King of good times: can you help us?

flying the bad times!

I remember the first time I flew Kingfisher on a Bangalore - Delhi flight. The appearance, attitude, service, they were a notch above most airlines I had flown so far. Then they launched the BOM-LHR, which was so fantastic. We said, yeah, look India has arrived in the flying business!

Where there was a chance, I flew only Kingfisher, recommended it to friends. Almost all of them thanked me for recommending them. I did the same thing to my partner as well. When she asked which flight to book, I suggested Kingfisher to Delhi en-route London. Who would have thought that decision would make our live so difficult?!

It's been 43 days since we lost our baggage, the customer service couldn't go down such levels that we had to reach out to the Chairman's office. Yes, we did get several calls, but other than repeating the same thing again and again that they don't know where the bag is and they will report back in 24 hours, we haven't heard anything.

On 27 May 2010, we booked a Berlin-London-Delhi return ticket for 17 July 2010 on Make My Trip. The Berlin-London leg was operated by British Midlands(BD846). My partner checked-in her luggage all the way to Delhi airport. She flew Kingfisher (IT021) from London to Delhi and on arrival realised that her baggage had gone missing. So we filed a Property Irregularity Report (PIP - DEL1810706 / Luggage tag LH106562) at the airport itself and the Kingfisher executives said that they will send the bag across to our next destination which was in Spiti Valley !! Knowing that is not going to happen considering the difficulty even for us to reach the remote part of India, we told them to handover the luggage to our friends in New Delhi.

The PIP report was acknowledged by an executive called Amit Soni / code - 6089 / mobile number +91.9650883131. He suggested that we also call up BMI, which we did. BMI said, the ground handling in Berlin is done by Lufthansa, so requested us to call them. We did that too and Lufthansa employees were quick enough to check if there were any un-claimed luggage in Berlin TXL. None! So they suggested that we should claim compensation from Kingfisher for the delay / lost and Kingfisher can in turn claim the same from Lufthansa.

Except for once, there wasn't a single call / email from Kingfisher to update us about the lost luggage. During our working holidays, we were most of the time calling them for details and irrespective of the reference number, every time we had to repeat the same story again and again much to our anguish.

Since nothing much was happening other than all the time we spend on phone talking to Kingfisher executives, we decided to write a senior officer in their Mumbai office who asked us to report everything as it happened in an email to him. He acknowledged the email over phone, and said he has ordered an enquiry for the lost baggage. He also added that the moment he has an update on the baggage, his office will call us back. Now on this 43rd day, we still haven't heard from anyone.

On 7th August, 2010, I happen to be on another domestic flight of Kingfisher where I wrote about the above incident in the feedback form they distributed. Surprisingly, that worked and I got a call from their customer care office asking me if I have received the baggage or not! Interesting. This was followed by an email from Krunal Suryawanshi - Guest Commitment King Fisher. So I spent next two days talking to these guys (have to admit that they were prompt in calling back, but with no news on the bag, but reminded that the responsibility stays with British Midland and we should call them!). They suggested to write to chairman@flykingfisher.com with the scanned copy of PIP report. We also kept a cc to guestcare@flykingfisher.com and the senior officer referred earlier in Mumbai office.

The attachment wouldn't go through and all emails bounced back. Later we sent emails with all the information on a separate email, for which we still haven't received any response. Last week, I complained on twitter @flykingfisher and today I got a direct message "Regret yr exp.If not yet resolved pl write with dtls incl PNR/Flt/dt of travel to guestcare@flykingfisher.com to enable addressal of concern"

How many more emails do they want me to write to the same email id that doesn't even care to respond? So I tweeted on the following handles.

@flykingfisher baggage lost 43 days ago. Still no news, no compensation. shame on you Kingfisher. Till I get my bag u will see my post here

@TheVijayMallya for last 43 days I have been trying to get a response from ur staff 4 the lost luggage. It's a shame we hv 2 reach u 4 help!

I don't know if this is going to help. But I have decided to write every single day to these two twitter-handles @flykingfisher and @TheVijayMallya.

Till we have news about the lost baggage and we get rightly compensated we will tweet. Let us see if that will wake them up! Any ideas to push this further? Thanks!

Destination stories : the unique fund raiser

N GopalaKrishnan with PM Narayanan Image courtesy The Hindu

This Saturday, Malayala Manorama newspaper featured a story about a gentleman called N. Gopalakrishnan who is involved in fund-raising for Institute for Palliative Medicine.

