Monday, March 12, 2012

Time To Change... Accept Acceptance, Reject Rejection

We live in a world constantly rejecting it. Look around - we reject almost everything around us! Rejecting, rejecting and rejecting! In fact, rejection has become the root cause of all our displeasure, pain, and insanity. We reject our imperfections, our less than perfect bodies, our kids who can’t get 100/100 in every subject, our spouse who seems too self-centred, our politicians who are too corrupt, our society which is inherently flawed, and our bosses who are too insensitive! In short we keep rejecting every other thing in life!



If I could change one thing around me – I’d make people “accept” themselves and their surroundings. 


Accept acceptance. Reject rejection.
"You as much as anyone else in the world deserve your love and affection." ~ Buddha
Accept yourself - not just the good and the beautiful component, but every bit of yourself - the good, the bad and even the ugly. What you keep discarding merely keeps on going brawny. Accept the petite cunningness in your character as much as you accept your childhood innocence.

Your body is a temple for your soul. 

Accept your body - too-thin, too-fat, too-short, too-tall, too-plump, and too-skinny. Whatever it is – it is partly your responsibility and partly your genes. Celebrate the body but first accept that you want to change it for better. The perfect gym-toned body with perfect figure can only give you happiness if you first accept the body as the temple you live in. Your body is a gift to yourself.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 
― Albert Einstein
Accept your kids - they have not been sent to earth to further your goals and desires or to achieve your dreams. They are not corporate acquisitions from which you expect and demand high performance and soaring returns on the shareholder’s value. They are little human beings of infinite possibilities and dreams. Don’t make a fish climb a tree nor ask an elephant to catch up with a cheetah!

Accept your friends - they may have taken not-so-good decisions, they might have wronged you a few times, but they’re only human... they have their own shortcomings and follies. Accept them like they have accepted you and then only can you realise the potent force of friendship and acceptance.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Accept your rejections how many times were you left heart-broken, teary eyed by your love? Someone didn't accept you in their lives, rejected you. Someone threw you out of their lives after a seemingly prefect paradise relationship. Accept the rejection which may or may not have been fault of yours but it did happen and it can’t be changed. Only by accepting can you transcend it.

The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up.

Accept your responsibilities - towards yourself, your spouse, your parents, your country and finally to earth and humanity - in reverse order.

Love is a better master than duty.

Accept your spouse - he/she is one you have already accepted to your intimate core and in turn opened yourself for wounds and scars which can take eons to heal. Only by accepting the other person in all his/her profundity, complexity and darkness can you transform him/her and transcend the shortcomings he/she harbours deep in his/her psyche.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Accept the society - it is what it is. It is because of the actions, inactions, choices of people like you and me who constitute it. It is a reflection of our collective consciousness. If it seems mad to you it is just reflecting collective madness of everyone including us. If it’s evil and corrupt it is because too many of us are evil or silent... indifferent and scared to fight against injustice.

And last but not the least…

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” 
 Albert Einstein

Accept women - it’s strange to live in a country that worships Goddess Lakshmi for money and prosperity but burns its wives and daughters-in-laws in the name of dowry. We worship Goddess Durga but liken the girl child to an ugly demon, thus slaughtering it in the womb itself. We rape our own women! We adore Sita’s chastity and end up hanging our clothes in some dirty brothel! Even though we all came from a woman, we end up being a husband torturing our wives - beating them, killing them slowly... mentally, spiritually, psychologically and physically. We all were inside the womb of a woman for nine months and came from her - then why this anger and hatred against something that God gifted the power to create something as beautiful as life itself?

If I could change one thing around - rejection would be it.

This post has been written for Indiblogger's "Time to change! contest" - If you could change something around you, what would it be?. To participate or know more, click here.



to know more click here:

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Flipkart.com Vs. Bookadda.com

I first noticed Flipkart.com at World Book Fair 2010 New Delhi. They had a big stall of which I walked past by quickly glancing with the side of my eye since the stall, as far as I remember, had no books and it wasn’t a publishing house. Later I stumbled upon the website after reading a blogpost about it and discovered the unbelievable, plethora of books at rock bottom prices add to it superb packaging and FREE to home delivery.



The love affair with the much applauded and hugely successful website followed before it became the household name. Till recently almost all my online transactions had been through flipkart. The discounts were so tempting that I stopped buying books elsewhere. A person who loves bookshops more than anything turned into a tourist at bookstores. Noting down name of the books only to order them later through flipkart. 

When flipkart went multidimensional selling everything from electronics to books et al. it did pinch me somewhere. It killed the thought of relating flipkart as an exclusive bookstore fanning my fears that somehow it will dilute the book business. Going through books in the books section of say big bazaar is such a sham. It’s there for the heck of it. Colouring books rubbing shoulders with chetan bhagats , shiv kheras, chicken soups and other extremely popular titles. Superficial and skin deep.

Somehow I started ordering computer accessories from flipkart.

Some days before I had to order Samit Basu’s The Simoqin Prophesies for refrence purpose which was for some reason not available at flipkart. I Googled and found bookadda.com a miraculous site which had books cheaper than flipkart and that too by a good margin. It was a like discovering a talisman. A dedicated bookstore with cheapest books I had ever seen. It was then I did it… Ordered the book through bookadda.com on 21 Feb.



On 22 Feb I received the SMS from bookadda intimating me that my order had been shipped from their end through AFL Couriers (who are they?) It’s 29 Feb and I have fairly no idea where my book is.

The AFL website gave nothing to my tracking id telling me nothing except that my courier has not yet been delivered. I called bookadda.com customer helpline number which was few times busy, sometimes unanswered. Finally I could get through the helpline chakravyuh. The call attendant was very professional though and took personal interest in my query. She called back after updating the status of my order with the courier company.

I formally wrote this on the customer feedback section on their website and a string of emails followed :

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 7:36 PM, <customercare@bookadda.com> wrote:

I ordered Samit Basu's book from your website which was shipped shortly but unfortunately the courier company AFL has not been able to deliver the shipment promptly.. i had posted about your website on my FB wall and recommended it highly to my friends since it offers better deals than flipkart.... that too after many years of ordering through flipkart.. i cannot receive my shipment details too through AFL courier website by the tracking number which only tells me that my courier has not been deliver (which of course i already know) it's advisable if u your courier company can be prompt and informative it'll help the customers and inspire confidence to order more books on a regular basis. thank you.
User Order Id -
 
from email -
 parv.kaushik@gmail.com
Feb 28:

Dear Customer,

Greeting from Bookadda.com !

Thank you for your mail and order with Bookadda.com.

As per your mail , we kindly request you to provide us the transaction reference id so that we may check and followup with the courier people for the same, as we are not able to track the order through your mail id.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Thanks 

Customer Support Team

Feb 28:
My AFL tracking id is 81592712561172

Feb 28:
Dear Sir,

Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We expect you to get the book by today.

We value your feedback & have taken corrective action against the courier company.
While we strive to provide good services, sometimes we get constrained by the logistics eco-system available in the country.

We hope to provide better services to you in future.

We look forward to having you as our customer soon.

Thanks.

I got their sincere apologies but not my book despite complaining. The courier company has taken some corrective measure (pun intended) with now the Status is showing “With Delivering Courier” as if the guy is out there with my book on his way and will be reaching me anytime while in reality the book might be rotting somewhere in their warehouse.



It is sad to see such appalling service in a fiercely competitive market. It might be that the perfect business plan of bookadda.com is being anchored by poor delivery mechanism or that by cutting on price they are compromising on courier provider. Whatever the reason the bottom line is..

WHERE IS MY BOOK???