How are banks, financial services leveraging social media

I was reading the latest blog post on 2020 Social blog by mohit on Social Community efforts by banks and financial institutions and realized that I might have something interesting to add here. In my view the thing worth noticing about the social media efforts by these BFSI institutions is the difference in the way their communities are architectured when they are targeting different segments of customers.
Background: When it comes to investing & saving ones own hard earned money , people prefer researching, asking others, going for tried and tested methods and moreover playing safe. Investments and savings are something that are although done by almost everyone but then not everybody has an expertise and hence people generally prefer taking expert advice, ask peers, research, read news just to keep themselves informed and updated. Many banks, financial institutions, trading and brokerage companies have realized this behaviour and are using a social web presence to solve their problems.
Scope: In this post I have covered three types of social media efforts by the BFSI sector. The first category represents the social media efforts by banks & financial services towards personal banking, the second category of efforts are towards targeting corporates, SMEs & entrepreneurs while the third is towards targeting the investors into stocks to make them smart traders. You will see a fundamental difference in the way these institutions use social web to target these three different categories.
Illustration:
a) Social media efforts towards personal banking: A large no. of BFSI institutions have realized that providing a platform to people to talk and learn about their business needs helps them multifold. Firstly, it helps them position themselves as an institution which cares to enable people to make smart savings and investments. Secondly, it helps them listen relevant conversations and establish conversations and relationships for business development. Thirdly, it helps them understand the current needs and feedback of customers which is like the best market research ever. In this a very inspiring effort has been made by the Young&Free Alberta community powered by the Servus Credit Union to give a voice to the young generation. Y&F launches annual contest where the community chooses its spokesperson. This spokesperson then participates in the community as Y&F ambassador and educates and converses with others through blogs, videos etc. Y&F also oganizes many events for its commuity which include year round online contests and offline events. (For more details see mohit's post at 2020 Social blog).
ING Direct is also making several efforts in wooing savers on social web. They have a Saver's Blog and a community for publishing feel good news about markets and investment called Savings feel good. The news is either submitted from press or by community members. The community also runs timely contests to build interests.
Another interesting effort in this direction is by mint.com which is a maney management and budgeting software company. They have a tweet aggregator platform with tweets from various experts on savings, budgeting, retirement, loans etc.They also have an official blog on similar topics.
As you must have realized that all these communities are architectured around people expressing their financial needs and helping people make smart savings and gain important informations about investments.
b) Social media efforts for corporates, SMEs and entrepreneurs: In such efforts the focus is to help the SMEs and entrepreneurs network and gain valuable information and aid related to their business. For example the Visa Business Network helps you find out businesses in your locality, related vendors, partners, suppliers and customs. It also helps you discuss important information in your work related discussion group, set up business related goals and get help from others to achieve them. A possible goal can be 'to same some xy amount of money by year end. The person can get interesting article links from the community on savings. Or a goal can be 'to find business through referrals'

Effectively you can see that the aim of the community is to help businesses communicate, learn and network. It helps the financial institute powering the community listen about the financial needs and ideas among entrepreneurs. Also it sends across the message that the bank reaches out to help businesses which helps them bringing in more business. Amrican Express, HSBC and Bank of America also has similar business networks the details about which you can get from mohit's  last blog post
Another interesting effort here is by Kiva which is a one to one micro lending community where entrepreneurs submit their business idea. For this kiva partners with micro lending institutions. The community helps the entrepreneurs reach financial targets.
c) Social media efforts focussing on stocks and trading: There are a bunch of trading communities which are helping people become smart investors, invest in right direction, communicate with expert and get relevant market information. Also these communities help professional traders gain reputation as influencers. A good example is Covester where members can follow other members investments, read and write information blogs and if they see a trader making very good investments, the can align their investments with him and give him a share in profits for sharing his data.

There are other online invester's communities like Zecco, Moneyrec, Stockhouse and Trade2win. Tipd gives a stock and financial news aggregation platform and news community. People consume, curate and create news articles on a model similar to digg.com. The value for these stock related conversations can be estimated from the face that certain corporates like Berkshire Hathaway have discussion forums for their own stocks.
Visiting these communities are worth it. We would love to have some such India focussed communities by large banks as there are many people here who because of dearth of good investing knowledge  and lack of trust on private banks go for safest government investments like FDs and RDs giving very low returns. Also there are many who do not understand the financial jargons of the large investment products given by these banks. Banking communities can definitely help there.

