The Telegram

It was the postman at the door. “Madam, Telegram”. When was the last time I got a telegram? I had forgotten how to react to that. Very quickly it came to me…i had seen it in the movies. I let go of my calm and my heart began to pound. Did someone just die? “Telegram?!”, I asked the postman. “Haan madam, telegram”. “Kiska hai?” realizing soon enough how stupid I sounded. After all, he wasn’t Rajesh Khanna who read out daak to the people. “Madam, yahaan par sign kijiye”. I signed. He left.

Cut to…inside home. Scan through telegram. Sigh of relief! It was hsbc’s latest discovery. Their method of credit card interest fee extortion! Very very sophisticated indeed! While the others employ bhais and the like, hsbc uses the telegram! - 5826.32 out of which so and so is overdue…blah blah blah…kindly ignore if the payment has already been made.. – how polite! This after I have received several phone calls and being warned of being blacklisted and not being sold any hsbc products. Blacklisted for not paying interest on annual charges?! Go blacklist! Then they very generously reversed all the charges. That’s not the point really. The point is I got a telegram! Who sends a telegram these days?!

Talking of hsbc, I used to be a huge fan of their efficient and innovative use of technology. It all started with the deposits. Being able to deposit checks & cash at the atm (when no other atms could do that) and the machine very gracefully dispatched the envelope and took in the deposit. Magically receiving check books out requesting one when you’re on the last few leaflets. Then came the security device. The one that guaranteed no one could ever access your internet account. The one that guaranteed that a new number got generated every 16 seconds. The one that was required in addition to the username and password. The one that was required to be tagged along wherever you went... Here I have my home keys, my car keys, office drawer key, mobile phone, credit cards, debit cards, frequent shopper cards, and now this. I really don’t need any additional burden. There’s no choice they said…you can access your account only if you have the device. Damn! So secure that I could not get in myself! That actually did it for me. I started losing interest. I ceased being a fan! To top it they actually charged me 100 bucks a month for back dated statements which took 4-7 days to reach. I decided to close the account. I could not afford having to pay that much for an account even I could not operate! Then came the telegram…

On the one hand they are super sophisticated. On the other they send a telegram! This post is actually about hsbc. Not about the telegram. But what the hell, it was the telegram which got me started!