Category Archives: Rant

Rant, Travel

The Inscrutable Thais

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I have been living in Thailand for around a month now. I have visited here many times before, but this is the first time I am actually living here. As such, my interaction with Thais has been quite different from other times and for most part, I have found them to be inscrutable. However some aspects of their (unique) character has struck me, which I would describe below:

Thai People, PC: mythaland.blog
  1. Most Thais have their main social circle at work. Unlike people who come to office just to work and then go home, most Thais are actually pretty good friends with their colleagues. They even spend extended hours at work (even if it is not needed) just to be close to their colleagues/friends. I found this very weird for the first few days; people at work well past dinner, but then I realized it is more of a “social” thing rather than an “overwork” thing.
  2. Thais love ice in everything. All their drinks are 70% ice. Even some of their desserts are full of ice. Whatever ice is left after enjoying the drink/dessert, they happily eat.
  3. Thais are extremely polite. Most Thais (especially in the service industry) will go out of their way to be courteous. On top of that, they are also very non-confrontational which means you will hardly see fights or arguments on the streets.
  4. For some reason, most of Bangkok malls are full of banks. Most malls have branches of all the major banks and they are open for extended hours and over the weekend. Strangely, the main branches elsewhere have short hours on weekdays and are closed on weekends.
  5. Thais don’t seem to be very fond of wearing jewelry. Also, jewelry stores are not very common in markets or malls (Unlike India) and can only be found in some specific areas.
  6. Thais love the colour pink. Unlike other countries, where the colour Pink would be considered overtly feminine, in Thailand, pink is common everywhere. You will find things like pink clothes (common among both genders), pink cars, pink branding, pink bikes, pink buildings everywhere.
  7. Thais love air conditioning. Be it offices, restaurants, malls, taxis, air conditioning is typically dialed down to an insanely low temperature. Most people from other countries would find indoors too chilly.
  8. Out of all the countries I have been to, Thailand easily has the highest ratio of women in the workforce. Almost everyone in the service industry is a woman, in the tech industry, the ratio is much higher than other countries & women are present at all levels. In fact 15-20% of taxi drivers I get here are also women, which, frankly, I have never seen anywhere else.

Looking forward to getting to know them even better over the next few years.

Rant, Travel

Weird Birthday-2

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This year, I had another weird birthday. My last birthday was spent in Bangkok, alone at a hotel. After that, I thought I might never travel to Bangkok again, but coincidentally, not only am I back in Bangkok, I even spent my birthday in the exact same hotel.

The difference was, this time I wasn’t alone, but with family.

  • Card
Another birthday cake/card from the (same) hotel.

Spent the day at IconSiam & bought the Apple Watch braided solo loop as a birthday gift. Overall, a nice upgrade from my last birthday.

Rant, Travel

Quarantine Life

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Since I left Gurgaon & moved to Bangkok, I have been in quarantine with my family. Almost 1 week in, it has been a bit difficult, but not torturous.

We are not allowed to leave our hotel rooms, except to pick up the food which is placed outside our rooms 3 times a day. Apart from this, our only window into the outside world are the windows with the same constant view.

Day View

The only difference in the view is how it changes between day and night & during different hours of the day depending on the angle of the sun.

Night View

Looking forward to getting out of quarantine in 9 more days and exploring the city (again).

Rant

I am a judgemental Person

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I am not the perfect person (far from it, actually). One of my character flaws is that I am a judgemental person. I judge people by

  1. The make of car they drive. I look down on people who drive certain brands of cars.
  2. The make of smartphones/gadgets they use.
  3. The fact that they have a religious mark on their foreheads.
  4. The area of a particular city they stay in.
  5. How many people in their family live in the same house.
  6. How many kids they have.
  7. What chat app they use.

The list goes on. I hate myself for it, but I can’t help it.

Rant

It is not impossible to avoid COVID

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I recently got a COVID RT-PCR test done. It was negative. I also got a COVID antibody test done. That was negative, too.

This means I have never had COVID. This is weird, because as per most judgemental North Indians, I should be teeming with viruses.

I am living life as close to normal as possible in the last many months. I have been ordering food from outside, going to malls, pubs, restaurants etc. but with precautions like wearing a mask (properly, not like Covidiots) and maintaining social distancing. I have even been on a airplane three times.

This makes me wonder if most people in North India are focussing on the wrong things to avoid COVID all this time. Most North Indians are

  1. Not ordering food from outside
  2. Not stepping outside their homes at all
  3. Being over protective of children

However, none of the above is stopping them from getting their maids to slave for them at their homes everyday.

It seems that most people focus on the wrong things and don’t exercise common sense and then cry when they get infected (Front line workers exempted). Even the country’s president doesn’t know how to wear a mask correctly.

Ram Nath Kovidiot
Nostalgia, Rant, Travel

Goodbye, Gurgaon

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The fateful day is here. After almost 13 years in this city, the time has come to say goodbye and move on.

I got married while living here, we had our kid here, bought our own apartment here; till a few months ago, I thought I would live here forever. However, the deteriorating air quality year-on-year and the complete apathy of the government decided otherwise.