We had met Gopiettan, as we call him, about 5 years ago when The Blue Yonder had just started taking travellers to remote areas along the River Nila. He spent about a week every month in his traditionally-styled cottage called 'Vaappikudi', facing the river, mostly sitting in the portico reading and writing. His house was named after the slave his forefathers had as part of old-age feudal system in Kerala. For the occasional traveller who came visiting this region, Gopiettan makes for an ideal company. A man of letters, a close friend of writer M.T Vasudevan Nair, he entertains them with his wit and intellect while sharing anecdotes about his life in the IRAS (Indian Railways Accounts Service) and in Kolkata. His love for the railways is so great that even the gate to his cottage is designed like a level crossing! The name board written in Malayalam, Hindi and English reminds one instantly of the yellow-black railway sign boards!

A Kendra Sahitya Academy Award winner for his translation of 'Oriya classic 'Sri Radha'', Gopiettan has also translated 'The Insider', a political novel authored by earlier Prime Minister of India, P V Narasimha Rao. Malayalees though remember him for his beautiful translation of K P Ramanunni's 'Sufi Paranja Katha' (Story told by the Sufi) to English.


Sufi Paranja Katha has been made into a feature film

We met him recently again at the Institute of Palliative Medicine (IPM)). Like many citizens of Kozhikode, Gopiettan spends a few hours every week at the in-patient section at IPM. Seeing the impact the palliative care movement was having on thousands of people with terminal illness needing end of life care and the community of volunteers alike, he decided to do his bit to raise funds for the movement. He was then discussing how he planned to go about the fund-raising. When we met him after a week, he had actually traded a place with a beggar in the city as the 'spot' looked promising to 'beg'!

Rather than ask his friends for donations (which would have been far simpler and easier for him!), Gopiettan in his unique way decided to get the local community participate in this process. Elegantly dressed as always, resplendent in his royal - waxed moustache and the gold-trimmed walking stick, he cut a majestic figure as he walked about non-descript streets with a small white card requesting the public to donate Re 1 in support of the palliative care movement! Curious and amused, passers-by not just gave him the money he asked for, but impressed with his commitment and humility, many gave a lot more. In the last few months with just a few rounds of his “begging” tour, Gopiettan has collected more than a hundred thousand Rupees, in addition to raising awareness among locals in the city about the movement. With the steady inflow of small amount of cash that Gopiettan brings, IPM has now set up a separate bank account that goes by the name of 'thendu fund' (thendu means “to beg” in Malayalam).


Kozhikode Palliatve care movement: 'a beacon of hope' according to EIU report

In a world that seems bankrupt when it comes to compassion, people like Gopiettan fill us with hope. While India ranks amongst the lowest in the list of 45 countries surveyed in the recent Economist Intelligence Report on end of life palliative care, the same report highlights the palliative care initiative in Kozhikode as a beacon of hope.The report says "With only 3% of India’s population, the tiny state provides two-thirds of India’s palliative care services"

It is volunteers like Gopiettan and a movement like this that can perhaps help us dream of a 'compassionate city'.

Master carpenter of River Nila...

The village of Panniyoor on the banks of River Nila (Bharatapuzha) once decided to build a temple complex that would be better than the ones even in Heaven! The onus of building this marvel fell on their master carpenter, Perumthachan.

With a team of fine carpenters in the region, Perumthachan started the work and soon the news spread to the Heavens that the architecture of the temple complex in Panniyoor village had the potential to overshadow the splendour of the Gods. As insecure as only he could get, Lord Indra, the King of Gods himself, set out on a journey to the village to find for himself if there was any truth in these rumours. Once he saw the brilliance of the work in progress, he was overcome with envy and started plotting against the carpenters’ team.

Read the complete post on legends of Nila...posted on The Blue Yonder. blog

September 2010 newsletter from The Blue Yonder

The Blue Yonder newsletter for Sept 2010 is released. It carries destination stories from Spiti Valley, Kerala and some beautiful legends behind the origin of Onam festival. One can also find out the travel schedule of The Blue Yonder team whom you can meet in India, Europe and the USA. Read it here.

If you wish to subscribe to TBY newsletter, click here.

Airtel's shoddy customer care

impatience is becoming the virtue of customers!

