The Story of my experiments with MTNL try-band


What promised to end as an obituary now is a fantastic story of rebirth and resurrection. As you might have guessed from the title the villain, the vanquished and the villain of this story is that four letter Govt telecom company. Yours truly is a side hero, one who's as dispensible as Amar Singh's wit.
Four weeks ago, the MTNL Triband connection whimpered to a halt. The data transfer light on my modem made occasional blinked like a lighthouse far away. I promptly rang the Helpline. The Help part of helpline in my opinion, needs an exclamation mark after it if it has to aptly describe the state of poor souls who seek its umbrage. A Maharashtrian aunty who had just finished cutting vegetables for the next day picked up the phone and said "Kya problem hai" I restrained pouring my heart filled with problems and told her the facts. "Complaint no 4508. Thud". I felt deprived and consigned to a shit hole like in the movie Slumdog Millionaire
After a few days of watching "Page Cannot Be Displayed" and futile attempts at calling various numbers I decided to investigate the matter myself and entered the Mankhurd Telephone Exchange. A gentle Mr Tulaskar who comes from the Gentle Maharashtrian school of thought and doesn't chew paan, took pity on my expression while staring at the phone that I held. He said with his hand beckoning towards an inner chamber "Madam ko bolta hoon" Madam whose darshan I have still not got was probably not propitiated enough for my modem remained in limbo post that visit.

A week has gone by when I decided to don my excited avtaar and approach Mr Tulaskar again. The sight of me made him feel guilty as all the values that his parents had rendered him while he was a kid in Satara district came to the fore. Bypassing madam and putting his Gratuity at risk, Tulaskar stormed the control room to set my connection right. A plethora of lineman swarmed about like bees making and breaking people's DSL lifelines. "Party aaleli aahe" was the term that preceded a complex 15 mins while my connection was attempted to be set right. My expressions went from remorse to anticipation and finally to glee when told everything is alright now. I reached home, pessimist that I am, sure that the demons of MTNL were still be exorcised. I was right.
A call to Tulaskar again, confirmed that there was a twist in the story or the ADSL line.There was a 'local' issue which was beyond the farthest reaches of his eye and authority. His woebegone face made me shed crocodile tears and I left him desolate in his wooden chamber, sorry to have stirred the numb conscience of a govt servant
By this time, patience had run out and opportunity had surfaced in the form of an alternate Internet Connection. While still mulling over whether the larger hole in the pocket was worth it, I decided to give the Helpline a last final call for succour. The lady who answered this time was quite unlike the rest. She looked like she had cut all her vegetables back at home and was here to do a job. She gave me some 'higher ups' numbers. Meanwhile I also managed to procure some influential email IDs and gathered some protocols from the MTNL website (they do have one!!!). The final frontier was here, die or do
The higher ups, may be because of the altitude, offered better weather and service. Within a day, multiple fratic calls began to emerge from the same numbers that had rejected my calls like the plague. There was desperation, drama and helplessness in them. In 24 hours after I had called and written to the powers that be, my Internet Connection was reborn.
Happy Easter!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Genial post and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you for your information.
February 02, 2010 9:38 am
venu said…
mtnl is the easiest way to get mental
September 16, 2010 2:30 pm
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