Ranjith's Castle

Railway Ticketing Process

Ranjith — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:05:55 +0000

Last night I was at Tambaram railway station to receive one of our guest. It took nearly 30 minutes for me to take a couple of platform tickets. There were more than 300 people standing on 3 queue to get tickets - platform , local train and the outstation ones. There were more than 50% of the counters closed. No Person in the railway department is bothered to open the closed counter to speed up the process. In one of the queue in which I was standing was very slow due to the slowness of the machine.

The lady in the counter uses a separate calculator to find out how much she needs to return to the person who gave a Rs 500 /= for a 270/- + ticket. Can’t we upgrade the software to do this job. This will cut short a lot a time. I believe we have this in every other software used in super market today. The best part is that I gave three two rupee coins to take a couple of platform tickets which costs Rs 3/- each and told her that I need two tickets. She pushed the Coins towards her coin tray and asked , “You want one ticket right?”. It was already 8 PM. I am not sure how long she is working in the counter or she is not interested in the job itself.

There was a machine which can provide local and Platform tickets. But one need to use only railway card to purchase tickets. Can’t we make the machine work with the Credit card and coins? That will reduce a lot of manual work and also reduce the waiting time.

Mahindra XUV Lucky Draw

Ranjith — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:27:12 +0000

Mahindra XUV is a great success for the company. Mahindra is opening its second round of booking from today. The booking is opened from Jan 25 to Feb 03 , 2011. The draw will be done on Feb 15, 2011. It is going to be a lucky draw for the second round of XUV Booking. Mahindra is planning to take only 7500 bookings out of the total this time which will be delivered over a period of 4 months. One of my friend bids for a W8 model. On searching over the web , I don’t find any information for the bookings that cannot make it in the draw. While talking to the sales person in Chennai, we understood that we need try our luck in the next opening which may be the same lot process. If a person is not that lucky enough, then his dream of holding a XUV will never come true.

People wait for cars more than 6 to 8 months after booking. Mahindra should use this draw to select all the bookings and assign them the dates of delivery even if it is more than a year. You can refund the money [80K] for those who have their delivery dates more than Mahindra’s so called 4 months. The date of re booking [payment of the 80K] / delivery can be intimated for those who are going to get their car after 4 months. I believe more than 95% of the bookings will be from people who already own a car. People will wait for their chance knowing the dates. This will also give Mahindra an oppurtunity to open the booking after this lot on the first come first serve basis who will be ordered next to the whole lot.

Cheers,

Ranjith

Following 243 on Sign up

Ranjith — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:40:11 +0000

I landed on a document on Scribd for Sanskrit. It required a authenticated session to download the document. I tried the facebook authentication for the purpose. It happens that I got around 10 followers on scribd within an hour. I have never published any document and nor going to do any in future. To my surprise all my followers are having 0 documents published and have a lot of subscription and following a lot of people. I don’t see any value add on this relationship. It added me some work of deleting all mails that got landed on my inbox. Scribd automatically made me follow 243 people who are my friends in facebook. Really a Stupid way to do things.

Mails / Connections which has got zero values to either party.

Cheers - Ranjith

MTC A/C Bus

Ranjith — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 09:51:02 +0000

Traveled in the MTC A/C Volvo for the first time from Ambattur Estate to Velachey distance of around 18 Km at the evening peak hour. It took around one and half hour at the cost of Rs 30 /= per person much more than cost of diesel for the same distance. A row of seats at the center was fold able to accommodate more people during peak hours.

The seats can be made a couple of inches longer for better comfort. I am not sure how these buses are used for the long distance like Trichy [around 300+ Km.].

The A/C vent just above the passenger head on every seat at the window side has a control to change the direction of the flow. It should have added with a stopper.

The bus was maintained in a good condition and the travel was comfortable.

Cheers - Ranjith

Blue&Me and Nokia/Samsung

Ranjith — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:48:46 +0000

Recently bought a new Fiat Linea which comes with an Microsoft Windows powered Blue&Me system. I used a Samsung GT -S5230 and a Nokia 5310 mobile with the system.

