Vipra Vakyo Janardana

Here is a story firstly:

A king of Nepal by name Bhadraka had gone out on shikar(hunting). On his way a bird of omen, perched on the branch of a tree, uttered some significant sounds. On hearing them, the king asked a member of his party who was conversant with the language of birds: "What does the bird say?"

The interpreter replied: "King! What the bird says does not concern you. It says that a farmer who is going uphill for cutting grass for his cattle will die, bitten by a snake."

Just as he had uttered these words, the party saw a farmer proceeding towards a nearby hillock, carrying a scythe. On seeing him, the interpreter observed: "I think this is the farmer referred to by the bird. Your Majesty may be sure that he will die as foretold."

Out of curiosity the hunting party stayed in the vicinity, waiting for the farmer to return.

They saw the farmer's silhouette, after some time, coming down the slopes of the hill carrying a bundle of grass, whereupon the king heckled the interpreter: "My dear man! What happened to your prediction? Look! Has that farmer has the power to walk even in death? Or did he bribe Yama's messengers? Or better far, did he drive those messengers away in battle? Or did the serpent miss its aim? Perhaps you will say that the bird of omen got befuddle but once. Pray, enlighten me how this farmer cheated death."

"May i request my liege to wait for some time before rushing to conclusions?" replied the interpreter, annoyed and disturbed.

When the farmer came near, the interpreter beckoned to him and asking him to unload the stack, wanted to question him.

But as he unlocked the stack, the grass-rope with which it was tied got broken and the hay fell apart. What should they see in the middle of the stack but a mighty cobra cut in twain by the sharp scythe embedded in it?

The interpreter drew the attention of the king to it and said: "This cobra came to kill him, but got killed instead; I do not know what mighty virtue this man had acquired to accomplish this. Anyways, let us question  him."

So saying, the interpreter asked the farmer: "Brother! When you went to cut grass did anything special happen?"

He replied: "I am a farmer. I do not know anything except my plough and my bullocks. When i was ascending the hill, an aged Brahmin walking with the help of a stick came across my path. I paid my respects to him in my humble way and he blessed me. Beyond that, nothing un-usual occurred!"

Turning to the king, the interpreter said: "Did you listen to what he said, my lord? Is it not clear that this farmer escaped death by the blessings of that aged Brahmin? A few moments back you ran me down; can you now tell me if the science of omens has gone wrong? Never will it. But this is clear: even the writings of Brahma on our skull can be changed by the blessings of the learned and pious souls."

"Did not the great sage Gautama, in his arguments with Lord Shiva, show the divine eye at the sole of his feet? Did not the great Bhrigu manage to kick Lord Vishnu on his chest? Did no the great Agastya swallow the entire ocean like a spoon of water? Did not the great Vasishtha successfully replace the mighty Sun with a piece of a wand? Did not Sage Kashyapa create a duplicate Indra? Who can hope to stand up to real Brahmins? Did not Markandeya of yore who was face to face with death, as ordained by Brahma, throw him out by the blessings of Brahmins?"

Happy to be convinced of the truth of what the interpreter has said, the king replied: "Indeed, Brahmins are embodied gods living in this world," and gave away rich presents to the interpreter.

(Story sourced from "Untold Stories Of King Bhoja" by V.A.K.Ayer)

Some more lines from the book:

Vipra means A Brahmin.  The word of a Vipra will never go wrong. Lord Janardana will carry out His behests through the words of Vipras and hence the saying Vipra Vakyo Janardnah. There is no difference between God's words and a true Vipra's words. The Vipra is embodied God. Vipra is a an embodied god. Blessings of a brahmin can save a person from death too.

We have known these sages' stories since our child hood, but never parred our observations to the depth to which the story narrates. I was literally stunned by the truth the story exposes about the pious Brahmins who can challenge the GOD. What a glory one earns with truth!! Woww....Truth & Dharma has such a power to question the creator of the world. 

But i doubt any such qualified Brahmin exists in our living world now.

I Love Kisses

My sister is just back from USA. Needless to say, she bought lots of chocolates. Of all, i loved KISSES. These chocolates are awesome. Just pure chocolate, exactly the way i love eat chocolates. I love them.

