Ah, Airtel. With your touching adverts and your beautiful signature Rahman tune, I fell for you through and though. For your elegance, for the vastness of your network, for the unparalleled connectivity in the remotest of places; you were hard to resist. And so I embraced you, I surrendered to your whims and charms, gave my hard-earned (well, not quite) pocket money into your hands for you to transform into the sweet nectar of unlimited, free-of-cost text messaging. I whole-heartedly campaigned for you, day and night, against a sturdy line-up of your detractors, I went across enemy lines with a white flag in my hand and still stuck to you in the midst of all opposition, as blow after blow rained upon me, and they attacked me with “Vodafone has this” and “Vodafone has that” and struck me down with a “What does AIRTEL have, hmm?” I had no answer for them, for I knew they were right, but I argued and argued that what Vodafone does, Airtel can do just as well. And what kind of a name is Vodafone, anyway? Vodafone, Bhoda-phone, “stupid-phone”, I see no difference. I was a small, but brave, lifeboat amidst an ocean full of sharks.
But then you did it. You took a keen knife from your shelf and stabbed your biggest supporter in the back.
I gave you eighty rupees. Eighty rupees is no laughing matter, especially for a student, and that too a poor one. I gave you my money with such unbreakable trust, that I could have even given you my life to convert into free messages. But what did you do with that trust? You crumpled it up, blew your nose on it, and dumped it in the trashcan. Then you took my money, bought yourself a luxury yacht, and went sailing for the next couple of days, while I sat at home wondering when this goddamn thing is going to be activated. So ironically, I called Customer Care, (though I doubt that’s even close to what they do), and I must say, they took such good care of me, that I’ll never forget it.
17th March: (9.44 a.m) Easy recharge done. RC80.
17th March: (12.00 p.m) Still no sign of any free messages, while my general balance starts to dwindle from all the test-run messages being charged one rupee.
17th March: (2.00 p.m) So I call customer care (I’ve called them so much this year they must think I'm stalking them) and I tell them my problem. A young lady takes down my complaint, gives me a complaint number, and tells me to check by tomorrow evening.
18th March: (5.30 p.m) Activation status: pending. I call again, a man tells me they have no record of any complaint made, and somehow mysteriously they do have a complaint that had been made in the morning of the same day (my phone was switched off all morning) that I had to “kindly dhoirjo dhorte hobe” till the 22nd.
22nd March: (10.00 p.m) Need I say much else? So I call. Again. The man acts confused. I grit my teeth. He tells me it’ll be done in 2 hours. I sigh. Sure, sure.
23rd March: (12.30 pm) I text. My balance goes down by a rupee.
I QUIT.
The story of your exploits is difficult for me to repeat to others. It stinks of betrayal and unfaithfulness. But the people must know the truth. My 80 bucks is down the drain now, anyway. All you Airtel junkies out there BEWARE. You might be next.
And now, I conclude the telling of this dramatic sequence of events, and sigh with the deepest remorse, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Moral of the story: My number has changed. And I have finally jumped onto the Vodafone ship.
