Unified Email Account

As we are going more and more for a digital India, Email is becoming one of the primary identification and communication mechanism. My suggestion is to create an Govt managed Email platform, that creates email ids for citizens based on their Aadhar card no. for Example 123456789123@india.gov.in. This should be the primary mail id for all bank transactions, govt. transaction by default, which can work not only as a primary identification but also as the primary and official communication. The easiest and most accurate way to communicate to the whole nation (if needed so).

what Positive change your Suggestion will bring: 

There can be many benefits.
1. Unified and accurate mechanism to reach citizens of India
2. Solves the banking MDM problem. Now a same user registered with different mail ids, and different address in the same bank and banks are struggling to solve it.
3. By using aadhar as a mail id, you solve the problem of sending right communication to the right person (on a average day I get 10 mails from different banks meant for others because I have a very common name).
4. Easiest way for Income Tax department to track someone and communicate
5. Many other use cases will evolve as we go ahead

How to Implement:  The implementation should be simple. It should be done by the UIDAI department. Its all about creating an Official Govt. Email Platform.  

Please share your views and feedbacks...

Why you should not buy a Ford car? Because it rusts...

I purchased my Ford Fiesta zxi Fida limited edition car in Dec 2007. I was happy with the drive even though the service has always been patchy. Sometimes it will be good and sometimes, they were caught red handed while trying to cheat me. For example, once they did not do the protective quote, but charged me for that. Next time when I took the car for servicing, again they asked me to get the protective quoting done..just atrocious.
Anyways, sometime back around one and half year back (when the car was only four and half year old), I noticed that the car doors at the bottom
have started rusting. It was quite disturbing to notice that a car doors rusting, as this does not even happened to our 10 year old Maruti 800,
continously parked outside. My car stays in a covered car park in an apartment.

So I wrote to the Ford president's desk, and find below the email conversation.

My Mail
============
Dear Sir,

I own a FORD FIESTA ZXi (Fida Edition) purchased in Dec 2007 from Metro Ford Bangalore. The VIN of the car is MAJBXXMRJB7U49350. The car has been serviced regularly since the date of the purchase at Metro Ford Service Centers. The car has run around 25000 KMs so far.
Around 4 months back I noticed that the bottom parts of the doors have corroded. When I gave the car for servicing this time around 15 days back, I mentioned the problem to the service engineer. The service engineer suggested that it could have happened because of the hardness of water in my apartment that is used for cleaning my car. I am staying in an apartment with around 300+ cars and more then 10 Fiesta. Not a single person has faced this kind of problem. The car is hardly 5 years old, well maintained with single owner. Having this kind of problems is really surprising and is not something expected from a ford car.

So it makes me believe that it could be a manufacturing defect. Hence I am requesting your attention to this and provide me with reasonable solution. I am attaching the picture of the corrosion that has happened to the doors of my car.

Looking forward to your attention and action in this regard.


Final Response from Ford
=========================
Further to our telecon we had with your goodself on 29.05.2012, We had a detailed discussion with our dealership & with our regional service team regarding your concern.We have also gone through your vehicle service records We understand that the service records of the said vehicle is not inline with the Ford's recommended service schedules.

We also wish to reiterate that Ford India always recommends that every periodical maintenance service is to be carried out in accordance with the instructions & recommendations specified for the vehicle by Ford,as outlined in the Owner's manual.  We also understand that the vehicle is out of the warranty period, hence we regret to inform you that we would not be able to support you on your claim (warranty).  Hence,we regret to inform you that we would not be able to support your claim.   We would request you to contact our dealership & provide your approvals so as to carry out the repair works.We would ensure that quality work will be carried out by our dealership post your approval & would be delivered to you at the earliest.

Request your understanding & co-operation.

Thanks & Regards,

Bindhu Vinod,
FIL-Customer Relations
Toll Free No 1800-425-2500 BSNL/MTNL 6000-2500 Add STD code of your state capital.


======================================================

Hence the overall point is, if the car is not serviced regularly and not within Warrenty, it can RUST.
First of all my car is serviced regularly enought, with a maximum of 2/3 months delays at times...
Secondly I am not sure what FORD does as part of the servicing which could have prevented the car from rusting.
And third, does all FORD cars rust, once they are out of Warrenty period?