5 things you need to know before making a direct call to an interested prospect

In my company we get 3 kinds of clients/propects. The first are the large B2C targeting clients which are multinational technology, FMCG, Automobile, Beverages companies etc planning to establish a presence on social web. The second kind of clients are the large B2B targeting companies in similar sectors. The third kind are the small and meduim sized companies, startups and miscellanous sectors (which sometimes include SaaS, movie directors, game developer companies, product marketplaces etc). These three sectors effectively look for presence in social media for purposes like marketing, operations (support, innovation, increasing productivity etc), establishing relationships among a target group of clients, vendors & prospects,  HR (enterprise 2.0 and internal collaboration) and similar others.

As I look after the third category where CXOs, promoters of such startups either contact us via mail/ contact form or simply call us; I have learnt that these cases involve a lot of direct calling to understand business needs and objectives before taking things forward to meetings where there is a higher investment of time and resources. If you are looking after client engagement/pitches in social business consulting you get to face the following challenges:

1) Who is the prospect: Whether the client heads the business or is a middle manager. Is he a 55 year old coming from a company culture that might demand to be called 'sir' or whether he is a 25 year old entrpreneur guy who might be thinking that since you do something online you might come pretty cheap. ( As a disclaimer a large part of things we do have online-offline integrations)  This can anyways be found out from basic searches, linkedin profiles etc.

2) Where is the prospect: You never know how much the client knows about social media and social technologies. He might be following your company/consultant blogs and completely understand what you do or he might be very naive to social media and end up asking you to explain facebook!!  But then most of these interests fall under four categories depending upon how aware they are about the business objectives and benefits of a social web presence:

3) What do you present: Depending on #1 & #2 how do you present yourself. What do you tell the client? What do you need to understand from the him/her and what are the smart questions you need to ask.

4) Where do you take it from here: How do you take this forward from this first direct call. What is the next best step?

A a disclaimer I am sure that there cannot be a rulebook to guide through a client/prospect conversation. Also it is best that each client engagement manager uses his/her own way of contacting. However there can always be a mental checklist so as to find out where are you on the conversation.

I generally follow a BNPO model which is sort of inspired by the POST model described in Groundswell by Charlene Li (of course there the reference is slightly different). Here BNPO stands for Business, needs, people and objectives. The model is described below:

a) Business: In most of the cases you will be having a fairly good idea about the client's businesses before the call. This is about asking those details which generally are not clear but are required in our business:

i) What are the client's products/services

ii) What are the target clients/customers

iii) How have they targeted them in the past

iv) How do they position their brand/product (current campaigns they are running/planning to run)

v) What are their major cost & revenue heads in the business

b) Needs: This is mostly the trickiest and the most important part of the call. In many cases if the prospect is aware about social media and the benefits of a social web presence then he knows what are the business needs that can be satisfied. But there are some cases where the prospect also says, 'We hear a lot about social media and plan to explore it for our business. How should we do it?' Generally the needs can be derived from the various business objectives we explore in social business strategies:

i)  Reducing costs: Try to understand if the client spending too much on customer support, on market research for understanding the customer opinion, on PR agencies to generating a good word.

ii) Increasing sales/promotion: What fraction of the prospect's target customers are on social web, does the brand exclusively target youth, what is the existing position of their social media efforts, what are the problems they are facing in their present marketing campaigns.

iii) Increasing relationships: Is the client focussing on a niche sector of industry as clients/vendors/partners/customers. Can providing them a community or a business network  for engagement help . Do they need leveraging conversations on such communitites.

iv) Increasing innovation & ideation: Is the client looking for more ideas for his brand or product, a repositioning or customer feedback. Does it position itself as a customer focussed company.

v) Increasing internal collaboration: Are there internal communication, workflow, employee moral or productivity problems.

Of course you have to get a feel of these problems from the conversation. You won't be ticking a checklist of these large number of probable situations :)

c) People: When you know the needs you will know the people to target. Understand where are these people on social web. Are they just surfing random sites, do they have their own blog, are they on facebook/twitter/Linkedin/forums etc

d) Objectives: This is different from needs as in if needs are the starting point of your conversation with this prospect, the objective is the final outcome you achieve from the project. So for example the need might be to position your brand as a youth savvy consumer company but the objective might turn out to be a contest module running series of user generated contests targeting youth.