Many chocolates are mixed and flavored with nuts, dry fruits etc etc. I feel chocolate has to be a pure cacao just lots of cacao and nothing else. Kisses are exactly the same and so i love it. I find Cadbury Silk and Bournville are very near to my taste.

Just 9$ for one big party bag!!!

This party bag has 3 flavours Milk Chocolate, Special dark and Caramel. Oh my god! The Special dark flavour are just the way i like it....slightly bitter but still the best form of chocolate.

And btw, http://www.thestoryofchocolate.com/ has a very good info about the chocolate. May be you like it.

We need more Customer Centric Processes - 1 : CITI Bank

A week back i used my CITI bank debit card at a fuel station to pay. The transaction was declined. I was sure that the account has required balance in it and so i requested the attendant to try one more time. But the transaction was declined again. I paid the bill using HDFC card and left. Soon after a travelling a kilometer, i received a transaction alert on my mobile from citi bank that Rs.400 was debited from my savings account at the fuel station.

I rushed back to the fuel station and explained them abt the msg. The head of the attendants stood out and say "Sir! this is a general happening they see day to day and its absolutely nothing to worry. Once you we settle the account of the swipe machine by EOD i.e. 12AM for the day, the amounts will be reverted back to the respective account. We see these things daily. If you dont get money by tomorrow morning, we will any how be here and we will pay you back by cash". Upon my insistance, he generated a receipt of the successful transactions till then in that swipe machine and that didnt reflect my CITI card transaction but listed my HDFC card successful transaction. I was ok. But i immediately called the CITI customer care and launched a request for the reversal. The customer care person took the request and asked me to call him back after 3 working days so that they can investigate into this and see if this transaction did really happen or not and whats the status etc.

After 3 days, i called the customer care about the status of the request. It took some good 3 minutes for me to get to talk the customer care after all the verification clutter. Soon after an person attended, the call was dropped into a pool and i have to do the entire process again. The person at the other end informed me that the request was done and the amount will be deposited to my account the next day. I thought its cool and done. But...

"But sir, you have a fill up a CDF and send it to a chennai address. "

"What is it?"

"CDF - Customer declartion form"

"Is this mandatory to fill up the physical form? Cant i do it online?"

"No sir, it should be a physical form with your signature"

"Ok"

"Where can i get it from?"

"our website - downloads area <blah blah blah>"

"Huhh hmmm ok"

"And also, please enclose the account statement marking the dispute transaction and any other transactional receipt pertaning to the dispute."

"You mean, i have to travel 40 kms to-n-fro to get the account statement? Can i download it from net banking and will that work?"

"<Smiling> Yes sir, download and printout will work"

"Thank god! But why is this process required when the transaction failure and amount debit was proved?"

"Sir! The amount will be credited back based on the primary investigation but citi bank requires a formal request(that is the customer declartion form to be downloaded from website) and then the dispute will be closed if found legal. Otherwise the amount will be debited back if proved fraudelent or etc."

"Ok! But what if some customer doesn't have access to internet or kind of naive? How can he get the forms etc.?"

"Then the person has to visit the bank and get the required forms from the bank"

"Thats fabulous process you have inline. Absolutely fantastic practical way to make the customer suffer."

"<Smile> Sorry sir, thats the process define. Anything else with which i can help you?"

"Thank you."

Now, see, i spent Rs.10 for calls to talk to customer care, Rs.12 for  6 printouts of CDF form and my account statement, Rs.55 for courier to chennai from hyderabad. Thats a total of Rs.77 to recover MY Rs.400 back and lot of valuable time. 

What if the dispute amount is Rs.200. Then i.e. i spend around 40% of my money to get MY money back. How foolish does it look?

What a rubbish and foolish process you have in place CITI bank? This is absolutely not a customer centric process. A bank which advertises quoting "200 years of legacy in banking" is not expected to have such a rubbish process in place for such a very probable and most frequent disputes.

Either it be banks or insurance firms or any service providers has to seriously look into their business processes for practicality.