I think instead of admitting to a faulty piece or some manufacturing defect, the manner they suggested that it could have happened
because of serivce problems, was hilarious.
Anyways, I will alert as many people as possible about the dishonest practices of Ford and request people not to go for any Ford Car.

Also whoever wants to go for the car should make an informed decision after reading through this.

I am going to write about it every where possible to alert as people as I can...

http://www.consumerscomplaints.in/complaints-ford-fiesta-car-rusts-within-5-years-of-purchase-c2043.aspx

NIMHANS Experience

Around 2 months back while getting up into an upper berth seat in a train compartment, my Dad who is 66 years old, experienced some acute pain in his lower back. For 3 to 4 days the pain continued. Once the pain was gone, he came to realize that he is not able to walk properly. Even though there are no pain, he is sort of dragging his left leg after a while and the leg is getting tired very quickly. He didn’t pay much attention to this at that time. But with time it became worse. He was not able to walk even for 100 meters. Throughout his life he has led a very controlled life and for past 5/6 years he has been practicing Yoga and Pranayam to the extent that he is one of the qualified Yoga teacher and also a life time member of Patanjali Yoga Pitha.


A person who used to walk for 10 KMs without any problem, for him it was a shock. So he went to Apollo, Bhubaneshwar and consulted Dr Bikash Mishra. There after doing some MRIs, Nerve Conduction test, and blood tests, the doctor advised him to get admitted immediately.
At that time we were apprehensive as all of us know ….or at least this has been my experience…that private hospital think that patients are ATMs. So until the time they have made the ATM out of Cash, they will continue.
Hence I asked him to come to Bangalore and show to some doctors here. My aim was to show him at NIMHANS (National institute for Mental Health and Neuro Science).

The out patient building is the first building on the right hand side, if you are entering from the Jayanagar side. From Dairy circle side, there is a board that indicates the OPD.

I had some idea about the procedures. One thing that I knew was that, one will have to come early and stand in the queue to register the patient’s name. I thought if I come by 6:30 AM it should be good enough. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I came to register on a Monday morning, and reached NIMHANS at 6:15 AM, I got the first shock. There were around 80 people already in the queue. I stood in the queue with two minds, whether to continue or to come back again the next day. Since I had already taken leave from work, I continued to stand. At around 7:45 AM the counter opened.

So here are some tips if you want to come to NIMHANS as an Outdoor patient.

1. Avoid coming on a Monday. It is the busiest day of the week. (Sunday they do not see outdoor patients).

2. There are parking available for both four wheelers and two wheelers.

3. If you can come with a reference which refers specifically to NIMHANS, you will be given priority. Contact the security guard over there. They will help. But for that also come max by 7 AM.

4. If you do not have any reference, then come by 5 AM. The earlier you come, chances are there that you will be able to finish everything in a day.

5. The queue will lead you to a counter where you have to pay Rs 20/- and register your patient’s name.

6. Then you will have to wait in another queue (or you can sit down in the chairs available there) until your name is called in another counter.

7. Go and collect the receipt. You will find a number written over it. That number tells the door number where you will see your first doctor.

8. The first doctor will do some preliminary examination and will refer to another doctor.

9. If you are lucky, you may get to see the next doctor in 1 to 2 hours time. For me, I hit the lunch time, and hence got to see the doctor after around 3 hours.

10. The next doctor will again do some check ups. After ascertaining your problem, finally he will refer you to the appropriate department. He will also give you a folder which will contain your case details, written by the previous two doctors. He will also give you the date and time when you will have to come again and go to the appropriate department.

11. I got the appointment for Wednesday. When I asked when to come, he told me to by 7 AM. But I guess I should have come by 5 AM.

12. This building is just opposite to the building where you would have gone earlier.

13. You have to go there and submit your folder at the counter just near the entrance.

14. Once you have submitted, he will ask you to go to a particular Door …mostly on first floor on the same building.

15. When I went there, I was again shocked to see another 100 people already waiting there. You have to go there and wait, until your name is called.

