In a Flat World - II

Today I was on my mission Malleswaram. By that I mean my schedule of roaming through the markets of Malleswaram, which is a pretty good market in itself now, with a number of grand showrooms, many of them opened in the previous 4 years, the time since I have come to college.

So when I was on my favorite shop, Temptation M, which is something just like Planet M, I saw a couple inquiring about the Ramayana of Ramanand Sagar (the old one) which was available there for Rs 3500.

The in charge of the shop told them and when they showed some reluctance, he started trying his luck and showed them the Mahabharata, Shri Krishna, and Vikram aur Betaal. But the couple had lost interest for some reason and confused, they left the place.

And I started thinking how would it be a waste of their money had they bought it.

Nowadays my mind is really giving me lots of troubles as it is making me think about lots of things I need not think. (so I think when I do not use my mind)

I started thinking how could they use those Rs 3500. First thing that can be done is, buy a Tata Sky connection with the amount of money. Or Dish TV, whichever you like more. In fact you can even have Reliance BlueMagic, but we don't really know in how much time is Mr Anil Ambani going to launch it, but anyways it is going to be cheaper than the two. At least that is what we expect from Reliance.

I think I went off the topic. Back.

So, we can buy a DTH connection and watch new Ramayana on the NDTV Imagine. And after a few days the new Mahabharata too, on Star. (according to reports) This way, we'll be getting a number of channels in addition to the Ramayana and Mahabharata we actually want which will be easier to watch as all the fights in the serials will be using higher quality animations compared to those of 80's.

Second option, we can have a broadband connection of any company. From a wired home broadband connection of BSNL or Sify or Airtel to USB/PCMCIA cards of Reliance/Tata Indicom. And then download and /or watch a hundred more national and international serials, series and shows from Youtube.

Actually I have learnt a lot from that shop itself. About the flattening of world. About technology getting cheaper and becoming more affordable. I have bought a number of CDs from this particular shop (in case u don't know, I am a big movie buff, and a bigger music buff, still buying movie CDs many times) and seen that CDs I buy at Rs 100 (in my case, that's the limit), are being sold for Rs 50 or 38 or 30 by Moserbaer or some company which has reduced its prices due to competition with Moserbaer.

So, in short, as the world is getting flatter, I think it is important for every human to get acquainted to its environment, so that we can get the maximum benefit of the things happening around us.

Hope u are keeping yourself updated.

Changing colors of mobile telephony

Indian mobile telephony, though it has been there for a longer time of course, came to a real existence with the advent of Reliance India Mobile, A dream of Mukesh Ambani, something that brought the very concept of cellphone for every person, a company that gave away cellphones for as low as 500 bucks, and is still providing people with cellphones at the lowest rates. Though, the name of the company is different now, the owner has changed, and so is the color.
if you remember, there used to be a number of small companies in the early 2000s most of which had started during '96 to '98. Namely, Escotel, BPL, Oasis, Spice, Orange, Essar, Aircel, Hutch, even Airtel. But then times changed and BSNL and then Reliance came up with services, threatening small companies to an extent and thus came the era of M&A, that is, Merger and Acquisitions in the mobile telephony, and the colors really started changing. With this new era, a race started off, prices fell, fundas like airtime came to an end forever, and the number of users grew exponentially. From thousands to lacs and finally, to crores. In this game of M&A, Airtel turned out as the largest company, crossing Reliance and BSNL both. In the race of getting the top position, Airtel bought Oasis (Rajasthan), Aircel bought RPG cellular (Tamilnadu), though it is itself a small entity, and Hutch made a pact with Essar. The light colored Escotel was bought by the relatively new Idea cellular and changed to a beautiful light blue. Whereas the orange Orange and orange Hutch changed into a green background pink when an egyptian partner came in. The Hexacom's Oasis, active in Rajasthan, turned from a light blue (as long as I remember), turned a Vibrant red when Airtel bought it. Last year, the blue circle BPL also changed into Hutch. But one of the major changes was brought by the split between Ambani brothers when the dull looking Blue-green RIM was converted to a Vibrant red-Sky blue logo of ADAG with two big A's in the centre.

And now, the Hutch puppy that followed us for so long, has been given a new shining bright red home by Arun Sarin's Vodafone, changing the ages old logo of India's big brother company, Hutch, to a new Red comma, seen majorly on the England Cricket team's t-shirts till date.
Anyways, happy new home, dear puppy!