Nokia has a good Usability. After the first time paring of the handset, Nokia never asked me any questions for connecting to the Blue&Me. On the contrary, Samsung asked me [Yes./No] questions for the connection , paring and copying [ linking ] of phone books every time I switch on my car. I need to answer two yes for the mobile to get connected and another yes to synchronize the phone book. Tough to answer these questions while driving.

Planning to switch back to Nokia…

Cheers - Ranjith

Confidence lost in Evolution

Ranjith — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:44:52 +0000

We do have theories and beliefs that man originated from Monkeys. I did a quick comparison on the confidence level betweeen Man and Monkey. Security of life is a big concern today in human life. Man want himself to stick to something before he jump out from the current state. This is applicable from Job or whatever we do. But monkeys on the contrary, while jumping will release its hands from the current branch / tree to catch the new one.

Even if they miss the intended branch, it will hold the next one.

Building better confidence like Monkeys.

Cheers - Ranjith.

Side Upper in Train.

Ranjith — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:19:39 +0000

Railways once introduced a berth by name Side Middle, to accompany 9 more passengers to each compartment. But it soon proved to be a bad model as the side upper went a little higher to make it tough for the passenger to get into to the berth. The side middle was removed then. A couple of days back, I took the Perl City express to come to Sattur from Chennai. I got the side upper berth. But in the compartment, I travelled, they have removed the side middle, but have not lowered the Side Upper to the previous position. It became very tough for me to get into the compartment. I saw a couple of people who are more thn 6 feet struggling hard to get in and get out.

The compartment itself is too old that it had a lot of reinforcements done for the different berths. With the revenue Railways is making and considering the cost paid by the consumer for the travel, Railways can replace such older compartments.

Cheers - Ranjith

Murugan Idly Kadai @ T.Nagar

Ranjith — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:51:40 +0000

Happened to be at T Nagar yesterday morning for a shopping. I was accompanied by one of my friend. It is Sunday and the parking was full even @ 10:00 AM in the morning. We got parking next to the Murugan Idly Kadai on GN Chetty Road. I havn’t been to Murugan Idly Kadai till then. So thought of checking it out.

We stepped in. It was a small place which can accomodate 35 to 40 people and was well air conditioned. The seats were 90% full almost for the whole time we were in the hotel. We took a corner table to start . We ordered two Idlies each and waited for 10 mins before we got it on the table. The idly was good and very soft. The Sambar didn’t have a very appealing taste. We went for two Dosas which took another ten minutes to land. The guys gave us plenty of Chutney for the idly and Dosa.

The climax came when the bills landed. It was Rs 98/= including tax. It is three times costlier than the hotels I take my breakfast.

Overall, the price is too costly. The Price sheet listed a coffee to be Rs 15/= and a single piece of idly to be 9. The taste is not worth the cost.

Cheers - Ranjith

Rich Biryani @ Madipakkam

Ranjith — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:58:15 +0000

After a month time, I visited Rich Briyani at the Madipakkam main road, next to the Reliance Fresh. I don’t see any improvement in the way they prepare the biryani. They have added too much of pattai, krambu and yelakkai. But the base taste is missing.

There were only a very few customers around. The cost is also too much for the quality of the biryani.

The location previously had a vegetarian hotel, which provided a very good food. But the problem with those guys was that they will be closed mostly.

My Previous tweet about Rich Biryani.

Cheers - Ranjith

My Blog and Twitter

Ranjith — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:46:56 +0000

Twitter is the micro blogging service, It helps you express your views and thoughts in not more than 140 characters. More than a blog, it is very easy, simple and quick.

Smaller Content :

Lesser time and lesser effort for followers.
Lesser time for me to write.
Lesser mistakes of sentence formation.

On the other side, a personal analysis of me reveals that I am more active on Twitter than on my blog.

Do follow me on Twitter also - dsmrk

Cheers - Ranjith