BUT, we are in INDIA and the employees are INDIANS. So then there sweeps in the “CHALTA HAI” attitude. Just FUCK UP & apologize and move on. Customer service is not the FORTE of Indian companies. It never has been (In fact IF & WHEN we actually receive good; even satisfactory customer service, we are amazed). No one realizes that they work for huge companies and as employees or partners of the companies (sellers in this case) they owe a responsibility to make sure things work smoothly. Orders need to be processed, dispatched and delivered on time to customers. Seriously if you receive money in advance, that's the least you can do for your customers.

But no, the orders are delayed regularly for weeks, wrong or broken items are delivered and more issues. I received one of my order after 4 weeks on 3rd July. The courier company received it after 3 and a half weeks and delivered in next 3–4 days (Just look on twitter for those complaints & you will find a whole lot of them). My other order is already placed since 8 days and I am informed today it will take a week more BEFORE its EVEN DISPATCHED. Their solution:- “You can either wait or cancel the order”. Now I might just cancel the order but just look on their website. They have a cashback model. So you pay full price of any item initially and get 50–60–70% cashback in your online wallet. In my case, I have those 2 items at 50% cashback & that's the ONLY reason I order stuff from them.

Their CEO @vijayshekhar is busy tweeting his accomplishments and the investments on twitter but would not reply to customer complaints. Now a CEO would not normally need to do it but if he recruits absolute idiots in his social media team who cant handle customer service and act as if they are obliging by responding to you, he MIGHT just have to step in and correct something. Maybe reply to angry customers once in a while, maybe recruit better people as employees or something tangible where his company is NOT RIPPED OFF on social media.

But all you get from the company is “moral policing & social media rules” & finally them blocking you on twitter. Can You imagine this? They 1st piss off a customer beyond reasonable limit, lie to him about his order dispatch and then block him. Is this what you call customer service? That’s why Amazon wins. I am done buying anything from these assholes. Its only Flipkart, Snapdeal & Amazon from now onward.

Its great to establish companies, but its time Indian CEOs know how to run them. The competition is immense and customer loyalty has to be won (especially in a price sensitive market like India). Customer support would be a key ingredient and unless that's sorted, you will end up in deep shit just like most other companies around the world has.

Chelsea writes about ‘Why “Don’t Worry About Money, Just Travel” Is The Worst Advice Of All Time’ and makes some very valid points there; whether its about financial position of an individual, jobs or other responsibilities and then of course coming back from traveling and getting back to normal life.

Janet (who’s a wonderful friend and has traveled and lived in many countries and as such technically much better equipped with knowledge on this aspect) replies here. So now you may ask “Why did I jump in to the conversation?” Well, the answer is simple. I have some very valid points and an absolutely different perspective to add to this discussion.

I am an Indian; born and brought up in this country. I have been to Australia as a student to do my masters and have been fortunate enough to travel from there because it was always somehow paid by the University. Now, whenever people write on the internet, mostly about all these travel articles, doing fancy things and more, there is no Indian perspective (or for that matter South Asian. i.e countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and more) and I loathe that so I want to change this situation.

While Chelsea mentions financial independence as one of the big reasons people can’t travel or personal commitments to family and other things like student loans, the truth is most people in countries of Europe and even in USA CAN travel if they want to. Yes, it can be debated as to how they will survive and how they will fund their travels but the fact that you all guys get working holiday visas and either don't need visas to travel to most countries or get one on arrival unlike the countries I mentioned up here makes all the difference.

Lets focus on daily earnings of more than 20% of the world’s population for a while, shall we? Yes, the situation is better with the growth in India but what we get paid here is peanuts (no matter what jobs you compare. IT, Banking or any other thing) compared to every other European country and USA. Indians aspire to travel too, explore, have experiences but the bottlenecks are crazy. Lets try and break them down to make it absolutely clear.

