What are they selling?

As students of marketing (I am doing an year long MBA, that is one reason of long hiatus at the blog) we were required to study a product in the retail outlets in the city.

I was blown away with the kind of communication these products had on their packaging.

Here are some of the things mentioned on the packaging of this product. Let me see if you could guess what is the product.

i) Aloe Vera

ii)Milk Protein

iii)Moisturizer

iv)Neem

v)Tulsi

The product I am talking about is Mosquito Repellents. Yes that is how the sticky,smelly old Odomos is being sold now. With fancy packaging of Gel, Cream (packaging looks like facewash and smells great too) and even Lotions.

Dear marketers, thats some smart innovation and lot of lies to sell something so poisonous!

Are you in charge of your destiny ?

Hello to the handful people who read this. I so wanted to write in the past many weeks, but my writer's block seems to be growing as big as our politicians' appetite for corruption. There may not be light at the end of the tunnel on the corruption end, but I figured out something for my dear blog.

We often deliberate about what determines what happens to ourselves in life, how our life shapes up, what are the outcomes of our efforts, etc. Some of us strongly believe in destiny, fate whereas some strongly believe that there life is determined by what they do.

What is your orientation on this? Take this test and see what your belief is. In technical jargons its called Locus of Control.

While taking the test answer the questions as honestly as possible. Do not think a lot and be spontaneous on your answers.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_90.htm

Facebook is a stupid idiot!!

Deep down inside I too know that Facebook is a stupid idiot but I still love it.

The irony of the matter is that the only way people are telling each other that Facebook is a stupid idiot is through Facebook!!

Do watch the complete song.

The Reason behind Why USA is the most advanced country found out!

I think I have cracked the real reason behind why America is the most advanced country in the world.

What is the common binding factor among HP (Hewlett Packard), Apple, Google, Ebay, Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin, Digg ?

Yes they all got started in America. But there is something more. All of these companies started in a Garage.

Don’t you get it? It is the presence of Garage in the Real Estate in USA that inadvertently caused creation of these companies. Any creation requires innovation and innovation generally happens when you have your own peaceful den, where you are a free soul and can do what you want to do without the hustle bustle of household chores and distractions. That’s what garages provide you. It is mind’s fertile playground which gives rise to imagination and idea creation. Almost all American homes have garages whereas almost none of the Indian homes or Chinese homes have garages like the ones I am talking about.

So now we know what has to be done to achieve the growth goals of India. Make garages and let the teenagers and youngsters recline and unwind in there.

Why Road Accidents Happen

I think now I know why road accidents happen. No, its not bad roads,poor infrastructure, the unexpected dog or a cow appearing in front of you or an idiot overtaking you from the left.
You know what's the absolute root cause behind an accident? It's the belief that "It cannot happen to me". That's what my driver believed in. We were driving in zero visibility fog around 8 in the morning from Agra to Delhi yesterday. The driver was doing atleast 50-60 Kmph, way too fast for a zero visibility fog. He simply thought that he could never be one of the car debris you see along the highways. And that's almost what happened. There was a truck standing still right in the middle of the road, just out of thin air. We rammed into it. May be 6 inches from death. Completely jolted and numb. And when we realized that we are still alive, a bus rammed into us from behind. We came out unhurt, the kind of miracles we read in the papers.

Lessons Learnt:

i)There is no heroism in driving fast. No achievement in reaching your destination 15 minutes earlier. I believed in that, I hope that driver, couple of my friends and everybody else does so.
ii)Cars should not even start if the seat belts are not put on.
iii) The broken glass and the dented metal you see in the accidents could very well been your teeth and bones. I think its good to be paranoid while driving. Like constructive criticism there is something called positive or constructive paranoia. When anything could appear out of nowhere, a pothole,an open manhole,a tractor jumping over the divider, why not be prepared for it?

I think I have started beleiving in God!

Sales fundas they wont teach you at the IIMs

Now thats a cliche post title, but fits in best here.

Like most of the cubicle dwellers, we too hate our office canteen. In fact there is not much available in our office canteen. So almost everybody in my office visits a friendly neighborhood ubiquitous 'Chai ki dukan'. This shop/stall is run by a middle aged couple, who now know us very well now. They cater to a strong 8-10 office crowd in a half kilometer radius. Their menu includes tea,samosa,bread pakoda, and various chips and snacks like kurkure, lays etc (not to forget the gold flakes and the milds!)

We love going there in winters. A hot tea, warm sunshine, a small lawn in the front with lush grass and flowers all around gives us a well deserved break from the hard work we do in the office ;)

Now coming to the point, the tea served here is too sweet. We keep pointing to the guy who makes it and he comes up with lame excuses that its not easy to keep tab of the exact ingredients while making 50 cups of tea together. And come to think of it, sugar being the most costly ingredient,it should have been used sparingly. I think we annoyed him a lot by our relentless prodding and he finally told us why his tea has more sugar than the sugarcane juice.