16. I was told that your name is called, NOT based on how early you have come, but based on the importance of your case (No way to verify that). Hence sooner you go the better.

17. Anyways the doctors started coming by 9 AM. After that they started calling names. My Dads turn came at around 11 AM. At that point I thought that the waiting is over. But after going inside I realized that my wait is far from over. Inside there will be a number of rooms and the nurse there will ask you to go to a particular room and wait in front of it. Here make sure that your file has reached the doctor in that room. The nurse gave us the file and we were holding onto the file without realizing that if the file is not inside, the doctor is not going to call us. Hence it is important to ensure that your file has been sent to the doctor.

18. After waiting for another 3 hours, at around 2 PM one doctor called us. He was an intern there. He spent around 45 minutes to 1 hour to do a thorough checkup of my Dad, listening to each and every thing very patiently and noting them down in the file. He was extremely diligent in what ever tests he did.

19. After that he submitted the file to another senior doctor and asked us to wait until he calls us. Again after waiting for another 1 hour, the senior doctor called us. He listened to the intern (who also joined him when we went inside) and then did another round of test for another 30/40 minutes.

So that’s roughly the procedure that will go through if you want to go and get treated at NIMHANS.

So is that worth it? Well my answer is a BIG YES. Every bit of it.

I think it is a world class hospital…not because of its facilities…but because of its doctors. The compassion, passion, and dedication that I saw there was amazing. It reminds you what a real doctor should be like. Even though a huge number of patients they need to see every day, there was no compromise on the time that they spent with each patient, paying complete attention and no point bitter or showing any kind of frustration. At that point I realized why NIMHANS is so popular and why so many people who can afford the best private hostpitals in the world, also go there and spend hours and days standing in the queue to meet the doctors and get treated there. Me and my dad both at that time realized that it was the best decision to come to NIMHANS instead of going to the bloodsucking private hospitals where the only agenda is to make money.

Eventually my father got admitted there, as suggested by the Doctor. Even though we wanted a private room, we didn’t get it as it was not available. We got a semi private room which is shared by another patient. The room has its own attached toilet and bathroom. The semi private room costs around Rs 250/- per day. For each patient in the room, there is a cupboard, an attendant bed available. It does not have TV or AC etc. But if you are keen, then you can request them and they will move you to such rooms as soon as becomes available.The room and the bathrooms were very clean and it gets cleaned once every day very thoroughly.
The nursing staffs were very good and diligent.

You would wonder why I have to mention all these points… Isn’t it given in any hospital?

Well I have some horrifying stories to tell when my wife was admitted for a small operation in one of the swanky hospitals…currently known as FORTIS in Bannerghatta Road. Look out for my next post for my experience there.

My Father is on his way to recovery and I am thankful to all the doctors who treated him there. I would advise anyone who has any neurological problem, to visit this hospital with wonderful doctors.

IPL3 - A fair result..

Congratulations to Chennai Super Kings for lifting the IPL 3 cup.
I am a Mumbai Indians fan and it has been like that for last 3 years. Even though I am no way related to Mumbai (well...I just spent couple of years there, at the beginning of my career..thats all) I wanted them to win, simply because Sachin plays in that team. I have been a huge Sachin fan through out my life.
I was really sad to see Mumbai Indian lose the match -- especially with the kind of fire power they have got, they could have easily chased it down. Some bad batting order decisions prob. cost them the game. Well everyone can say that...but if the gamble would have paid of everyone would have said brilliant captaincy--- for the same batting order.. Hence don't want to be critical..

But one thing that saddened me the most was - seeing the GOD cheating !! Yes, When Sachin was caught behind by M S Dhoni, I felt he should have walked. Just by looking at Sachin's expression, I can be 100% sure that he knew about it. He was hesitant to look into the eyes of the umpire...and thats the first sign when someone cheats...not able to meet the eyes...
I am not a great Dhoni fan, but I like his leadership qualities and ethics. No wonder, they won the Kingfisher fair play award...
I hope India wins the T20 World cup and bring back the cup again. All the very Best to the Brave Warriors of Cricket !!

