I really enjoyed using Meru Cabs for the last 2 years or so.
Initially, it was really good service at a cost-effective rate.
What Meru Cabs was providing:
1) It saved me the hassle of haggling with an auto-wallah who might take advantage of my situation (20-30 Rs extra, remote address, time of night, rainy season, traffic-jams, busy-routes).
On top of all this the meter was many times rigged to run at double the speed. Then the predictable last-minute insistence that I'd not bothered to mention the backwaters I'd trapped the autowallah into driving into. An extra 20-30 rupees would assuage his nearly broken trust in humanity though. The "Auto-Stands" where literally you see the autos standing around, auto-wallahs so busy chatting with one another that they can only be "bothered" to put on their brown coats for "miserly sums" of anywhere between Rs. 200 to 500 to ply to a busy area like Forum mall.
2) I'd been using CitiTaxi services for nearly a year when my wife was pregnant and needed to travel safely over Bangalore's worsening roads. The glorious (un)certainty of booking a cab which didn't show up at all. Calling the Citi-Taxi guys till the last possible minute or booking the cab the day before didn't help any. Every call to them got a promise "Don't worry Sir!! The cab will be at your door-step 30 minutes before only". No sign of the cab at all!! Despite giving driving directions to 2 or 3 different people (staff and drivers) it was interesting (to say the least) that the said cab had not even been dispatched. The fact that the Airport has now shifted to such a convenient close by location (NOT)!! only made things better.
Till I found the efficient Meru Cabs. I could now avoid All the glorious certainities above for the guarantee (almost) that I'd get a cab when it was convenient to me and my family. I ended up paying more but got an A/C car on time and conveniently by phone booking.
Unfortunately the Golden-Era has ended with a change for the worse.
Meru Cabs Level of Service Today:
1) Since some time now I've noticed that Meru Cabs has taken a "Take-it Or Leave-it" attitude towards its own customers. They're essentially doing the same things and more than my earlier dear Citi-Taxi used to do. If you're off the trade-routes you're out of luck. Meru Cabs mostly refuses to service anybody in HSR Layout. We'll see what we can do is the usual answer. The additional charge of Rs. 25 for short term booking and Rs. 50 for advance bookings on using the call-center is laugable at the least.
2) Meru-cab drivers ask to go through the call center even though they're just waiting around. The concept of a taxi which is not plying the roads is quite interesting. Quite similar to the auto-wallahs
3) They do provide an free offline SMS service (which I presume is serviced at off-peak times) where the call-center guys call you when you send an SMS. But this is only a few hours later so no good if you're in a hurry. Also seems like they give advance booking for airport based booking but not otherwise though the distance may be enough to give good business i.e. HSR to Airport is ok, but not HSR to Malleswaram?!!
4)The online net-based booking system also operates on the same offline model with replies taking 5-6 hours for a taxi booking.
It seems Meru-Cabs doesn't need the business that's coming its way.
Well Goodbye and Best of Luck,
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Monday, October 04, 2010
The Wisdom of Paradoxical Quotation Pairs
Whenever I see inspirational mails with quotations (often conflicting ones) I used to get a bit confused....
Many quotations advise you to do Exactly opposing things and you agree with both views.
It's all a matter of perception/opinion or circumstance.
I've thought a lot about this and just wanted to share some of the thoughts.
Example:
1) "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself - therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." [Samuel Butler]
Hmmm... Seeing something positive that can be done in something negative.
2)"The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect." [Anonymous]
Ok. See something positive in something that can't be helped.
But if you had to choose between Progress OR Happiness it's somewhat confusing.
Other Conflicting and Paradoxical common-sense advises but on the same topic:
1) "Look before you leap" or "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"
Simple Interpretation: Be careful.
Negative Interpretation: Don't take risks in anything.
2) "Luck favours the brave"
Simple Interpretation: If you're brave, things will work out
Negative Interpretation: Success is a matter of luck
This was kind of confusing me for a long time as I could see the sense in both statements.
Then I found some quotations which seemed to join both these "opposites".
1) Unifying Interpretation:
"Look before you Leap" i.e. look before but don't forget to take a leap also (if required)
2) Unifying Interpretation:
"Brave are those who fight their Fear." i.e. NOT those who are ignorant of fear
This allows the brave to attempt things other people don't even try.
So they MAY choose a way of doing things which succeeds. This is the LUCK factor.
Rationale for Luck Factor:
1) Brave people fight their Fear.
2) People don't try new things because of Fear (=> So they have 0% chance of succeeding at it)
3) Brave people attempt things which other people don't.
4) Some Brave people may chance upon a way which succeeds. => %age of Success is between 0-100%
5) THAT is why you should fight your fear => so you can free your mind to do all kinds of approaches.
6) It increases chances of Success from Zero Percent to X%.
7) So you can Learn from Failure since you are being positive about it.
8) More importantly since Failure is also possible => makes your life more positive
9) And Use it later to increase your chances of Success
10) If you repeat this process over many such new things you will Average out.
Your performance would follow a Normal Distribution or Bell Curve i.e.
a) 60% chance of moderate success in untried things over your lifetime.... NOT bad at all !!!
b) And of course 20% chance of failure (from which you can learn something with a +ve attitude)
c) And a further 20% chance of Super Successes!! NOT BAD AT ALL....
So if we add it all up we come up with:
a) 80% chance of success (moderate or super)
b) 20% chance of failure which again feeds into future successes due to what you learn from it.
