I always advocated and
even motivated my students to start a small / micro business instead of looking
for a job. However, the meaning and nature of business as witnessed by me,
discourages me from giving this advice anymore.
I once chanced upon a
young engineering graduate in Bhopal who had established a successful business
in web designing and software development and I even recommended him for a Young
Entrepreneur’s Summit to be held in Indore and he was indeed called to address the
future Entrepreneurs. At a later date when I decided to have my own website, I approached
him and since he was known to me the deal was struck quite easily and I agreed
to pay Rs 40,000/- for this. The site came up after a few initial snags but remained
dormant as I did not do much with it. After a year and half, I realized that
the site is not working anymore. I called up the firm to know that since the
domain name and server space was not renewed the same had expired and I was squarely
blamed for this. About a year later, I decided to activate the site once again
and in the meantime, I came across another young entrepreneur in Nagpur who
belonged to a disadvantaged community. Out of compassion for people from disadvantaged
community and young entrepreneur, I struck a deal once again. He asked me for
the source code of the original site which was never given to me by the earlier
firm. I was told that the source code is the property of the client and I had a
right to claim this. I got back to the earlier firm who after half a dozen
calls on different dates claimed to have lost the data as he had a server crash
etc. However, he was willing to redevelop the same for Rs 10,000/-. Since I had
relocated to Nagpur and the earlier firm was in Bhopal, I thought it would be
better to get it done at Nagpur. All was well, till I learnt from some of my
new IT savvy acquaintances that this is a business model. In all probability,
the earlier fellow has the source code and is only trying to suck in more money
from me. Also, the source from where domain name and server space is purchased
send reminders promptly to the purchaser which in most case is the service
provider who do not alert the site owners intentionally so that higher money
can be charged later.
I decided to go for a
new website design and struck a deal with my new service provider for Rs 10,000/-
and felt happy for I had to pay Rs 40,000/- last time. I picked up fascination for
this new service provider and all went well for one year. I did collect the
source code this time and noted the date when the domain name and server space renewals
would be due. Proactively, I approached the service provider in Jul 2012 and
paid Rs. 3,000/- for renewal which was due in Aug, and left station on work. However,
the site went down and even after repeated calls he was not renewing the site
on some pretext or the other and later stopped attending my calls. Finally,
after almost 3 months, I returned back to Nagpur and visited his office to find
him missing. The staff was well trained in giving all sorts of evasive replies
and I was getting frustrated. Finally, I was forced to behave like a hooligan. I
awakened the animal in me which had become dormant after living in a sober environment
for almost 26 years. I recollected my college days, the gang wars, brute force
etc and decided to relive my older days. I barged into his office and started hauling,
threatening to break some of his PCs and laptops, if he does not return the
money. Seeing the bad side of me, he issued a cheque for Rs 3000/-. Satisfied, I
returned home but the challenge of hosting the website was still staring at me.
On checking back with my
acquaintances, I knew nothing can be done unless I get the entire
server and domain details from the service provider. I was also told that he is not likely to part with this
information as this is how they make the clients dependent and fleece money. I
had to motivate my 'animal' once again and walked into his office like a
bollywood bad boy, to find him missing and his staff seeing my horrific demeanor
started flipping the register where such details are maintained. Finally, I got
every detail and started exploring it myself. The domain and server space was
purchased from ‘bigrock’ and because the domain name was not renewed on time,
it was costing me Rs. 4,835/- to get the same domain name. Had it been renewed
on time, it would have cost only Rs. 600/- + the server space which would have
cost another Rs 900/-. I had paid just double i.e. Rs. 3,000/- (100% margin) and
still such poor service and unfortunately it is by design and not default. At last
after some more wait, I repurchased the domain name when it came up for resale
and exploring a little further, I could host the website myself without any further
cost. The irony is, I could have designed my website using ‘bigrock’ utility
and saved even the Rs 10,000/-. This is the cost of ignorance one pays in India.
A week later I learnt that the cheque of Rs 3,000 had bounced for want of
funds. The only legal recourse available was to send a legal notice, file a
civil suit and wait for eternity to get the money back. I had developed more
faith in my ‘animal’ and promptly recovered the money and this time in cash. Can
you ever trust anyone in this country!! It is a jungle out there and each one is for
himself!!! ‘Greed’ and not ‘Trust’ is
the rule of business today. Does this country suck enough??
Mr. Pallam Raju:
please do more than just introducing modules of moral values in school curriculum.
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