I was away from my home in Koraput for 3 weeks and I'd left my PC behind, not wanting to carry it around with me while negotiating the 14.5 hour train ride, buses, autos, airports and taxis. While I was away my modem subscription expired. I have a modem plan where I pay a monthly subscription for unlimited access to the internet but felt there was little need to renew my access while several hundred miles away from my computer. The day of my return I sent an SMS message to R, the supplier of my modem, hoping that he'd keep his promise to renew it whenever I asked and I'd pay him later (actually, I sent it 3 times to the 3 different numbers I have for him). I got back home to Koraput in the middle of the night but wide awake after a long journey so I quickly logged on to check my mail and update my virus checker while I removed the dead cockroach wedged in the drain of my sink and scraped off the thick layer of red dust that had accumulated over everything in my absence.
The next day (Sunday) I was slightly concerned to see a couple of messages come through on the modem indicating that I'd downloaded from the internet and owed 13.2 rupees which had not been charged due to less balance. This was my first warning that the subscription had not been renewed. I braved the Orissi heat and walked to the market to R's store to pay him the cost of the month's subscription. R said he hadn't received my SMS, meaning I'd used my modem without the unlimited access that I thought I had in place. I told him I'd used it yesterday and handed over my money and believed the promise that the modem would be recharged with my subscription later that day as they couldn't access the internet at that time from that store. I kept checking my modem and laptop all day but in vain.
Monday: still no recharge confirmation message so I called R and asked for the renewal to be completed ASAP as I really needed my access restored. He promised it would be done within an hour. I waited an hour, checked, checked again and eventually called him again after about 2 hours. "Yes, yes, it will go through soon" he promised. I waited another couple of hours and called again. "It hasn't gone through yet? I'll just check to see what's happened and call you back within an hour". Guess what? No recharge message and no phone call. Feeling myself getting somewhat agitated and wanting to avoid swearing at someone over the pbone messages I sent SMS messages to the 3 contact numbers I have for R.
Tuesday: My modem was still not working. I was in the office and managed to make use of the office internet connection for a couple of hours until that also stopped working, probably due to one of the many power cuts that plague us here in Orissa. I went home feeling my stress levels rising and called R. Someone else answered his phone and promised to look into it and get back to me within an hour. So I waited. No phone calls were received. More SMS messages sent expressing my displeasure and I gave up for the day.
Wednesday: ditto much of the above except that today I got a recharge confirmation message on my modem. However, it still refused to work. A phone call to R who promised to find out what was happening and get back to me within an hour. Several hours later I gave up and went to bed, grumbling.
Thursday: I walked through the blazing midday heat to R's store carrying my laptop and modem. There were some really important emails that I should have sent earlier in the week and I was getting increasingly stressed by the delays and false promises. My visit was been preceded by SMS messages to the 3 phone numbers I have for R to let him know I was on my way. Could this have been a cue for R to hide? R was not in the store but there were 3 other people I'd seen working in there in the past, 2 young women that I know who had come into the shop with me _ another 3 random Koraputians, including a small boy who kept whacking my leg. As soon as the young woman member of staff saw me she picked up the phone and spoke to someone in extremely fast Oriya but I did catch the my name amongst the rest of the words. She thrust the phone into my hands and said "R. You speak". So I did and was promised again that it would be dealt with and my modem recharged. I handed the phone back to the young woman.
Meanwhile, one of the of the other staff in the shop was on a different phone, apparently talking to customer care. I caught enough of his conversation to know that the supplier was claiming I owed them money which did not surprise me as I'd use the modem without before recharge had gone through. The man told me that I owed them 450 rupees, I little excessive I thought as the messages I'd received suggested I owed just 13.2 rupees. I asked what I needed to do to get it fixed but just got blank looks. The young woman assistant asked me for my modem to test it in her PC. Not surprisingly, she told me it wasn't working. I asked what I needed to do to get the service restored but again, just got blank looks except that this time, everyone in the shop started laughing, not doing much to restore my temper. I shouted at the 2 young women who had accompanied me on my errand that I was glad that they found it funny because I didn't. Cue more laughter.