Salarpuria Builder - 1st hand review

Around 10 months back I purchased an apartment in Salarpuria Serenity.
Just to give a prelude, I have been looking for an apartment for good 2 years. I have visited and seen a lot of apartments at various corners of Bangalore.
The criterion that I was looking for are (In the order of priority)
1. Location
2. Budget
3. Various approvals and Loan approval from govt. banks
4. Amenities
5. Builder credibility
6. Only completed / near completion projects
7. Floor plan (Open kitchen, big living room etc)
8. Open space

Having stayed in HSR Layout area for past so many years, I was biased towards this locality. Also I felt that it makes more strategic sense for me (a software engineer) as electronics city, Outer ring road and ITPL are all easily approachable by big roads...
I approached the Salarpuria sales person directly. He promptly arranged for a site visit. I came and had look at the flat. I liked it.
Salarpuria Marketing and Sales:
I think this aspect of the builder is the best. They do what they commit and no false commitments. They kept all their words. It was a hassle free sale process for me. They arranged for the registration very promptly and made the unit ready and available as per the promised dates. They accommodated some of my requests out of their way since they believed that those were genuine requests.
After Sales Support:
Salarpuria is helping us in doing the Khata transfer (well of course not free of cost. we have to pay some bribe, but not to Salarpuria)...
They were accommodating to some reasonable changes. They accommodated some of my electrical change and structural change requests...
Maintenance:
So far Salarpuria is maintaining the property. They have collected a huge amount (all most 4% of the property value) in the name of maintenance fund. The maintenance has been patchy.
They listen to all the problems and try to resolve it as soon as possible. But at the same time there are some issues which they are very slow or unwilling to resolve. So it has been really a mixed bag so far.
Quality:
I have started doubting the quality of some of the work that has been done by Salarpuria.
1. The biggest problem is Plumbing. There are leakage in bathrooms in lot of flats including my unit. The water proofing work that has been done is really bad.
Also the common area plumbing is no better. There is water leakage in a lot of places in the parking lots and below the swimming pool (Swimming pool is in 2nd floor in this apartment).
2. The water treatment plant doesn't seem to be doing a good job either..The water is too hard and is damaging all the fittings.  The taste of the water is horrible.
3. They have given the option of wooden flooring in living room. I guess I did a big mistake by going for it. The so called wooden lamination flooring is not at all of good quality. Also the way they fix it, it makes a noise when someone walks on top of it.
4. Amenities - The Swimming pool is of good size and the area has been developed nicely. But it lacks a shower booth near the swimming pool.
The Lawn tennis court is a joke. First of all they have just managed to prepare a tennis court with whatever space they had, which is not a rectangular place. It doesn't have any space at the end of the court for someone to even serve. Worst, they have given some plastic net around the tennis court and the quality of the tennis net is really bad. I have never seen a tennis court as pathetic as ours..and believe me ...I have seen quite a few.
The party hall is extremely small, but can't complain there, as I bought it after seeing it.
They have given good Steam and Sauna rooms..
The GYM is also well equipped.
5. The fire alarm system is extremely moody and goes off every now and then...So actually it has become a pain rather then a security feature as it makes horrible noise in the middle of the night without any reason.

My Verdict:
I would give Salarpuria a thumbs up simply because of the fact that, apart from some issues, in most of the cases they were completely honest with us and are helpful. Especially in a place like Bangalore, most of the builders are taking the owners for a ride...

I will keep updating this , once we take over the maintenance from them and come to know about some more facts about the apartment. Watch out for this space....

New Updates
===========
After staying in the apartment for 2 years, I thought I will update my experience.

Khata Transfer
============
This is one of the best things about this builder. We realized that their papers are completely in order. They also helped us in doing the Khata transfer (We didn't even have to go to the BBMP office). We completed the Khata transfer within one year of moving in to the apartment which I feel is quite cool. Also they arranged for the payment of property taxes and they have paid the property tax for all the previous years. 
I know for sure that SJR Verity guys when purchase apartment, they had to pay property tax for past 2 years as the builder didn't pay it....

