Hi!
I have struggled when it comes to giving this Newsletter a structure. When I started, I thought it did not matter and that being candid was far more important than following a pattern. I still want to make this engaging and be a good storyteller; that is the goal. Having some design will make it more compelling. As a result, I would like to start every week with a question. Starting off with, what do you want to be remembered by? When people hear your name, what do you want them to think of? Feel free to write back your answers or reflect upon them.
Graduate Record Examinations
Following up on something I told you a couple weeks ago—my counsellor decided I should retake my GRE. Despite many colleges discontinuing the GRE as a requirement criterion, a good GRE score for colleges that accept the GRE is helpful. I have decided to retake it sometime during the first week of October, and I have started preparing. I am also doing a few courses, mainly sharpening my CSE knowledge and learning new tech stacks. I'll also keep you guys updated on how that goes.
Scam(s)
This first story is brought to you by Zomato. I love Zomato and have been their Gold member for almost a year. There are, however, a few instances when they offer the worst service ever. I am okay with many vices in general, like it doesn't affect me as much, except lying. I wouldn't say I like it when people lie. Earlier this week, Sush was sick, so I thought I'd order coffee for her, and I did. It initially said it would take 50ish minutes, and I was okay with it. I didn't expect the order to be completed in 20 minutes. I went, "This is amazing! Zomato has done it once again. They're so good". So I texted Sush to see if she received the order, and she said there was no sign of any coffee whatsoever.
We tried calling the delivery person and were bummed when there was no response. I followed up with the next logical step of contacting customer support. I'm not exaggerating when I say I had the most amicable conversation with their support person. I was merely assisting them with my order, and somehow, he was taken aback by this seemingly normal conversation. It hurt me to realize the kind of people they might be dealing with daily and what they hear mostly because of somebody else's incompetence. If being normal and having a regular conversation makes you think that I am some godman who is extremely friendly to you, then I feel more sad than proud.
Anyway, the support person said the delivery guy should arrive in about ten minutes, so I said thank you. He was again flattered for some reason. We waited for the next 15-20 minutes, and there was no sign of the delivery guy, so I called him to check up. He said he was just around the locality and would be there in about 10 minutes and that he was stuck in traffic and had to go around because of some roadblock. We waited another 15 minutes before calling him again. He says that he's at the entrance of the building and that he'll reach in less than 5 minutes. Yet again, we waited another 8 minutes, after which he was no longer found; he didn't pick up our calls or deliver the coffee.
I contacted their customer support again, and they said the best they could do was refund my order. I asked if they could keep the money and send another coffee, but they said they couldn't replace it. I don't blame them for this. It was a really disappointing experience, so much so that when my Zomato Gold subscription ended a couple of days ago, I didn't bother renewing it. So, if you have any food app alternatives, let me know. Thanks.
For our second story, we have PayTM... well, not exactly. This incident occurred yesterday morning when I was in my room chilling, as one does on a Saturday. I heard my dad get a call, and he started talking in Hindi, which was weird because that doesn't happen often in Karnataka. My dad owns/overlooks a business, and the person on call said that my dad had ordered a PayTM soundbox. My dad said he ordered no such thing but realized that the employee could have done it, so he said to drop it off at the location and send the guy. My dad put the call on speaker, and the guy on call said that he'd be sending the delivery guy in ten minutes, and he asked my dad to call him to confirm the same. I sense something fishy, so I hijack the conversation; I talk to him and ask him what's happening. He said he just needed us to call this number and confirm, and so far, he's mentioned nothing about paying for the soundbox or anything of that sort.
I oblige and say, "Go ahead, what's the number?" This is where the curtain falls. He starts dictating the phone number and begins with "*401*[10-Digit-PhoneNumber]." he goes on to create a sense of urgency. He's panting, asking me to call this number immediately as this "guy" is waiting. Before I dialed the number, I Googled it to make sure it wasn't directly going to "yoink" all the money or something. Google results said that *401* was used to forward calls, and I didn't pay much attention and called because this guy was getting restless and stressing me out. I hear the automated voice saying the call forwarding facility was successfully completed. I immediately realized what was happening, and before he could ask me anything, I forwarded the calls to my personal phone number. He goes, "Sir, it looks like you haven't called that number." That's when I confronted him. I asked him why he was trying to scam me. He was naive and said that he had no such intentions, and I informed him that I got an OTP for a transaction, which I think was a mistake on their part (skill issue, we get it). He said, No, sir, we don't need an OTP; you must be getting a call; go ahead and please put the call on conference. I am far past the stage of obliging this "PayTM executive."
I say it won't happen while he tries to prove his innocence. Now, props to me; I couldn't put the call on conference because I had forwarded all the calls to my dad's phone number to my personal phone number. So I pick up the call I'm getting on my number, and I hear the automated voice say an OTP. It all starts to make sense now. The scammers have improvised. They know that people have gotten more competent when sharing OTPs on call, so he tried to get this phone number on conference, which was reading out the OTP aloud. Now, thankfully, none of that happened. I proceeded to block him and restored everything to normalcy.
