Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The case of the exhausted copywriter

Dear flipkart,
We note that you have changed the product information pertaining to our title Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland. However, instead of replacing the previous faulty information with the information provided by us, you have once again uploaded an extremely badly-written description strewn with factual errors!
In your summary, expressions such as 'the British Raj left India'; 'split the nation in twain'; 'the community has come unto its own' have been used. These expressions are extraordinarily meaningless and cannot be considered correct English by any stretch of leniency or even imagination. It is also a misrepresentation of the truth to say that Hindus will continue to be a 'principal part' of Sindh. It is completely false to say that terror and bloodshed marked Sindh - this did not happen! Further, our book certainly does not try to shed light on the 'plight' of Sindhis in the present day! It's amazing to think that anyone employed by a respected organization such as Flipkart could produce such howlers.
Please could you let us know why, instead of replacing the product information provided by us, you are so insistent on getting your incapable team of writers to showcase their shocking lack of skill and knowledge?
In case there are specifications or a word limit that all Flipkart product descriptions must follow, please let us know so that we can provide a description that meets these specifications.
Sincerely,
team black-and-white fountain
3 Jun 2014

On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 9:19 AM, b&w fountain <blackandwhitefountain@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear flipkart,
Thank you for your positive reponse. However, flipkart is still showing:
In August 1947, India won Independence. At the same time, many families were torn apart and lost their homes forever in the trauma of Partition. Much has been told of the suffering in Punjab. In this book we hear the evocative story of a woman who left her beloved childhood home in Sindh and never looked back - till now.
Actually this is not the story of one woman as your description indicates. There is much more to it, as given by us a number of times. Here it is again, do upload please.
Sincerely,
team black-and-white fountain

On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:22 AM, abcde (Books Category - ASHFD) <abcde@flipkart.com> wrote:
Hi,
We are sorry for what has happened. We are getting that changed again.
We appreciate and encourage your feedback completely and we would be glad to hear from you about any type of content or catalogue related changes, as this will only help sell the book better(like you rightly mentioned).
We are trying to set up a process in the system to resolve such issues. Request you to kindly continue to extend your support and hand hold us for some time till the process gets streamlined.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Regards,
Manager | Books - Domestic Small/Micro Press
Flipkart India Private Limited
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
www.flipkart.com


Dear flipkart,
This is regarding our title Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland. As mentioned in the trail email: Consider the first paragraph in the flipkart description.
Sindh: Stories From A Vanished Homeland contains different stories of how people picked up the pieces after a harrowing period in Indian history.
It describes how the nation's leaders were preparing to divide the country. The provinces of Punjab and Bengal would be divided to create a separate countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh, respectively.
1. ‘different stories’ is un-idiomatic
2. ‘picked up the pieces’ is a cliché
3. ‘harrowing period’ is a cliché
4. “the nation’s leaders were preparing to divide the country” … really? Who were the nation’s ‘leaders’? It was the British government that was partitioning India, surely flipkart knows this?
5. Does flipkart really believe that Bangladesh was created in 1947?
Kindly replace the information supplied by the book’s publishers.
Sincerely,
team black-and-white fountain