Keeping Promises 
=============
Again another thumbs up.
First the water situation. They had given us 4 borewells out of which hardly two are working and with a very less yield. So after talking to the management, they agreed to dig another borewell, but asked the management comittee to do it and said that they will bear the cost which they reimbursed once the management comittee took over.
As promised, they also returned the complete maintenance deposit collected by them at the time of purchasing the house.

Proper Handover
=============
There were a lot of complaints from individual flat owners about plumbing problem. They tried to attend each and every complaint. Also the swimming pool leaking problem also was fixed.

So all in all so far I am having a good feeling about the builder and would like to recommend this builder to others. In future if I purchase any property, I would like to go for Salarpuria again...

Social Networking - or Social NOTworking

Last five years or so we have seen a huge insurgence of Social networking sites (orkut, face book, HI5 etc), blogging (Google, yahoo 360 etc), micro blogging (tweeter, google buzz) and so on. Most of the users of these sites are youngsters. But also there are people like me, who have created an account in some social networking site, because everyone else is doing it. There are certain benefits though...For example, if someone uploads some information / photos about him/her, I get to know about it without neither of us making a special effort to keep in touch (the only effort involves logging into the website I guess).

But we need to ask a question to ourselves...Am I really interested to know about that? If I am really interested in a person, shouldn't I drop him an E-mail or make a call? I feel that instead of bringing people together, actually it is pushing us away and we are becoming more and more DISCONNECTED.

Apart from a social evil, there is a huge danger to in terms of Identity Theft, and information misuse. A lot of us do not understand how to use these facilities responsibly. People are exchanging cell phone numbers, photos, mail ids and even bank account numbers etc over publicly visible mediums.

But there are people who are sitting there and silently observing all this to take unfair advantage.

A hacker with a little more effort can probably find out your family details, their and your birth dates, your address, what is your favorite movie, your pets name and so on. Well so far this seems ok...

But there are software once fed with all this information can start creating passwords, which a hacker can try to gain access to your email accounts or some bank accounts. Think about it !! Doesn't your password made from these above information? If not, then you are a smart and I guess also smart enough not to share sensitive information over insecure mediums. But most of us are NOT.

Once he has access, he can use it whichever way he wants. !!

I am not strictly against these social networking websites. But I guess there has to be very strict guideline and some intelligence imposed by the websites to protect gullible users, who fall prey to it.

Cricket in India - Debate

This is my friend recently said -


" I really think, BCCI, IPL should be scrapped and the whole bloody mess of cricket mafia be cleaned up by someone (home, CBI ?). What nonsense is our Agri minister doing in BCCI ? I am not a fan of cricket, I think it has done more harm than good to India - and totally wasted the youth force. Not a single sports can come out of India because of this. It is like a chakunda tree which doesn't allow a single blade of grass grow near it. In this point I am totally with Swami Ramdev. Recently I provided a volley ball and net to my village boys to play. The ball got punctured and now the field we prepared to play the volley is a cricket field. "

And below was my reaction....

humm....thats a outburst from no where...I guess you are frustrated because the volleyball court in your village got converted to Cricket field, which you didn't want :-) !!
I agree with the fact that Cricket in India is highly commercialized....but why it happened? Why all these things didn't happen for any other sports? First try to figure that out instead of just blaming the game.
I think till 1995 or even later, BCCI was a loss making organization depending on the govt. to function.
I am a great admirer of the sport and happy that India is dominating world of cricket with some of the best players in the world being from India.

Yes, at the same time I am also NOT a IPL fan. I think it is killing the sanctity of the game. What we are producing as cricketers (so called the promotion and identifying young talent) doesn't have the substance in them to become great.

If you point fingers at Cricket for the obscene amount of money involved in it, then you have to point fingers at lot of other things like Media and Entertainment, politics etc. Where ever there is money, there will be corruption. Money doesn't have any religion. It has even happened in individual sports like Lawn Tennis.

I agree that there is a problem...and as you said it needs cleaning up. But the solution is not killing cricket...