I believe the scammers didn't consider a con artist on the other end of the call. I don't think they knew that I am infamously known for being the scammer of my friend group, albeit none of my scams/pranks came from a place of deception; it was more just for laughs. But my knowledge of their psychological tactics, like creating a sense of urgency and information overloading, came in handy. Acting at the right moment to quickly forward the calls to my number also came in clutch.
All of this got me thinking about just how many people are victims of such scams every day and how, despite our best efforts, we can be deceived and robbed of hundreds of thousands and lacs of rupees; for some of us, it probably won't mean much, but it's scarier when you realize that there are some livelihoods which are taken away because people fall prey to such scams. If I, a computer science graduate, can be so dumb as to almost get scammed, then I think anyone could, or maybe it's just me who is dumb. I felt reporting this story and getting the point across was necessary. Please be careful when talking to unknown callers; do not respond to things you are unaware of, and do not succumb to the false sense of urgency they're trying to create. Take a step back when you don't realize what is happening. I think that's also just good advice in general. Stay safe out there!
Art
Moving on from scams, I want to share some thoughts on this art piece I came across a few days ago. "Can't Help Myself" was created by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu. It is a robot arm piece programmed to try and contain the hydraulic fluid leaking out to keep itself running because if too much fluid gets lost, it... dies. It is desperately trying to pull itself back and continue to fight for its life. The sad part is the robot could do "happy dances" for the spectators when the spill was contained. When it was launched, it danced around, spending most of its time interacting with the crowd as it could quickly stop the spillage. But over the years, with wear and tear, it got worn down as the amount of leaked fluid became unmanageable as the spill grew over time. The machine doesn't have enough time to do its happy dance and is trying its best to stay alive.
Living its last days in a never-ending cycle between sustaining life and simultaneously bleeding out. Both figuratively and literally, the hydraulic fluid looks like actual blood.
The arm slowly came to a halt and died in 2019. Still, with a twist, this robotic arm, this bot, which was called Kuka Servo, actually runs on electricity and not hydraulics. THE BOT WORKED ITS ENTIRE LIFE TOWARDS SOMETHING IT DIDN'T EVEN NEED! It was tricked by the system it was brought into. How sad is that!? What a great piece of art!
Here is the post I originally came across from @deadpoetswilde on Instagram. I have also included a video in this week's weekly recommendations.
When is art fulfilled?
Speaking of art, a couple hours ago, a friend of mine texted and said he used the stuff I had written in a birthday post for this friend. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and it got me thinking about its purpose and when art truly comes to fruition. Obviously, what art means and its purpose is highly subjective. Here's how I could best describe it.
We are sometimes put in situations we haven't encountered before, and naturally, we fall short of words. So, we seek art. We look for ourselves, hoping to find the words we lack in songs, poems, stories, dances, and other forms of self-expression. In finding such art, we give it meaning. We provide the art a reason to exist. A movie can make billions of dollars, and a song can be a chartbuster and win a thousand awards. Still, the form of art is only "complete" when people can find their lost selves in said art.
When I started this Newsletter, I didn't think what I wrote would become a medium of expression for someone else. It was mostly an outlet for me to express myself, tell stories, and eventually be good at it. I did not expect this little "document-my-life" journey to impact anyone. I'm more than delighted to realize it is. I also thought of quitting the Newsletter whenever I used to see the metrics on the Substack dashboard, but I couldn't. I enjoy writing too much and might miss a few deadlines, but I will try to write this one letter to all of you every week for as long as I can. And if you're reading this, I appreciate you so much. Thank you!
Weekly Recs
Song: Could I interest you in a new addition to your Christmas playlist?
Movie: The Namesake (2006)
Video:
Everything else
I am having strong urges to start a podcast. The only reason holding me back was that I wanted to do a YouTube podcast and upload it to streaming platforms like Spotify. Initially, I was nervous about recording myself, but then I sat down with that thought this week. I realized that I enjoy, or at least have started to enjoy, the process of documenting myself. And I want to do whatever it takes to help me achieve it. If uploading on YouTube is a scary thought, I'll do an audio podcast and eventually move to YouTube once I'm comfortable. I can see myself very soon having a podcast. This is just a heads-up.
Also, I have this newfound purpose in life. I wanted to be ranked #1 in Google search when you google "whybhav." Right now, it's some idiot with a .com domain with a questionable website. I want my work, podcasts, Newsletter, and website to be ranked higher than anyone named "whybhav."
That is all for this week, y'all. Take care, and have a great next week. I hope the remaining 31% of the year will treat us kindly. Alright, see you. Bye.
Scam Artist,
whybhav
you have a printed copy of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse??
<3