On 10th of August Airtel disconnected internet connection in our office without any notice.On calling customer care, they said that there are unbilled amount for exceeding three-months-cap. This was surprise for us, as we had signed up for a unlimited download connection, which we had been using for last 4 years or so.

So we filed a complaint with Airtel Customer care on 11th, for which the customer care executive responded that he can't do anything from his side. Suggested we wait till 19th August 2010. Great!

We called various other numbers, same response. Though we requested them to restore the connection and solve other issues, they were so callous in their response and said they are helpless than requesting us to wait till 19th August.

Office functioning became difficult except for those carrying their black berries and other USB internet sticks.

Finally on 13th Aug, we decided to approach a friend who forwarded our complaint to the chairman's office introducing The Blue Yonder and the work we do etc. So within next few hours we got a call from Customer Care in charge of South India acknowledging the complaint and apologising profusely for the inconvenience caused. In no time they replaced the internet connection and suggested that by Monday 16th Aug, they will sort out the pending issues. Later on Saturday, they even sent a knowledgeable executive to check on the connections and related services in office.

Though we have the connection right now, we are still in dark about why they disconnected without even a warning ( and for what reason any way?), we still haven't heard from Airtel with a solution. We should admit that this morning we did receive a call from Airtel Customer care in Bangalore asking if the 'problem we reported is resolved?". (that too after a week!). They were not even aware that the connection was restored. So much for internal communication!

If for every single, simple issues, one need to go to Chairman's office and use your networks and connections to find solutions, we are worried about the future of customer care in this country. As a friend in telecom industry commented, "they don't care losing a client as they are busy getting even more clients as half your population are on mobile phone and probably by 2020 India will have a billion mobile connections!"

At least in those days of only one telephone company and one brand of ambassador cars, there wasn't much to expect. Now with all 'Indian shining and international customer care at your door-step', how can you blame a person for expecting some basic customer service?

Compassionate City - Gandhigiri by City Police

Police in the City of Kozhikode in Kerala were flooded by complaints of people who lost their motor bikes over the last few months. Many had also lost gold, computers and mobile phones. The Police department was in for surprise, when they arrested more than fifty nine teenagers who were from lower middle class families and some of whom who were as young as 13! What was even more interesting was that many of them were selling it for silly amounts of Rs 3,000.

Kozhikode City Police says, “Police recovered 15 bikes and seven personal computers stolen by the juvenile group from different locations. Besides, spare parts worth Rs 1 lakh was also recovered by the police. The teenagers used to steal new motorbikes with prices ranging Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 and put them up for sale at cheap rates ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 to their friends. Many of the juveniles belonged to low-income groups and broken families, but the buyers were from middle-class families. The culprits were utilizing the money received through theft for enjoining costly food, dress and mobile phones. Police will carry out further investigation and are expecting to recover more material evidences”

If the police were to follow regular procedures, they would be taken through routine course of questioning, lock-ups and year-long trials. In a typical loop of social branding as criminals, there is a hardly a way for any of them to be part of the main stream social life. Instead, Police Commissioner P.Vijayan who is credited for starting many new innovative initiatives in social policing including Student Police Cadet Project has turned a new leaf in the history of Kerala Police.

Today saw the most unique intervention of police to explore the possibilities of bringing these arrested youngsters to the mainstream and hence avoiding the near sure destiny of bring criminals of the future. Engaging the likes of palliative care movement (Institute of Palliative Medicine), few City Rotary Clubs and IMHANS (Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences) along with a group of socially active citizens, the City Police is attempting to bring the youngsters back into main-stream with social acceptability.

Dr.Jairam Ramakrishnan, consultant Psychiatrist from UK also has been pitched in to provide expert service to the youngsters. Dr. Suresh Kumar, founder director of Institute of Palliative Medicine, popularly known as “poor men’s Doctor” considers such initiatives with public private participation is a beginning to build up a “compassionate city”.

A one-room initiative that was started as a ‘pain clinic’ fifteen years ago in an anesthetist's dressing room in Kozhikode Medical College for bringing in relief to terminally ill patients has now grown into a movement comprising more than 25000 trained volunteers. Self-sustainable 300 palliative centres in Kerala is now spear-heading a social movement, not just restricted to palliative care. No wonder that such a movement is approached by various stake holders to take larger roles in the society.

Follow this space for more on ‘compassionate city project’.