BTW, I feel it is completely wrong to use the "Chakunda tree" analogy here.. Other sports are not orphans and need not grow under the "Chatrachhaya" of cricket.

There is always a place for a banyan tree or a palm tree along side the Chakunda tree...its a matter of nurturing and growing them....

when cricket took precedence over life

We went to watch the match between RCB and MI on 17th Apr. This was the first ever T20 match that I had gone to watch live at the stadium. But ironic it may sound, at around 3:30 PM one of my apartment friend called to check if I am allright as there is a bomb explosion in the stadium.
I guess few minutes before he called, we did hear a loud noise, but we mistook it for some crackers being burst by someone outside. I called home only to get the confirmation that indeed there is a explosion, but of low intensity.
Again as ironic as it may sound, all this news seemed completely meaningless to me/us at that time and we decided (actually we even didn't think about for a moment to leave the match and go back to the saftey of our homes) to continue waiting for the match to begin.Of course there is slight less blatantness to the whole thing as the reasoning was if the players can take the risk, definitely we can.

Later on when I reflect, in the bigger scheme of things (thats the life) I feel it was really a stupid thing to sit there and continue watching the match.

But thats the kind of world we are living in, where the value of life is diminishing at a much faster rate then anything else and the kind of impact cricket has got on our lives that sometimes we are ready to put our lives at risk, just for watching cricket...realllllly ironic.

Happy to be alive !!!

My Journey to purchase an apartment in Bangalore

Well, let me tell you how it happened for me. I started looking for a house in early 2003 in Bangalore. That was the time when people used to say HSR layout is a mosquito infested area and that was the time when the per sqft rate of land in HSR Layout was around Rs 400/- in Sector 5.


But I was not looking to purchase land. Me and my friend started looking for apartments in and around whitefield, Brookfield, outer ring road and Sarajapur road area. We came across a number of apartments (Gopalan Habitat, Sriram Spandana, Springfield, Akme harmony etc). But when we enquired about the price, we thought that it was always out of reach by 3 to 4 lacs. To give you a perspective, Gopalan was available for 14 lacs, and Springfield was around 23 lacs. Call it lack of outlook, call it shortsightedness… we didn’t buy at that time. In between we tried few other apartments in JP nagar area including Brigade Millennium. But it was not meant to be.

After that I went to US and completely forgot about buying an apartment in Bangalore. When I came back in 2006, I again started searching for an apartment to buy. But it was too late. The prices were sky rocketing and nothing was available. I made a valiant attempt to purchase one unit in Mid Way City (Concode group). Even I paid up the advance. But later on got convinced by couple of my friends that staying in a rented house is a more economical solution then purchasing (in my case). Hence I backed out of it. But today I am a proud owner of an apartment in Salarpuria Serenity.



So what made me change my mind? Well not a single factor.

1. The foremost point was the attitude of the owner where I was staying in rent. He behaved as if he was doing a charity by renting the house to me. He increased the rent at his own wish and if I protested, he simply asked me to leave if I do not want to pay. House owners also understand that it’s a good 20K expense if you need to move from one house to another (transportation, painting charges etc). And a huge inconvenience (changing kids school, changing addresses everywhere, getting used to a new area, finding a new cook, finding a new maid and the list goes on). So my house owner also tried to take advantage of it and I had to oblige to all his wishes.

2. I changed my job and got a hike. Which made my affordability slightly better.

3. All of a sudden we realized that we can sell of one of the lands that were lying in my home town and utilize that money

4. We were planning to have a kid

5. I gave up the idea to go to US again after the 2008-2009 slump.

All these above factors combinedly tilted the balance in favor of purchasing a house.
And yes, I purchased the apartment in HSR Layout only (once the mosquito infested area, now the most sought after location in south Bangalore)...

Painting Kids Room - Mission Accomplished

Once the woodwork was done, I was looking to paint my daughter’s room. I was looking to paint it with some Disney characters. I searched a lot, contacted a lot of people who paints, but none of them knew how to paint the way I was looking to get the room painted. I am talking about Bangalore here, in other cities it might have been a different case.

