The absurd height of advertising.

Like any other cellphone subscriber, I keep receiving junk text messages advertising anything
from self-driven rental cars to inverters to portfolio management. And I know that this is the
result of my service provider (BSNL - a Government enterprise) selling my phone number to
all and sundry making a neat packet for themselves.

Since my phone has a beeping reminder to remind me of missed calls and unread messages,
it can be quite irritating at times to keep hearing the beep and when you take the effort to
read the message, it happens to be some junk SMS. I sure can turn off the reminder feature,
but I need it to remind me of any calls/sms-es that I might have missed while I am driving
or so.

So, today I am at work and there is this beeping every few minutes. I take out the phone and
read the message, which goes thus : "Working women's hostel at Vadapalani signal, with good
rooms, bath attached, distilled water, T.V., phone, internet etc. Please contact xxxxxxxxx.

Having TV is surely great. Especially for women who might like to watch the weepy family
soaps aired during late evenings. With the residents being working women and most of them
being techies, an internet connection in the room is actually great.

But, distilled water ? Ain't that what you use to top up your car-battery ? I am not sure why
someone would advertise distilled drinking water as a feature ? While there is nothing wrong with drinking distilled water, it is not generally used for human consumption. Guess they got
it confused with mineral water, which must be what they meant. Or actually they just meant treated water, which is a big industry in India today, with all and sundry selling water in satchets, bottles of various sizes, bubble tops etc etc.

I just hope the women trooping to the hostel are not provided distilled water because there
still exist two camps of thought on whether distilled water is good or harmful for us.