Believe Me

   I am currently living life in two metro cities in Chennai and Pune.  Obviously it involves quite amount of travel and hence it is hectic. My family is in Pune. In the mid May I am planning to shift my family in Chennai.  Now, only mode of contact is cell phone. I currently have Maharashtra mobile service phone. Now I am paying cell phone with roaming charges and it is costly.

   

  I need to have TamilNadu mobile service to avoid roaming charges. So I (tried) purchased the prepaid sim card from Tamil Nadu. To get the sim card I went to sim vendor three times with the documents. Since I do not have permanent address here in Chennai, I knew it's not going to be easy to obtain the sim card. To obtain the sim card I need to produce my identity proof and permanent address proof. As a permanent address proof document, I gave vendor my passport but it was not accepted since its validity was less than three months (Ok, maybe that's the rule). Next I gave driving license, but it was also rejected for the reason that, stamp on it is faint. (Obviously it was obtained 15 years back). Then I went home and got the pan-card as my identity proof but even it was rejected because it doesn't have address on it. So I was without sim card for almost next ten days.  

  In the mean time I was able to get my Adhar card which has my permanent address, identity proof and birth date all in one document.  So again I went third time to vendor to get the prepaid sim card. This time he looked little convinced. He asked me one local reference, I produced it too. Now after so much investigation and documentation I finally have my sim card with me. But the struggle is not over yet. Even after one week, sim card is not activated. I contacted customer care which says we have not received address proof and contact vendor. So I again (fourth time) went to vendor. He mentioned that form is rejected. Reason is not clear to me, he explained me in Tamil. I absolutely do not understand Tamil. All I understood that he called me again next day with my Adhar card and photos and he will fill the form again. I observed that he is too conscious about dispatching me sim card since I am from outside. But, after producing all valid documents he should have got completely convinced. Anyway I will try to take this positively and appreciate his sincerity towards his work.

  What pains me here more that, the amount of disbelief I have to face on every front.  I have seen this kind of disbelief in my own state as well. Everybody is looking at each other with suspicion. Sometime I feel all those anti-social elements who try to spread disbelief in society are becoming successful. Recently I read one article; the theme of the article was how Indian system is based on disbelief. In India if we go anywhere we have to prove our self always, all the time. May it be school, college, travelling, any government office, insurance and what not? Why cannot we make a system based on belief? Sure there will be some accidents but it could be checked by simple precautions. Why hold 80% prompt, obedient population on stake for some possible fraudulent behavior of 20% people? I heard stories from western world that even insurance companies granting money just based on a phone call. I have seen many Indian students travelling to US just based on the word given by their professor. Why cannot this happen in India? This question remains....

And Yes! Still my sim card is not working.