I stood up, demanded my modem back and stormed out of the store, followed closely by my 2 friends nervously asking me what the matter was. By this time I was on the point of bursting into tears with anger, frustration, irritation and rising panic about not getting out my emails which needed to be sent from my laptop as there were files on my PC that needed to be attached. I tried to explain that access to the internet is something that is really important to me while out in rural India, this being my primary means of communicating with my friends and family back home as well as the only way I have to get messages out when the phone just isn't enough. We walked round to R's other outlet, a tiny little shop selling crisps, sweets, tobacco and phone/modem recharges. R wasn't there but I was relieved to see K, R's brother. K has always been helpful to me in the past and speaks quite good English. He'd clearly been forewarned of my arrival and did his best to calm me down, promising me he'd get it sorted out within an hour and that he'd call me to let me know.
On Wednesday evening I had visited B, a young woman who lives nearby. B has been learning English and has always been friendly, trying to get to know a bit about my culture at the same time as practising her English. I asked her if she could help me with getting a couple of parcels sent back home to the UK. I knew that parcels have to be wrapped in cotton and stitched up before you could post them. I wasn't sure where to go to get the stitching done here in Koraput and as I wanted a bit of company as well, hoped she might accompany me and help explain what was needed. I explained what I needed to do and she said "you get cotton and stitch". I asked where to get the cotton, what tailor I could use to do the stitching and whether she'd come with me. She agreed and we decided to go out the next morning at 10. 10:15 I called at B's house. She was still having her morning bath. 10:40 we left and walked into the town. She asked me "you stitched the parcels?" Repeating my request for help I explained that no, no stitching done and I needed to get the cloth to do the wrapping. "you went to market last night to get cloth?". No, I needed to buy the cloth was my response.
We arrived at a cloth store and bought cloth for 40 rupees. We then went to a tailor and sat there for about 20 minutes while the parcels were stitched. Another 30 rupees. We went to the Post office and spoke to a man behind the counter. He told me they needed to be sealed with wax, something I should have remembered having posted things from India before but had completely forgotten and my previous attempts had used Post Offices where they supplied the wax and sealed the parcels for you (some readers may remember a previous visit I reported in http://community.vsointernational.org/blogs/hilaryjw/epics ). I found out from him where to get the wax and and asked whether he would put the wax on. Yes, was his response. I found the wax shop and returned with a stick of wax. The man in the PO then said very patiently that I needed to put the wax onto the seams. I took a deep breath, said OK and walked out again with B. B took me to her friend A's house who fortunately lived opposite the PO. A candle was lit and I proceeded to burn my fingers while smearing wax on the seams very inexpertly. Back to the PO for a long wait as a queue had materialised in my absence, getting irritated by 2 people who shoved in front of me and got served out of turn. Success at last, I managed to get my 2 parcels posted home. But will they arrive?
The Post Office visit was done just before my visit to R's store. Maybe not the best preparation for a frustrating and lengthy discussion with a group of very well-meaning Indian staff, wanting to help me but not having a great knowledge of English and not understanding half of what I said to them. I have had to learn to speak much more slowly and clearly here in India, realising that just as I can't understand Oriya when people speak at their normal speed, Indians can't understand English if I speak at my normal speed. I think that as my stress levels rose, my speech speeded up and they didn't understand anything I said and were worried because they thought I was angry with them.
My 2 young friends marched me off to the lassi seller and ordered us all a nice, cool lassi which helped to restore some life back into me before I visited the banana ladies to replenish my banana supply and then got an auto home. I can't cope with walking the mile uphill back home in heat of over 45c.
B asked me into her home and sat me down with a cup of cool water and tried to explain to me that the people in the shop were nervous of me because I was angry and they didn't understand what I was saying. My phone rang and it was K, asking me to check my modem. Hurrah - back online! I am now working on this modem at the giddy speed of a 2.4kbps. But at least it's working.
There is a moral to my story well explained by my friend Jen in her blog http://jeninorissa.blogspot.com/2010/04/25-things-to-do-while-in-india-aka.html
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