After a hard day's work at hospital (I am a physician by profession), the living room sofa becomes my holy sanctuary where both mind and body find transitory peace from the hustle and bustle of daily life. There is absolutely nothing like an afternoon nap to set the mind at ease so as to be better prepared to meet the demands and challenges of an evening shift.
Just when the eyelids close and the mind goes blank, the annoying mobile phone starts ringing. Assuming it to be an urgent call from the workplace, I dutifully attend it only to hear an automated, computer-generated voice from the telecom service provider. It was the fourth such call I got within a span of six hours, not to mention the countless number of service messages in my inbox.
I put up with this nuisance day after day for around a month after which I decided that enough was enough. So I called telecom customer care and asked them to stop this merciless barrage of unrequested offers. They, in turn, gave me another offer, for a service charge of only Rs. 99 a month (“DO NOT DISTURB SERVICE”). I would not be harassed any further. They also informed me that it takes at least 45 days for activation of the service. Naturally I was flabbergasted to know that the discontinuation of an uncalled-for service came with a fee plus such a long delay.
Forget the service calls. Though they are extremely annoying, at least they are not a perversion of our core Indian values. What about the filth they keep sending as service messages? I received many messages which are extremely vulgar. A doubt that comes to mind is, are the telecom people in the business of perverting minds particularly susceptible youth or providing an honest, reliable, responsible service to customers?
There were, of course, a few benign ones like “subscribe to daily horoscope,” “daily tips on losing weight,” etc. I assume those advertisements target middle-aged women. And the ones like “health insurance, shares & stocks, car loans” target middle-aged men.
India is destined to become a superpower one day, but I shudder to think that all the wealth and strength we make for ourselves might to a great extent be based on this kind of crony capitalism.
What confuses me the most is why there is no collective action against this kind of consumer harassment. Everyone seems to be turning a blind eye to the issue. I guess it is too much trouble to react individually.
Even if no one is bothered by useless service calls, does nobody care that schoolchildren could be receiving these objectionable content service messages on their phones without any legal restriction whatsoever?
(The writer's email is josephivinthomas84@yahoo.com)