This came out in a discussion with Dave Evans. Generally it is difficult to understand objectives in the first call itself. In some cases when the client is clear about the objectives then you can directly move on to preparing the proposal. Or if not, then set up a meeting or the next call with more relevant people. If the prospect knows that you understand his/her needs, any time invesment is worth it.

5) Am I missing something...?:  Sometimes it might be a good idea to know the budgets or whether there is a timeline. Also you might prefer not to make the call with your company folks around just to insure if in case you completely screw up :D

What's happening in Health 2.0

While researching on health and wellness communities I fell upon various platforms worth of interest. It is fascinating to see that people understand that with changing times and health demands people are more interested in discussing out their health problems, helping each other referring the best practitioners and using similar social tools for health related purposes. When research shows that a majority of people seek the initial help of internet for any health research or related problems, it makes sense to make the entire health research and discussions social which is popularly known as Health 2.0.
There are a vast number of health related platforms running on the social web. On a broad scale they can be grouped as Health 2.0 communities, Health Applications and Health online tactical programs. I have discussed each of these platforms in detail below:
1) Health 2.0 communities: There are a bunch of Health 2.0 communities following roughly the same engagement architecture for the members. There are influencers (doctors, health experts, coaches, sportpersons) writing blogs and news articles on various health related topics, support forums on various topics various the influencers are participating and providing expert advice. The community members can interact with the experts on their blogs and discuss and find help for their problems on the support forums. Some such popular communities are Web MD (see pic) and Aarp.org's health page. There are various other communities like Steady Health using news aggregation models similar to digg.com where members submit their health related news and others curate (rate/vote) the news articles to get the most popular news on the homepage. In India similar health 2.0 communities like Bolohealth are gaining interest. Similarly Quaker oats too has health related discussion forum on its Good morning heart community.

Apart from these independent health and wellness communities, there are some hospitals powering such communities too. Mayoclinc for example supports blogs and stories from patients, relatives, friends and staff of Mayo hospital at sharing.mayoclinic.org
2) Health Applications: There are many interesting health applications on the social web. One such application is Patients like me where you can enter various communities, feed your personal health data and find patients like you and get relevant help. Another interesting health application is by Gold's gym (see pic) which is running of facebook. Here the members can set their personal health goals ( like losing weight etc.), find people like them, recruit supporters and post their progress. Other members can provide support and comment on their progress. In India saffola ( an Indian edible oil company) is currently running a health application where people can set up goals for better living, find people like them and get health tips.

3) Online tactical programs:  These include short user generated contests or advocacy programs run on the social web. An example of such a user generated contest to promote health was run by Gimme20 health community where participants were asked to submit their fitness stories in form of pictures, text or videos to win prizes. Mayoclinic Hospital runs an advocacy program where the patients can submit stories about their experiences with mayo clinic. Similarly another hospital chain Porter Adventis Hospital allows members to start free 'carepage' which are personalized web pages by/to patients and their families /friends to provide emotional and moral support.

Shifting Houses

So we shifted our house from the awesome Sarita Vihar colony to super costly Safdarjung Enclave area. The reason for the shift was that I wanted a house so near to my office that I can walk there everyday. Hence this new house is 5 minutes from my office, 25 minutes from my gym and 30 minutes to IIT (all walking) which are practically 99% of the places I spend my weekdays. However living so near to office has its own disadvantages like you cannot get out of home late and sms your boss, 'stck in a bad jam.. will b late'. Moreover such localities are very costly.
However for me the entire shifting episode was a very big learning for one reason that it was the first time I did such massive packing, house hunting and shifting together when generally I suck at all the three things. But in this case as my flatmates ( who were also my batchmates ) were helping me in the entire shifting + packing, I got insights into certain 'shifting & packaging' personas which I have mentioned below:

1) The packing 'champions': These people are so comfortable with packing and shifting that it makes you feel as if they have injected themselves with Monica Geller harmones. Such people take charge of the entire packing and know exactly what is to be done at what time. In this case one of my roomies not only did most of the packing but took care of all bills, disposing unrequired furniture, security money, net connection etc. etc. etc.etc.