He says that since the tea is too sweet, more often than not people end up buying namkeen, chips and various snacks to compensate the extra sweetness. Moreover he keeps those chips packets just at an arms length on the counter so that you dont have to ask for it and simply pick one on your own.
Also, he added that he has done his calculations for the past months and the rise in earnings due to this is far more than the drop because of customers doing away with the extra sweet tea.
I took a moment to recall our buying pattern over the last month. And yes, we did buy those kurkure packets a lot with the tea.

Wow,we were impressed!

You have started growing old when ...

As soon as you are done with your haircut, the nai (there are some words which should be adopted in the english dictionary. there is no way I could call nai a barber or hairdresser!!) asks, "Sir, anything else, HAIRCOLOR ?"

I never had a stronger urge to hit back somebody!

I realized that moment that nothing could hit hard. This is it. I am growing old!

Or wait a minute. lets change that to feel better. Some of my hair strands are growing old.

My cool new friend

I don’t usually write anything related to me or what’s happening in my life but I couldn’t resist writing about a cool friend I have made in the last one year. Now this guy epitomizes coolness, ‘I don’t give a dam about the world’ and fearlessness. I totally love his company and lately we have been hanging together a lot. Though he is much smarter and wittier than me and never misses a chance to mock me or make me sound like an idiot but anything for good times with him. Let’s call him Mr S. Though he wouldn’t even know if I write his name here as he does not use internet a lot and totally not into Blogs.
Now S really loves automobiles. Be it a cycle, motorbike or car. Now his interest in is not of the type where people lust for dream machines with cool Ferrari wallpapers on their desktop for the sake of coolness quotient associated with these sexy cars. He is in love with cars. He gets up every morning, inspects his car (ok, his dad’s car, he still hasn’t started earning, still studying) for any scratches, inspects the tyre for air pressure. And god forbid if any visible scratch is found on the body, he brings the whole house down asking who has done it . Then he diligently washes the car, followed by a bike wash. He takes painstaking detail in washing the bike, making sure that every spike of the bike’s tyre gets cleaned. Heck he does not mind cleaning even his neighbor’s car if it’s dirty. He loves going on drives and has pestered every car owner in our street for a drive. Needless to say I have done it almost every week since months now.
Once it so happened that my dad who lives in a different city, left his car with me for a month. Now S was elated to see another car in my possession. And asked me for a drive. I explained him that this is dad’s car and I would only take it out once a week to keep the battery alive and he is welcome for a drive then. But the lazy person I am, I did not drive the car for 3 weeks and when finally I decided to take the car out, S was with me, all gung ho for a ride in a different car. But the car refused to start. I feared the battery must have gone weak. Now S loves cars, not just his car, any car. Like some people believe in humanity, he believes in Carity! He was horrified to find that the car was not in a good condition and blamed me that I did not take proper care of my car. This is how the conversation went then (though the language was hindi, I am translating it for non-hindi speakers,if any)

S: You are responsible for this. This is not good. Your dad should be told about it.
Me: dude, give me a break, this is just a small trouble, cars take time in winters to crank up, specially a bit older ones.
S: I don’t know anything, you were told to do something and you did not, give me your mobile , I am goanna talk to aunty about this (my mom)
Me: Are you kidding me, forget it.
S: Give me the phone.
Me: You are nuts.

I dialed my mom’s number and let him talk. He complained like a primary school student would to his teacher. Aah, so much for the love of a car.

Last week we got our home painted, it took about a month and when it was done, we re-did the furniture and other arrangement in the guest rooms, shifting the wall hangings and TV and almost everything. Now S is a super observant guy. He came to visit me yesterday and once again found everything on the wall re-arranged in a different order. He instantly remarked on watching it- “Don’t you have anything else to do? The watch was this wall the other day, now it is on this wall, what is happening, enough of it and do something else” . I didn’t mind much, simply ignored him.
And as a custom, he pestered me for a drive. I decided to take dad’s car. While driving, I just drove little too sloppily, swaying to the left and then suddenly right and tried some more antics, just to show off my driving skills. I thought S would love it.

Me: - See, I too can drive like they do in the television.
S: - dude you never did it in your car, I know you are doing this because it is your dad’s car. I get it dude.
Me: - where on earth did you get that idea from, you are nuts!!

There are many more wonderful incidents with this young lad, he just fills the room with spark with his presence and energy levels and the enthusiasm for life and everybody loves him. Lately, he is getting quite jealous of his neighbor’s have brought as his dad just has a modest and humble santro. He is now pestering his dad to buy a new one, any car will do, but it should be bigger than the corolla, features and comfort do not matter to him!

And he believes that my brother who has gone to America for higher studies is more intelligent than me, since I am still working and he chose to study and often taunts me as being ‘Dimag se paidal’ 
Oh and did I mention that Mr S is just four and a half years old!