's about people.” [Link]

It’s about people only when the intention is to serve people. Technology forgets. Human beings don’t. My first impression of Qatar Airways will always be my lasting impression.

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My husband’s wife

Once in a while, I see a glimpse of human nature that broadens my horizon about the endless possibilities of human relationships. As I read a very interesting book, I am beginning to understand why concepts such as "one and only" and "happily forever after," concepts mostly in the human imagination have been persistently fed over generations. The idea of a husband and wife and two happy children playing on the lawn with the pets to make a perfect family. More on that book later.

I asked a colleague if she has plans for the weekend. She smiled happily and told me that she is organizing a birthday party for her husband's first wife and both are spending the weekend together with all the kids. I don't know why I heard husband but thought father, my social programming perhaps, but I embarrassed myself by asking, "Your step-mom?"

She was amused. She corrected me, "My husband's first wife, not my father's."

Wow. It takes a certain mindset and maturity, a certain degree of evolution and acceptance to be friends with your husband's ex-wife and plan her birthday. Most people I know in this awkward triangle would be ready to kill each other, and understandably so. I imagined a hypothetical situation of hanging out with my husband's wife (I don't know if I would want to be the second one or the first one if it came to that). Honestly, I don't know.  

I applaud people who can willingly be friends in complex relationships that might have involved anger, jealousy, hatred, and tears at some point. Especially because the husband, the binding agent in this case passed last year. So this birthday planning was obviously not coming from a place of compulsion.

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Simple love

Exactly three people wished me on Valentine's Day. And I was caught off-guard all three times. 

The cashier who swiped my credit card at Chipotle.

A homeless man who made way for me to walk on a bridge that was all covered in ice and slush.

The campus security guy who asked me to wrap up work and go home.

February 14 is not on my list of the top-20 or even top-50 days I celebrate, so it doesn't matter to me. What matters is the human connection. 

In other news, the best thing I saw is a picture of my friend's little son standing by a calf, pulling it's ears and smiling lovingly at the calf with a caption about love knowing no boundaries.

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