This gives a very good picture of being innovative/fearless.
Then why is it that we don't follow this principle?
a) It has more to do with Weightages we attach to Failure and Success.
b) That is why most religions/philosophies ask you to be detached from Success/Failure i.e. give Equal or NO weightage.
Different cultures also seem to influence this:
1) In India the Weightage applied by society to Failure "almost" outweighs any gain through Success.
"If you don't succeed with a Nobel Prize its just a fluke"
If you fail however it gives you the stamp of failure which becomes very hard to live down.
Other peoples perception affects you and you start believing in the stamp/label you're given.
A self fulfilling prophecy.
2) From what I've heard/read about it -
In the West esp. the U.S. people don't think much of an earlier failure so they keep trying.
Sooner or later they find something that they can be good at.
I heard of a truck driver/fitter who became programmers!! in the US/Israel.
How many times would you hear that over here. It's seems to be not so rare there.
Backto the Tradeoff between Progress OR Happiness:
I've observed that Wisdom is in knowing when to apply which kind of CommonSense.
Wisdom deals with paradoxes esp. unifying opposites.
So let's attempt to unify these two opposites
One Interpretation could be:
1) To be happy - learn to accept things which are less than perfect.
2) To progress - learn to NOT accept things which are less than perfect
"Things you NEED to change be unreasonable about, otherwise accept them and move on to a happier life".
Key is to - "Choose your battles (time,place and scope)."
I know that this is a rather long winded and too detailed analysis of advice any grandma could give in seconds.
But then that's the problem with being too analytical.... you feel the need to break down things too much!! :-)
Many quotations advise you to do Exactly opposing things and you agree with both views.
It's all a matter of perception/opinion or circumstance.
I've thought a lot about this and just wanted to share some of the thoughts.
Example:
1) "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself - therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." [Samuel Butler]
Hmmm... Seeing something positive that can be done in something negative.
2)"The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect." [Anonymous]
Ok. See something positive in something that can't be helped.
But if you had to choose between Progress OR Happiness it's somewhat confusing.
Other Conflicting and Paradoxical common-sense advises but on the same topic:
1) "Look before you leap" or "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"
Simple Interpretation: Be careful.
Negative Interpretation: Don't take risks in anything.
2) "Luck favours the brave"
Simple Interpretation: If you're brave, things will work out
Negative Interpretation: Success is a matter of luck
This was kind of confusing me for a long time as I could see the sense in both statements.
Then I found some quotations which seemed to join both these "opposites".
1) Unifying Interpretation:
"Look before you Leap" i.e. look before but don't forget to take a leap also (if required)
2) Unifying Interpretation:
"Brave are those who fight their Fear." i.e. NOT those who are ignorant of fear
This allows the brave to attempt things other people don't even try.
So they MAY choose a way of doing things which succeeds. This is the LUCK factor.
Rationale for Luck Factor:
1) Brave people fight their Fear.
2) People don't try new things because of Fear (=> So they have 0% chance of succeeding at it)
3) Brave people attempt things which other people don't.
4) Some Brave people may chance upon a way which succeeds. => %age of Success is between 0-100%
5) THAT is why you should fight your fear => so you can free your mind to do all kinds of approaches.
6) It increases chances of Success from Zero Percent to X%.
7) So you can Learn from Failure since you are being positive about it.
8) More importantly since Failure is also possible => makes your life more positive
9) And Use it later to increase your chances of Success
10) If you repeat this process over many such new things you will Average out.
Your performance would follow a Normal Distribution or Bell Curve i.e.
a) 60% chance of moderate success in untried things over your lifetime.... NOT bad at all !!!
b) And of course 20% chance of failure (from which you can learn something with a +ve attitude)
c) And a further 20% chance of Super Successes!! NOT BAD AT ALL....
So if we add it all up we come up with:
a) 80% chance of success (moderate or super)
b) 20% chance of failure which again feeds into future successes due to what you learn from it.
This gives a very good picture of being innovative/fearless.
Then why is it that we don't follow this principle?
a) It has more to do with Weightages we attach to Failure and Success.
b) That is why most religions/philosophies ask you to be detached from Success/Failure i.e. give Equal or NO weightage.
Different cultures also seem to influence this:
1) In India the Weightage applied by society to Failure "almost" outweighs any gain through Success.
"If you don't succeed with a Nobel Prize its just a fluke"
If you fail however it gives you the stamp of failure which becomes very hard to live down.
Other peoples perception affects you and you start believing in the stamp/label you're given.
A self fulfilling prophecy.
2) From what I've heard/read about it -
In the West esp. the U.S. people don't think much of an earlier failure so they keep trying.
Sooner or later they find something that they can be good at.
I heard of a truck driver/fitter who became programmers!! in the US/Israel.
How many times would you hear that over here. It's seems to be not so rare there.
Backto the Tradeoff between Progress OR Happiness:
I've observed that Wisdom is in knowing when to apply which kind of CommonSense.
Wisdom deals with paradoxes esp. unifying opposites.
So let's attempt to unify these two opposites
One Interpretation could be:
1) To be happy - learn to accept things which are less than perfect.
2) To progress - learn to NOT accept things which are less than perfect
"Things you NEED to change be unreasonable about, otherwise accept them and move on to a happier life".
Key is to - "Choose your battles (time,place and scope)."
I know that this is a rather long winded and too detailed analysis of advice any grandma could give in seconds.
But then that's the problem with being too analytical.... you feel the need to break down things too much!! :-)
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