2) The packing 'daunteds': These people literally suffer from packing phobia and as you can see in the piture might even forget to take a bath in the entire shifting trauma. In my case I literally kept on delaying the packing till the last moment and moreover when now I am in my new house, I dont feel like unpacking. (I just realized that I might prefer buying some basic stuff again rather than unpacking)

3) The packing 'smarts': These are rarest (and ofcourse the coolest) of the breed who will get up at 1 in the afternoon on the d- day, start packing when everybody has finished and literally outsource the shifting to the other flatmates (no costs attached of course). In this case the second biggest shock (and I will come to the biggest shock later) of the whole packing was that this flatmate of mine litreally had twice the amount of luggage the rest of us combined had and yet he was not half as bothered.


 So, all packed and done we waited for the truck which finally arrived one hour late, uploaded our stuff in another half and stood on our colony footpath for another hour and half for the 'Delhi no-entry' to open and finally travelled 12 kms in the same truck to reach our dream house which suddenly (and this was the biggest shock) started appearing an inhabitable place to live. The same house which looked fine earlier now seemed like an inhospitable and depressing jailhouse. I dont know what had made me finalize it (maybe because we had 3 day to be thrown out and I have this gorgeous habit of postponing everything to the last moment, which has actually become my core competency, but about that in some later blog). So we entered the house at 9:30 at night and at 9:32 at the same night I had decided to start looking for new houses. (Actually we got that house through a contact and hence luckily there was no brockerage involved. Moreover it will be easier to find better houses in the same area now that we have moved here and I can give ample time to the broker to look for better houses. Finally, now I know what all NOT to do while shifting houses and the first mistake came at very low costs).
And the best thing out of all is that now when I anyway have to move in the next couple of days, I don't need to unpack!!

Hi

Hello and welcome to the revamped 'Thoughtspot version 2.0'. However this time it is just called 'Keeping it simple' for the reason that thoughtspot was more about my takes on society and people around me however 'Keeping it simple' is about anything which I think is worth sharing on the blogosphere.
The main reasons for changing the blog were:

1) It gives me more freedom to write about the stuff I want to write without getting into issues like whether this would do any good to the image of my blog. As in on thoughtspot I did not feel like writing about marketing or social media. On 'keeping it simple' I don't need to think about it.

2) I changed my house, my gym, my net connection and my bai [:P] .. and hence I thought that it would be a good idea to change the looks of the blog too.

3) Change is good

You will find the following changes in the blog. Those who are here for the first time might like to know a little bit about me:
1) This is a purchased domain instead of a blogspot domain. Hence the web address is http://achintyagupta.com instead of http://achintya85.blogspot.com
2) Here you can read stuff of your choice from the tabs. As in those you want to read about society humor might just like to go to the 'random' tab. Whereas people interested in social media or marketing might click on other tabs. Hence I wont get people telling me that I have started writing about social media which they don't understand.
3)This is a new template, some new widgets and a new name

Moreover since I have not put up any proper post for the last couple of months, let me tell you what I have been up to since last 6 months.
1) So I passed out from IIT and joined an engineering and constructional major. Realized the job is not for me and left it in a record 30 days ( I don't think anybody has ever done that so soon post joining that company) I am not proud of it but then sort of keeping up the legacy of doing everything in style.
2) I was picked up by a super cool business strategy firm in Delhi. I am working with some awesome people and great projects. So mostly we are buried in work up to neck but then we also have a lot of fun. There is multi-cultural environment with people with British, Texan, south Indian and killer rock star accents, which is turning out to be a big problem for me as in I dont know what hybrid accent will I pick up hanging out with them.
Recently we launched a 'biggest loser contest' where the employee reducing the highest amount of 'his burden' from earth ( and it has to be more than 10 kgs) in three months gets a return trip to Bangkok. I was honorable outcasted from the competition but then I am fighting for my rights.
3) Life has been good since returning back to Delhi. There have been some awesome parties in the last few months with office colleagues where you realize that the sex ratio of IIT (which was 8:1 male:female) has suddenly been reversed. It's like God realized his mistake in the last 5 years and is making up for it.
4) I am travelling more and not just to the market outside IIT gate. So there have been trips to Corbett, Old Delhi and around. Not much to brag about but then then I am ensuring that on weekends I on not at my home.
5) Moreover when your work is to manage clients and projects, one always gets to meet new and some very smart people. So the last couple of months also included talking to movie directors, gaming companies, NGOs, entrepreneurs for business reasons.
6) And then how can my life be without goof ups. So the last 6 months also saw trying to ascend a descending escalator and getting hurt and remaining on bed rest for 5 days; telling an IIT senior '02 batch pass out about life @ IIT in a party (I did not know he was from my college until he told me) and then of course being seen with somebody twice on consecutive weekends by the same person in my office which I thought would definitely trigger some office gossip but then luckily it did not (looks like nobody cares!)
7) And finally I shifted my house near office so these days I walk to work. I have not bought a TV yet so that I go out more and blog more.