After searching for some more time, I finally came across nerolac paint’s website http://www.nerolac.com/index.jsp?page=company/disney which claims that they do paint Disney characters and they do have service available in Bangalore. I got the toll free number 1800 2200 24. To my disappointment it went to a voicemail. Hoping against the hopes I left a message with my contact number and location. To my surprise I did receive a call within 2 days. I fixed up an appointment. Two guys came with a catalog which contains few options. Better then not able to get it done at all. Finally I selected one option and asked them to give me the quote. They took the measurement of the house and quoted around 13.5K which included painting 2 walls with cartoon characters and painting the whole room pink.

They took around 2 days (actually 3 days. one day they didn’t turn up due to some reason) to complete the painting. I must say that I was quite happy to see the end result. I think my daughter’s room looked really nice after it was painted with the nice Donald duck and pooh. The name of the person who did the painting was Jai Singh and his contact number is 9880315154. See some of the photos that I have taken of the room after it was done.

Getting your woodwork done

Recently I got my woodwork done and thought of sharing my experience with everyone. It has been quite a bumpy drive for me for the last two months.

As everyone else, I also wanted to make my house look the most beautiful house, with most efficient usage of space, the best quality and at the same time the most economical.
Everyone has got their own taste. I was looking for a house which will look contemporary with modern furniture and fittings.

Hence I started looking for a “Interior Designer” who can provide me with design ideas and suggest me some designs based on my house and my requirements.
To elaborate, I was looking for someone who can give ideas not only with respect to the woodwork but an overall design which has many other aspects like painting, lighting, space utilization, paneling, placement of furniture, wall decoration, bathroom fittings etc.
I guess having this expectation from an Interior Designer/Decorator is not asking too much.

Well after looking around and talking to people for 2/3 weeks, I realized that the word “Interior Designer” is highly abused…at least in Bangalore.
When I used to meet so called Interior Designers and ask them about various design ideas, all they had to offer is the wood work they have done. No one even understood what I am expecting. Either they were trying to push whatever work they have already done or the reply is “yes, yes”, whatever you tell, we can do. Well, I was looking forward to them to give me ideas…not them asking me for ideas.
I posted my requirement in some company newsgroups. I finally got a reference of a person, whose work I somewhat liked. Little then I realized at that time that the person is as good as any other person, only thing is just because he drives a car, and can speak English, I ended up paying almost double for the same work.

During this woodwork, I realized that “Trust” is another word you have to be very careful of. Hence I thought I will write some Do’s and Don’ts so that at least others can learn some trick of the trade before getting into it.

Here are some Tips

Whenever you plan to start your woodwork be assured that it is not something, that you can completely leave up to the person and forget about it. You have to be involved to get what you want.
Go for a formal agreement with the person with terms covering quality, guarantee of work for 6 months to 1 year, list of all the work that needs to be done, price, completion date etc.
If you do not follow up, you will never get your woodwork completed in time
Visit your woodwork as many times as possible to prevent any mistakes and do some quality assurance. Believe me, no matter how sophisticated your Interior designer is, they will try to make quick bucks by compromising on quality at any place where they can, without you noticing.
If you are planning to go for Plywood based woodwork here are some tips for you
There are two separate things.
i. Plywood
ii. Plyboard or block-board

How to differentiate between Plywood and plyboard?

Plywood is strips of thin wood slices pressed together using some adhesive. If you look at the thickness or edge of the plywood, you will be able to see this.
Where as block board has blocks of wood kept next to each other and then pressed with wood slices at both sides. If you look at the thickness or edge of the plywood, you will be able to see this as well.

In plywood, normally there are two verities
1. Waterproof
2. Commercial

How to differentiate between Waterproof and Commercial plywoods?
Commercial plywood is of wood color whereas waterproof plywoods looks almost black.

Go for waterproof plywood and plyboards of a good company like Kitply, Greenply, Saron, Nilgiri etc at least for the Kitchen.
Do not settle for Plyboards for making the super structure
For wardrobes, you may take a decision on whether to go for Waterproof or commercial depending on your requirements and budget.

Price differences
The price of commercial plywood is very less as compared to waterproof
The price of waterproof plyboard is less then plywood
Hence ensure that your wood contractor is using the right material.

