Celebrating Diwali… The festival of lights

झाला आजचा प्रकाश जुना कालचा काळोख,
चांदण्याला किरणांचा सोनसळी अभिषेक,
सारे रोजचे तरीही नवा सुवास सुवास..
शुभेच्छा दिवाळीच्या !

Click above thumbnail to view the Diwali e-card.

A Happy Diwali, the best of health,
A happy heart, enough of wealth,
All this and more are wished for you,
For a Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New year too !

composed by me ;).

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Update to my previous story: ICICI Bank Credit Cards: Fraudulent Tactics

15-Oct-05:
ICICI Bank refused to accept my charges and insisted that they had supplied a product that I asked for. I in turn bluntly asked them “How did you manage to forge my signature?” I insisted on seeing the form personally and would not approach the consumer court only if I’m convinced.

18-Oct-05:
Representative from Head Service Quality called and informed that they were ready with the form. She said she could courier it to me. Fine

20-Oct-05
I received copy of the application form allegedly filled by me. To my horror, the application form bore a signature which carried absolutely no resemblance to my signature. In simple words, it was a fake signature and a fake handwriting. A different form was filled without my consent and my signature was conveniently forged. Even my Form 16 was signed with forged signature.

I dashed an email to ICICI Bank Credit Cards – Head of Customer Service Quality. Expectedly I have received no response till date.

In these circumstances, I am determined to bring ICICI Bank’s fraudulent tactics to a public forum. I am in process of drafting a complaint letter to The Reserve Bank of India, with a CC to Newspapers (Times of India, Economic Times, Indian Express, Maharashtra Times, Lokasatta, Hindustan Times, Mid day, etc.) and of course a copy to my beloved bank.

I am also considering filing a case with the consumer court after some deliberations.

• The unalterable soul (4)
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“Beep!” sounded the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) as it recorded my valid vote cast for electing a representative from my ward for the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC). There were only 3 candidates in the fray this time:
1. Shivaji Awhad from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Shiv Sena (SS) alliance (currently ruling the KDMC and National Constituency)
2. Nandu Mhatre from Congress (I) – Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine (currently ruling the State and Central Governments)
3. Vishwanath Deshmukh as an independent.

After days of intense (and noisy) campaigning, last two days were pretty peaceful thanks to the directive by Election Commission (EC) of India that prohibits any such thing 48 hours prior to elections. The EC also laid down several other guidelines which I liked – especially the steps taken to reduce criminalization of politics and control measures for wasteful expenditure.

Dombivli, being a highly educated and cultural hotspot of Mumbai, never had any brawls on Election Day. This was evident given the fact that only two uniformed guards were posted at the polling centre (Maratha Mandir, Dombivli west) where approximately 10,000 people were supposed to vote.

The 3 contestants were seen outside the polling station, trying all the last minute canvassing possible. There were lot of familiar faces and they greeted as my mom, dad and sister (and me of course) walked in. The election worker first read the name and number, while the other two workers repeated it loudly as they ticked off the names in their respective lists. My photo identification was scrutinized and I was handed over a slip with my name to sign across. The next lady (who was unable to speak Marathi) punched the slip away and asked me to produce my left hand. The purple ink was smudged on my finger (which I was proudly showing off later) and I proceeded to the secret ballot machine. Pressed the button of my selected candidate, but the machine didn’t respond – weird! I was prepared to press it again, but the officer retorted that the machine takes two seconds to sound the beep (which I later learnt was a feature built in to avoid foul play). Fine with me officer! As I emerged out of the room, the smiling faces from all the three quarters thanked me for voting and that it means a lot to them. Yeah sure it does.

Amazing how democracy assigns so much power to an individual. It’s another story how the same power is misused and abused over and over. Anyway.

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