1. We have to apply for Visas for most countries in the world. No visas waived off, no visas on arrival, no working holidays. The whole of Europe, USA, UK anywhere and its not an easy process. The amount of paperwork involved is outrageous and of course a hell lot of bank balance to show we can fund our travels. Most young people can NEVER do this on their own. Something Europeans would never encounter ever in their lifetime because they can drive or even walk to a different country in Europe. That, My fellow mates around the world, is a dream for us.
2. I was fortunate enough (and my family unfortunate, at least till now) that my family paid 40,000 Australian dollars FOR JUST my tuition fees for my 2 years Masters degree (Yes I have not counted living expenses and more yet) but most Indians families cant afford that and even though this country has most number of English speakers in the world & we speak, write and read the language much better than most Americans or Britishers for that matter, it BLOODY is not our 1st LANGUAGE. ABOUT TIME this changed. What that means is we wont be favored for any job where English is a requirement but a high school attended or an uneducated American or British national will be because “ENGLISH is their 1st language” (This is real life experience of any of the South Asian country people in Australia, USA, UK or Canada or for that matter any job which requires English) so forget about traveling & working in a different country.
3. Janet mentions Couchsurfing (that’s how I met her), hitchhiking, sleeping in tents, ah reality check sweetheart. Its just not a thing we do in India. Sadly our country is just not into adventures (Yes, those would be adventures for us and we would be easily labelled crazy) and its just not an acceptable part of our culture to hitchhike (I bet most people in India will not even know the meaning of this), couchsurf or to sleep in tents. My 1st ever sleeping in tent experience happened when I was 27 and I went to a couchsurfing weekend getaway trip where I had that experience (ah wonderful memories).
4. I agree with Janet’s thought process that yes “how can such courageous and often life-changing decisions not say anything about you as a person?” because in India or any of the countries mentioned above (or the ease of understanding this lets just say every time I say India it also includes these other countries) you will have to be crazy to go beyond the norms to think of traveling to a different country and not work or delay getting a job after you are done studying. Gap year? Breaks? International exchanges? We just don't know these words. Indians only take family holidays or work related travels and they never EVER do gap years or internship in a foreign country. Volunteering in a foreign country? Are You Crazy? So I salute the people who go out and actually do these things. Remember its a big country and there are some bad ass people here too. Plus even if you are that crazy and ready to venture out, you need a financial backing. Remember here we don't get government support in any aspect and have to pay for our medical bills, insurance policies and what not. So unlike other countries where the government takes care of citizens with unemployment benefits, health care benefits and single mother payments and what not. WE GET NOTHING. NADA.
5. Traveling is amazing. You learn a lot about yourself, about people you meet, about new countries and the experiences are something money can’t buy. I have slept without food in Sydney and have been offered help at various times by complete strangers. It was not because I didn’t want to work but because I never got a job for days or months sometimes because they don’t prefer student visa holders and you have working hours limitations on that visa (Well at least LEGALLY) but I love and cherish my time abroad. It was never perfect but overall it was amazing. I really want to travel a lot more but I am in India and the reality is most Indians don't earn enough to afford a holiday. They might be able to buy a plane ticket but the visa approval would mean a lot more money showing in their bank accounts. Not possible for anyone who is a 20 -25 year old in India (yes there are always exceptions, but rare and few)
6. The only traveling us people could do is “the nomadic type of travel” Janet mentions, but that too in our own country because no visas or other bull shit and its cheap. But everything else, Janet I really would love to know if you could say the same things (I know you wouldn't be able to do for sure) if you were born in a country where (a) You needed visas for traveling anywhere you had to go (b) English was not your 1st language (this helps in getting jobs in a lot of countries easily) (c) You had to pay for everything in your own country medical bills, insurance policies, all the other 1000 different types of things and (d) If you earned as little as people in these countries earn and last but not the least (e) If your culture dictated you to follow the norms and study till 20–23 years of age and then start working ASAP.

The truth is its very easy for Europeans and Americans to travel and the fact that they are born in a “DEVELOPED” country just makes them completely unaware of the struggles of a 3rd world country (After 70 years of the independence of my country I still have to call it so and I feel ashamed but its the truth) has.

I hope the article helped you to get an idea of a vast majority of world’s population whose side of story is never published on the internet. While I agree money is not what you need to travel, we can’t deny its probably THE MOST important thing needed to travel.