Chennai - Hyderabad To-and-Fro

11.11.11. Drupal Camp Deccan Event on Drupal, We from Unimity a Drupal Development company participated and presented about Implementing High Performance Drupal Sites.

On 10^th November 2011, I with my colleague Kumar got an Auto from our office, first shock to me as auto driver charged Rupees 150/- for traveling a 8 km distance from Kasi Arcade T.Nagar to Central Railway Station, he had given me many reasons like rise of petrol price, so the rise of rent to the auto etc. but not convinced with his justification. But the same followed with other auto's also, so I boarded the same auto.
We reached the Central Railway station at 16.15 there we accompanied with one more colleague Mr. Udhaya Kumar, we boarded the train, with us in compartment there is old couple and a business man traveled to Hyderabad, Sharply at 16.­45 the train started. While traveling Kumar has got Tamil magazine and he was started reading the book. Myself and udhaya kumar had discussion about many things happened around us. 


Interestingly there where a few school students from Pollachi on there way to Hyderabad, they might be 11 or 12 standard students, they all had Hi-fi gadgets with them like mobile, netbooks, etc. they keep on charging their gadgets and playing with them. Because of the gadgets available today, our distance between the nature and us are growing larger. 


The old man (not asked his name) traveled with us slowly started interacting with us, He came back from US last week from his son's house, now he is traveling with us to Hyderabad to attend a marriage. He narrated about US. A few thing he told us about a) Old people are working to earn money for their need, b) teachers where teaching the student to complain police if the parents harassed them. c) About maintenance of street, city etc. d) About police, government with out corruption e) Base Ball he had watched, where all the viewers followed pink color dress code. f) importance of customer value, if you return a product after a month for a simple reason as it doesn't satisfy, they simply returned the money. And he same compared all these things with our country where we only value to money.


And a old women in the same compartment, guided us to where to get down and how to bargain with auto drivers, where to book hotels etc. Very nice it is, and I thank and appreciate her generosity.
We arrived at Secundarabad railway station at 5.25 in the morning, we catch a auto and went to Paradise circle booked a hotel room for refreshing. After finishing breakfast, we continued our journey to IIIT, Gochibowli, Hyderabad by a auto, we were surprised that auto driver charged only 250/- for traveling more than 20 kms. Where in Chennai for 8 kms we charged 150 rupees ( whom we should blame?).
The day fully was very interesting. I was excited to meet Mr. Dries Co- founder, Acquia and Project lead of Drupal, very interesting speech given by him at the venue. ( I will write a separate blog about the event Drupal Camp Deccan ).


For returning, Actually I was booked a bus through redbus.in at 20.45, but the bus was canceled by the travels, I have to book other availability bus at 22.45, a representative from redbus.in called me and reported about the cancellation and asked to book bus at 22.45. In the conversation she not told me one important thing that this bus is traveling to Chennai through Tirupati, which is not straight, but she told me about the bus is charging 300 rupees extra which I have to pay to bus at the time of boarding.( see How our business people value their money).


In the mean time we visited the Paradise Hotel and Bakery. I purchased a biscuit box cost Rs. 100/- Which is very nice. I recommend to all.


I boarded the Bus in the night 22.45. Actually the night went peacefully In early morning many time A/c was switched off, we not cared more as it is cold inside and outside of bus. But the bus after reached Tirupati we came to know that bus dynamo(a unit supports power generation) is not working. Travel agent had said us that bus cannot travel here after and said arranging a alternate bus. We were shocked when we see the bus agent came with a APSRTC Local bus. Many were got very angry and started shouting, after a long heated conversation, the agent agreed to arrange a cab. After one hour they came back with the cab, we boarded the cab and reached the Chennai at 14.30. So the total traveling time is 15.30 hours, because of this I have to cancel my other commitments on the same day. (See, How the business people value customer in India, after a shouting and heated conversation only they arranged us proper transportation. Where as in US after using a product if we return back because of not satisfaction they will return back the money).

Through out this travel experience, What is very clear is India has very nice people generally, but when it comes to business it is upside down. We are not having customer friendly environment. Which is very important aspect we need to look and change to become Super power in 2020.