How-to run an advocacy program on social web

Background: Advocacy programs provide a win-win situation for any brand or product on social web. On one hand it lets you recognize that set of evangelists who would be ready to promote your brand/product free of cost and on the other hand it leads effective promotion of your offerings to your consumers. We at 20:20 Social have researched some of the most effective advocacy programs to seek out varous ways in which these advocacy programs on social web can be modeled.

Scope: In our research we have focussed ourselves in studying how advocacy programs can take consumers and visitors across different levels of Ladder of Engagement. The Ladder of Engagement involves identifying various levels at which the consumers ( or site visitors/partners/employees ) can be engaged. It begins with content consumption, then moves on to content curation ( rating, voting, commenting ) , content creation, collaboration and then subsequently to trial, purchase and finally to evangelizing and recommendation( hereby mentioned as advocacy) to others.
Our research on some of the most popular Advocacy programs shows that advocacy can be used to transition consumers across the following levels:
1) Advocacy to content consumption and curation
2) Advocacy leading to content consumption, curation and even creation
3) Advocacy leading to product trial and purchase
4) Advocacy leading to content collaboration

Advocacy to content consumption and curation:

One of the most effective strategies of modelling an Advocacy program on social web is to find a bunch of evangelists who appreciate your brand/product and are ready to write good about them. These evangelists can be popular bloggers or influencers having a lot of connections on social web. A good example of such a program is Microsoft MVP ( most valued professional ) program where the company recognizes talented influencers in the field who write about the businesses Microsoft is related to. Another case where influencial bloggers were leveraged for brand advocacy was in the marketing campaign of Chrystler's Dodge Grand Caravan where the company loaned the car to influential mom bloggers for a week for trial run, which triggerred a lot of conversation in the blogospere. Similarly Redwood Creak ( An Ameircan wine making company ) has created a community platform around passion for outdoor adventures and recognizes wine evangelists known as ‘The Trailblazers’ as their official brand ambassadors who talk about wines and adventures on the company blogs and forums. Sometime influencers need not be popular and advocacy can be leveraged from consumers who have a strong social network. Something similar was done by MTV in its 'Elite Influencer Network Contest' where members were asked to promote their obsession for the MTV culture on their blogs, websites, social networks like Facebook, YouTube and through this MTV tried to find out the most influential individuals on social web. These contest winners will now participate in further upcoming events.

Advocacy leading to content consumption, curation and even creation

Advocacy programs can even be modelled to take consumers upto creation level on the ladder of engagement, which can be used to find your next set of evangelists. A good example of such a tactic is HP 31 days of Dragon contest which is a user generated contest lanched by the company for the promotion of its HP HDX dragon notebook. The company found 31 popular blogger evangelists/ websites who created their own User Generated Contests on their personal webpages. Thus the task of planning, designing and promoting the contest was taken up by the participating evangelist websites and involved taking the consumers across various engagement levels. Another example is walmart's eleven moms community which has the popular mom bloggers blogging about money saving ways ( which is core to the brand value itself ) and the consumers interacting with them and sharing their own money saving tips etc.

Advocacy leading to product trial and purchase

Many of the cases we researched showed brands leveraging consumer and evangelist advocacy for product trial and purchase. The Indian gaming website zapak.com uses a facebook application to give the users an option to recommend the game they are playing to their freinds on facebook and also embed it in your personal webpage. Similarly the cleaning products company 'Method' launched a campaign called 'people against dirty' which aimed at finding product appreciators who were ready to share their experience of the brand with others.

