80K to 2K in 7 years

More than 7 years ago, I returned to India after spending the previous 3 years in the City of Angels a.k.a Los Angeles.

As part of the settling back process in India, I wanted to go in for a big screen television set. A 29" TV, at that time, was considered to be a slightly up-market item and since I was the typical "US-returned" guy, I sure wanted to own one.

So, I dragged my folks along to the Sony World showroom in R.A.Puram and looked around for big screen TVs. They had one 29" TV with Picture-In-Picture and I decided to go for it.

The problem, as my parents saw it, was the TV cost almost Rs.80,000.00. Yes, Rupees Eighty Thousand only. But in my thought process I was, like, "Haey, that's just $2,000.00". And much to the chagrin of my parents, I was very firm on buying it. And I did.

Please note that it was a regular picture-tube based TV and not any of those LED/LCD/Projector TVs that had started making their appearance in the market. But all that I saw in those initial days of returning from the US, was having lot of money and some freedom to spend it!

We have had that TV till today. It was very much in working condition till about a couple of years back, when a small patch of green started appearing in the left bottom corner of the screen. It wouldn't really be visible, unless the program being watched had an image in white color in that area. The Sony service folks couldn't do anything about it and so we just let it be.

Around that time, I decided to have a second TV and got me a Panasonic. This one too was a 29", but cost me only Rs.17,000.00. So, the Sony was left in the first floor of my house for the occasional viewing. That too, was done mainly by my mother, who after the "thief incident", stopped going upstairs except to sleep.

So, the TV was lying idle for more than a year and a couple of months back, we found that it even refused to switch on. The Sony service guy checked it and said that it was time to scrap it. And that, at best, we could get around Rs.2,000.00.

We checked with some of the guys who buy used TVs and the best offer we got was Rs.2,000.00. So, finally, the great Sony 29" 80K INR TV was sold off for a whopping amount of 2K INR.

I have learnt my lesson very well. There is no point in spending that much money for any of these electronic equipment because there is absolutely no return for the investment. And worse, the cost of the product drops sharply every month and even worse, they drop sharper the minute I buy something.

I have pretty much stuck to that resolution and would of course be breaking it when the Apple iPhone 4 gets officially launched in India soon.

Crowning Glory

On Sunday, Raghu and I decided to go out for dinner since it has been a while since we did that. It was kind of my turn to foot the bill and so Raghu generously opted for dining at Residency Towers.

I agreed and asked him to book the table. Just before I was about to start, I got a confirmation message from him that said that the table was booked, but that they don't have any seats on the outside.

Since I was under the impression that we were going to the buffet restaurant called Main Street, I was quite perplexed reading that message. So I called him to clarify and that's when I found out that the great one had booked a table in the Crown Restaurant in Residency Towers.

For those of you who haven't gone there, please be advised that it is probably one of those fancy dining spots in the city. Really up-market setup, mostly up-market crowd and hence very EXPENSIVE.

Raghu's defence was that since it was my treat he was not bothered about the expenses and simply opted for this. And of course, he blamed me for not being clear about the venue.

Anyways, we decided to go ahead with the plan. After quite a lot of "Take Diversion" boards on the route from his house to the restaurant, we reached the venue on time. The maître d' showed us to our table and when we went through the menu card, we were reminded yet again about how up-market this place was!

We had a very light dinner and yet, the bill amount was a whopping Rs.1700. For 3 people! Though we had agreed to go dutch, this was still quite high. I realised that the amount was high enough to warrant an exclusion from the credit card statement (since that is very much in the purview of my accountant a.k.a my father) and so, I opted to pay cash.

While the ambiance at the restaurant is excellent, I was not too happy with the food and service. Don't get me wrong, the food was good. Just that, it wasn't worth the price tag it came with. And the service - again no complaints that they didn't treat us badly or anything like that. Just that the policy seemed to encourage a very laid-back atmosphere, but it was bordering the realm of "kitchen closed"!

Anyways, the crowning glory for Sunday evening was a query from my mother on Monday morning. She asked "What made you guys go there? Did you get engaged or did he win a Rs.2 Crore business deal?". THE END!!!