Remember that if you do not visit your woodwork when they are making the super structure, it will not be possible for you to make out whether they have used plywood, or plyboard or commericial or waterproof once they put the lamination or veneer on top of it.

Lamination Vs Veneer Vs something else

Decide at the beginning if you are planning to go for veneer or lamination or painting.
Lamination – Lamination is a cheaper option then the other two. Ask the woodwork contractor to give you lamination selection books. Here also there are a lot of brands. Go for a good lamination.
Decide and confirm your selected lamination.
While deciding the lamination, think about the kind of theme you are planning for the room. DO NOT leave it upto the contractor. Here also based on the lamination and brand the prices very and your contractor will give you the cheapest option if you didn’t care for it.

Think about the lamination for the inside of your wardrobes, drawers as well. Normally people go for white, but I went for different colors, simply because I liked them better then white, and second it costs the same.

Lamination – You will get lamination in almost any color, and in various textures and finishes. I initially thought of going for glossy laminations, but people advised me against it because it can get scratched and will look bad after sometime. Well, I didn’t go for it…but now I feel I should have gone for that option. At least for those furniture where the chance of it getting scratched is less.

Veneer – This mostly comes in wood textures, and wood colors. But I have seen blue, green, red veneers as well. But the looks are different then the lamination. I will not put my finger on one over the other. I personally would have gone for all lamination had my woodwork contractor not convinced me to go for veneer.

Deco Painting – You can go for deco painting in bathroom furniture. This is the kind of paint that is normally used for painting cars.

Other Aspects of woodwork

1. When you give your house for woodwork, take your contractor around the house and show him in what condition you are handing over the house to him. There are some, who will completely destroy your house and you may end up spending a lot later on, on repairing things that were destroyed by the workers.

2. Think about what will you do with the electrical points that are getting hidden behind the wardrobes

3. Its important what Stainless Steel brand you are going for. Problem with SS is that there are no national or international brands. Hence whatever is the best brand in your locality, ask your woodwork contractor to provide that brand.

4. Select your hinges. I am aware of two types of hinges. Unfortunately don’t know what they are called. Hettich is a company which makes good hinges that I have used.

5. Select what glass you want to use in your woodwork. Mostly there are two brands that are popular in Bangalore. Modi and St Gobain. Both are good. Decide on the design, if you are planning to go for some decorative glasses.

6. If you like paneling in your entrances or wherever you like, go for it, as it is not going to hurt you much in terms of money. But it can give a very nice look to your house.

7. Decide on the decorative lights. Don’t waste your time going to Hometown or @home for decorative lights. The best place is BVK Iyengar road in Bangalore. I am sure every town will have places like this where you get a wide range of choice and at a reasonable price.

8. Have you thought about your kitchen? Have you decided where you will keep your plates, where you will keep big utensils? What kind of handles you want? Where you will keep glasses and where you will keep cutlery? Well if not, then it’s a good time to start thinking about it. Depending on your requirements, you can have various types of SS drawers that are available in the market. Ask your woodwork person to give you a brochure to chose from.

Couple of tips that I think could be helpful to you.
1. I personally believe these Modular kitchen companies charge way more then it is worth. Hence if you have the time and patience, then get it done yourself.
2. Go for all drawers for the bottom section (below the platform). The reason for that is, by experience we have realized that if it becomes very difficult to reach/find an item kept in a bottom shelf.
3. Use perforated cutlery tray for keeping cutleries. In normal drawers, the cutlery gets into the gaps and makes it very difficult to operate the drawers.
4. Kitchen area should be well lit. If you are going for overhead cabinets, then plan to have some lights below those overhead cabinets to highlight the cooking area.

Space utilization and convenience is very important as normally in India, the kitchens are really small. Hence plan carefully.

9. Do not allow the workers to use your bathrooms. They can completely destroy it. In my case all my bathroom fittings got destroyed because they operated it most probably with acid in their hands. Acid is the number one enemy of your bathroom fittings.

I guess I have written a long one, but I felt if I can help someone with my experience, then probably its worth a try.