Advocacy leading to content collaboration

Now the reason I took up this point last is because I am still not sure about this, but product help communities like that of Intuit can qualify as advocacy programs. This is because if somebody is ready to help you out with a solution on a product help community then that means a) he has already tried the product b) He finds the product interesting enough to make him participate on the community c) if in the future any other problem crops up then there would surely be more people like him to help you out with that product. If such a thing qualifies as advocacy then product help programs can be instrumental in collaborating efforts around a particular problem.

What's happening in social media on climate change

Background
I follow Indian Express and almost everyday when I pick up the morning daily I see something being written on Copenhagen 2009 summit. Then there was the Blog Action day on Oct 15, 2009 when thousands of bloggers wrote about climate change the same day. Hence no prizes for guessing but a lot is happening over environment in social and traditional media. Therefore I thought it would be interesting to see how specifically social media is helping us make our planet a greener place to live.

Scope
Honestly social web is seeing a lot of activities on climate change and a greener planet. There are a bunch of facebook apps, many websites and applications on organizing events and creating petitions, online communities targeting environment and wild life etc but I would specifically like to focus on social applications targeting aggregation of environment related news and influencer platforms. The reason for the preference is that some of the most popular efforts in social media for environment have gone in these two directions.

News Aggregation

Various websites are using different models for aggregating environemnt news. The most popular of them is using the digg.com model for aggregating news. Users bookmark the environement related news they like and others curate/vote for their favorite news. The most popular news gets features on the homepage. Ngopost.org is using this kind of model in India. Then there is care2.com which is also the largest environment promoting online community and uses this kind of aggregation model. Care2 in fact does a lot more than this. It has a online petition site where people can start their own petitions and sign the petitions they support. Members can donate, read expert's views on healthy living etc.

The other popular model is importing stories and news feeds from top news websites and blogs. Greenedia.com for example, aggregates blogs, podcasts, videos by experts on green living, climate change, global warming and other topics who have been vetted by Greenedia. Experts can submit their credential for contributing to the platform or users can suggest popular blogs to be tracked by Greenedia. Alltop.com is another popular website which uses this model for many topics like food, photography, health etc and it has a separate platform for aggregating news on climate change.

The third news aggregation model is something that was adopted by change.org for Blog action day where they asked everybody to register and write on the climate change. Presently their homepage features the link to the most popular web platforms that participated in the event and also gives links to all the participating blogs.

Influencer Platform

Influencer platform are a great way to generate opinions, gain traffic and trigger word of mouth. Presently the platform getting most attention and traffic is change.org which has an influencer platform called 'Changemakers'. Users can nominate influencial people whom they want to see as the changemakers and others vote for the nominees. The selected changemakers will then be invited to write on the platform and their opinions will be pushed through change.org's network of partners, bloggers and activists.

The other types of influencer platforms are ecorazzy which aggragates news about what celebrities are doing for environemnt. With news like 'Brand Pitt to donate various hats to charity' and 'Roger Moore continues his battle with the Foie Grass Industry', this brings another way of getting influencer's say. Similarly Huffington Post has a environemnt news category called 'Green' which showcases celebrities taking about various environment related issues.

Food, Air, Water and Internet

I remember a fine day in July 2004, when after spending some gruesome 20-25 minutes over the 45 kbps bsnl modem connection, I finally created a yahoo mail account and sent my first e-mail ever. This was not only my first rendezvous with electronic mail but also one of the first times I was learning something beyond Google.

Some 5 years later, here I am, working on a WiFi, being online 10-12 hours a day and working on probably the coolest internet tools. My typical work day starts with checking mails and ends with tweeting and facebooking. I blog, I read news online, I talk to friends through net, my entire worksheets and projects are managed online, I bank through net, pay my bills through net and even have my CEO and MD added to my facebook friends list!! The entire point is, what else in my life has EVOLVED so much as internet. I still watch the same TV channels, still hear to the same music bands, still like the same food and have not changed much as a person, but when it comes to internet, I see drastic difference in my online activity and behavior.However it''s not just me. The society I live in has grown to be increasingly net savvy and this trend is only increasing not only in depth ( that is the already net-savvy are becoming net-savvier) but also in breadth ( that is new people are joining the club). I see people stay online even when in office, not because they want to chat with people, but more because they don''t want to miss any mail, people''s status updates, comments etc. Moreover everyday I see more and more people responding to other people''s content, commenting and liking their updates, tweets or uploaded videos, meaning people around me are not only becoming net savvier but also becoming more social and more engaged.