For years, I watched the air quality go worse, for years I saw people turn a blind eye to it and eventually it became clear that this problem won’t be solved in the near future (or maybe ever).

PC: Rentomojo

I will miss

  1. Spending my weekend at Ambience mall, perhaps my favourite place in the city. I still remember the first time I went there to buy formal shoes for my first job here (the job didn’t involve formal wear).
  2. Having breakfast at McDonalds while soaking the winter sun at MGF metropolitan mall.
  3. The (few) friends I had here and drinking beer with them at one of the many craft breweries.
  4. The wide highways, flyovers and underpasses and sparse traffic.
  5. The ease of getting things done and solving problems by throwing money at them.
    Apps and online services for literally everything.
  6. Extremely fast same-day and next-day Amazon delivery.

I will not miss

  1. The horrid air quality between November and January every year and the grey/brown skies.
  2. The constant and relentless pitch of hindutva in every aspect of your life.
  3. Kids as young as 12 driving cars with impunity.
  4. People who cut in queue (in person or in their cars).
  5. The name “Gurugram”.
Hate, Rant

Mall Covidiots

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The mall is where you get to see the worst of humanity, as I have previously noted here, here & here. These days, they are full of covidiots. On a recent trip to Ambience Mall, I decided to observe them in detail and discovered that there are different types.

The first type are the ones who wear a mask, but keep their noses out of the mask. Their aim is to fool casual observers into thinking that they are fully masked, but the joke is on you, as their respiratory tract is actually completely unobstructed. They can get away with this in 90% situations with minimal inconvenience of a mask on their face.

Covidiots-Type 1

The second type are the ones who wear a mask on their chin. They don’t pretend to be complying with mask rules, but have a mask dangling from their chin just in case someone challenges them, when they can quickly move the mask up and cover their faces like nothing happened.

Covidiots-Type 2

The third type are the boldest. They won’t wear a mask at all. They won’t even pretend to wear a mask, nor do they carry a mask in their hand. They are above all this pretentious bullshit. They roam around openly without a mask, just waiting for someone to challenge them, so that they can inform them who their uncle/father is.

Covidiots-Type 3

The saddest part of all this? It took me less than 2 minutes of sitting stationary in the mall to take these photos.

Hate, Rant

Flipkart Sucks Balls

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I almost never order anything from Flipkart, because, as the title says, Flipkart sucks balls. It sucks balls in so many ways that one blog post won’t do justice to its ball sucking. So, in this post, I will focus on their sucky logistics.

Recently, I needed to buy something that I couldn’t find in stock anywhere (including Brick and Mortar stores & Amazon). Having exhausted all options, I checked Flipkart & surprisingly they had one in stock. The delivery date was a week away, but I had no other option, so I bought one anyway.

To my surprise, they were quite fast shipping the item (from a place called Malur near Bengaluru). Within a few hours, the item was already packed and shipped.

Pretty strong start!

Could it be, that in the last few years, Flipkart has improved so much? Let’s see what happens next.

Soon enough, Flipkart showed its true colours. They waited 1 full day to ship the item out of Malur. The item then took 2 full days to reach Farukhnagar, which is a place near Gurgaon.

True Colours

One more full day to move the item the few kilometres between Farukhnagar & Gurgaon.

I can walk faster than this

Still, I think, the item has reached Gurgaon 2 days before the delivery date, so I should get it delivered the same or at least the next day. But it turns out, I am a fool for thinking that. The item just sits at this facility (doing nothing) for 2 more days before being sent out for delivery.

Just sitting there

Even on the last day, the package left for delivery at 10 in the morning and was actually delivered only by 8:00 PM.

Compared to other eTail services like Amazon or even regular courier services, Flipkart is just plain bad. I can see 3 possible reasons for such slow shipping

  1. They are living in some 1900s time loop when such slow shipping was acceptable.
  2. They lack the capability for faster shipping.
  3. They deliberately delay delivering the item early.

I doubt it is Point number 2 because I have used the worst courier services including this one and none of them were this bad. So, it must be the last reason, in which case, I don’t understand why they don’t try to monetise their faster shipping capabilities? I would have gladly paid extra to get my item delivered in 3 days instead of 7, but there’s no express shipping option either.

This experience proved to me, that after many years, Flipkart is still at the same level as services like Snapdeal and PayTM Mall. Absolute garbage!

Rant

A Pointer is not a Cursor

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This is something that almost everyone these days gets wrong and infuriates me to no end. This, below, is a Cursor. People use it on computers and smartphones to indicate where typed text will appear.

Cursor
A cursor, not a pointer

This, below, is a pointer, or a mouse pointer. It is controlled by a mouse or any other pointing device and is used to interact with elements on the screen.

Pointer, not cursor
A pointer, not a cursor

Anyone who started using computers in the 90s or before would understand the difference. But most digital outlets and even reputable publications these days are run by Gen-Z people who don’t know the difference and almost always call the pointer a cursor. The impact is so much and widespread these days, that soon, the definitions of these items would permanently change and it would be millennials like me and Boomers before me who would be wrong.