Bad idea

The ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and make-up addicts like me, can’t travel without permanent mobile phone and Internet connection. Certainly not while continuing the traveling concept I have.

Here is what I mean: it’s impossible to plan all photoshoots and couchsurf addresses far ahead. Of course I did try that, but people would mail me back like: “it’s too soon, have no idea where I am about that time.” or: “I don’t know… about that time I’ll be probably on vacation.” and stuff like that.

Sooo, only my ticket and thus places I travel to, are all planned ahead. The rest (photoshoots and staying addresses) I have to plan on fly. Thus… Internet and mobile phone are therefore essential to me, as much as my make-up suitcase.

!dea

When I landed in Delhi, the only represented mobile company on the airport was Airtel, but they wouldn’t sell me their sim card as their network was off line, the guy said. Or something like that. So I went to the city and got myself the first the best I could get. It happened to be !dea sim card, which gave me troubles from day one.
First I could only phone, but nobody could phone me back. So I went back to the store and they fixed that. Then I could send sms messages but nobody (outside of India) could sms me back, so I went back to the store once more… That they couldn’t fix. They said that the problem is not Idea, but Dutch telecoms. :p

I said I refuse to believe that.

Bad idea, !dea sim card.

Then I’ve got a couple of mails from people from Delhi telling me they were trying to call me but it appeared my phone was switched off (which was not the case) and at the end I also have to mention that I get 10-20 junk sms messages a day. Once more I visited the store where I bought this !dea sim card and I told them that receiving 10-20 junk sms messages (or any at all) is just a bad idea. So I asked them to switch it off. They told me to call 4444 and I should be able to fix it myself. But when I called, I’ve got in one of those “if you’re calling for blah blah blah, press one. If you’re calling for blah blah blah, press two etc… only in Indian. TaDaaaaa! Back to the store again (5 days later).

And I said: “Dude, listen. I’m sick of deleting this junk all the time. They even called me today and didn’t mind I could speak only English and I’m here just for a couple of weeks. They wanted to sell me Goddamn insurance!”

So I requested that HE calls 4444 and fix it for me. And he did eventually call 4444, but didn’t fix anything at all. The guys from Idea said to send sms to a certain number, with certain code and the activation for the junk mail to stop, would eventually take place ———–> AFTER 45 DAYS!

Me: Never mind. About that time I’ll be in Australia, using another sim card, hopefully better one.. and by the way, are other sim cards getting junk messages as well?
Him: No, only !dea sir (this son of a b*tch lied to me, all mobile providers in India send junk sms).
Me: Then why didn’t you tell me that before selling it to me?
Him: We didn’t know this was going on sir (lie again, a whole India knows!)
Me: Hmmmm, sure. Would you give me a favor?
Him: I’ll try sir.
Me: If you don’t want to give India a bad name, don’t sell foreigners this crap anymore. A whole paperwork to get a sim card at all, is bad enough already. All in all, !dea is just a bad idea. Screw them along with all their stupid ideas.. and have a nice day!

Being in Mumbai now, I was surprised once more to find out that my prepaid minutes are being eaten up each time someone (from India!) calls me, including junk “call center” advertisers criminals… As the matter of fact, all that mobile business here is a crime. 1 point something billion people (let’s say a cattle!) in this country are being ripped off (especially tourists!) and you can do nothing about it.

Like, if I’d have 100 Rupees prepaid at the beginning of the day, it would eventually drop to 80 (or even less) Rupees at the end of the day, without me doing a single phone call!

And that’s only because I’m in Mumbai now and I bought my sim card in Delhi. :p

The Internet

Normally, to plan everything on fly (Photoshoots, couchsurf requests, editing my site and answering personal mails), I have to spend approximately 3 hours a day on Internet. In Finland it was a piece of cake. I could connect wireless from Linda’s apartment, as there were many unprotected wireless networks. They were fast too, so everything went smoothly. Here in Delhi, from Barbara’s apartment, I could detect only 2 wireless networks, one protected and one unprotected, both with weak signal, so bye bye wireless — hello Internet cafe’s. The first two I found were cheep (25 and 30 Rupees p/h) but they had very old machines (probably Pentium one’s), with 15 inch monitors and 800x600 pixels screen resolution. That means when opening hotmail, that “great” nested Vodafone flash banner stood in the middle of my email window, so without the tricks, it would’ve been impossible to read my mail. They also had old browsers, so some features on my site just wouldn’t work….. and - no air conditioning in either of them.

!dea is just a bad idea

4^th day Tata Indicom’s technician finally called and asked me to confirm my address in Delhi once more. I said that I don’t have a time for crap, that having confirmed my address 4 times already is more then enough and that I prefered him just to come and solve my modem problem.

He on his turn then said he would be there the next morning around 9 ‘o clock and I said “he’d better be there this time!”

The next morning he arrived and solved the problem. But the fun was gone.

A whole Delhi happening was just like that !dea sim card business, simply a bad idea. I spent two and half weeks in Delhi, waiting for approximately eight or ten photographers (I made contact with and who “were happy to have a photoshoot with me”) to call, but they finally wouldn’t call back although the most of them said “they would”, neither they would pick up the phone when I’d call them back myself. One of them didn’t even show up, even though we had an appointment…

What the fu*k!? Do Delhi folks need to be seduced like women?
Or was it all nothing but travesty?

To make a concrete photoshoot appointment in Delhi, just like anything else you’d like to have get done there, was thus “mission impossible”.

On one thing Delhi folks were not lazy at all.. seducing my wallet.

One Indian guy in Delhi even told me literally: “to let the money do the work, if I wanted to get my things done.”

How ironic can the world be. Not asking for money while doing the make-up during my world trip, doesn’t mean that I’m willing to pay people to work with me. It would be as ridiculous as asking the rickshaw driver not only to drive me around — but also to pay me for it.

Very spiritual way of thinking some people have here in India. Delhi in particular.

Old Delhi

A whole Delhi visit was thus fiasco. Delhi was a bad, bad, bad idea!…. except a couple of interesting people I met there, like: Kai, Major Tom, Pernille, Remy, Manali, Barbara, Aman, Sanu…. and seeing Old Delhi.

Old Delhi people, children.

Old Delhi people, working men.

Old Delhi people, working man.

“New Delhi” was for the rest a sad story.
A lots of desperation and mainly “money” on people mind.

… well, OK, perhaps New Delhi’s train station is worth seeing too.

Curious Indian people at New Delhi’s train station, video.

Good bye Delhi, hello Mumbai

My intuition said to try Mumbai as Bollywood is over there and Mumbai’s photographers might probably be more serious then Delhi’s amateurs guys… and it was correct. After sending the mail to approximately ten Mumbai’s photographers, I’ve got a couple of positive reactions back, whereof two concrete photoshoot plannings (and two more later). Enough reason to pack my make-up suitcase and say: Good Bye Delhi!

Yesterday, and the day before yesterday, I had photoshoot with photographer Tanvi. She said in her mails and sms messages we’d have two models - but we had 6 models in stead each day. The first day I did all six of them, the second day all but one (as Stephanie and me had a dinner appointment with Kai after the shoot). I also brought my own models with me because the photographer and me thought we wouldn’t be able to find (enough) TFCD models. The first day I brought the Denmark girl I met in Delhi (to be seen on video above), who also came to Mumbai in a search for some quick job in Bollywood, so she needed some good pics for her portfolio… and the second day two stewardesses. My couchsurf host Stephanie was one of them.

All in all, I’m glad that Mumbai made the difference in almost every sense, otherwise I would run away and never come back again to this country.

But I’ll be back ……………………………………………. in Mumbai!