So can me and the society around me manage without net? Surely, they can as they used to some 10 years ago, but then whole point is that they wont like it. The fact that even at its nascent of stages internet has roped in all of us, definitely it has a long way to go. Earlier people thought internet was just a means of getting information (webpages, googling etc.), so people thought, its great but then how many times during a day do I need to gather information? Then it became a mode of interaction ( e-mails, g talks and messengers), so people thought, that''s great, but how many people will I keep on interacting with? Then suddenly with gaming and downloading, it became a mode of entertainment, then it got integrated with our social lives ( through social networks) and work. And now it has given us a new way of expression where we don''t need traditional media to make our voice reach to the world.

So what''s the big deal about it? We all know that net is important. But what I am trying to highlight here is that if something is changing so fast around you, are you preparing yourself for it. Can you anticipate what it would grow into and what impact will it be having on you or your business by the time you would be celebrating your next birthday. You might be using it for checking mails or random search, but can you see it bringing money for you in the near future? Do you see it saving money for you or your time in the near future. Are you updated enough to what''s happening all around the world in your field because your client might be? Are you internet enabled enough to save his time. Are you networked enough? Are you able to maintain required relations because your competitors/contemporaries might be taking advantage out of theirs. Do you know what is being said about you/your brand in the web? Do you know with the world changing everyday, what will soon become your customers demand?

Since after all the endless questions that might have been asked and all the endless doubts people might have had for internet in India, there are just two answers: Yes!! It will grow and No! you can''t stay away from it.

My favorite print ad

This is one of my favorite ads. I mention it every time someone asks me my favorite print advertisement campaigns. This is one of the ads launched in the series of 'The power of knowledge' campaign by Economic Times. It's a very old ad and I remember my dad showing it to me when I was a kid. Probably it was the first time I must have noticed that a print ad might not be just about some actress saying 'this washing powder is good on my hands'. Although I must have seen many print ads later but this still fascinates me.

It's just another color!

Now before I actually ask you the question, I want to; let me tell you that although I have lived in Gujarat for a considerable amount of time, yet technically I have never lived 'enough' to form an opinion about the place and the society. I have spent a large slice of my teens here but since the last few years most of my visits to this state have been rather short and even when here, I have stayed all the time at my home and rarely tried to go out. So for the past 5-6 years, I have rarely been out enough to be able to observe or notice people so that I could ask you the question that I actually want to. Occasionally, on a brief visit to market or malls I used to get the suspicion but that, till now, was not substantial enough to ask you that question. Then fortunately I got a job here that made me stay in the state for around a month, and all the time I spent here, and all the people I saw here, I became more and more sure of asking you the question that I am actually about to ask you.....

What is with the men in the state of Gujarat and pink shirts!!......

....... They seem to be all over them. Among all the states that I have stayed ( and there are about 4-5 states where I have spent a considerable amount of time) nowhere have I seen the fascination for pink shirts more pronounced in men. In Gujarat you will meet men wearing pink shirts with white collar and sitting at the counter of a garments shop!! I was earlier working for this engineering and constructional major and was sent to their corporate office for training and the moment I used to enter the office, ( and believe me, I am not exaggerating ) I used to see all shades of pink shirts all around me. There would be a light pink shirt reading newspaper at the reception. Then there would be another reddish-pink shirt entering the office. You get into the canteen and you will see a pink striped shirt and a pink checked shirt eating food together only to be joined by a dark pink shirt carrying his food plate. Not only that, I also realized that there were people repeating the same pink shirt every 3-4 days, meaning either they loved them or had two of them!!

I remember going to a garment store in one of the popular malls in Vadodra and demanding an official shirt only to be surprised with being offered a shining pink. When I politely asked for another color ( and preferably a white or a light blue ), I was asked how many pink shirts do I have. I answered that I was unfortunate enough never to be tempted by it. So the shopkeeper asked me why don't I get a pink one. When I replied that I was not that desperate for a promotion from my boss to buy a pink shirt, the shopkeeper told me that this is Gujarat and yahan yeh sab color chalta hai. When I asked a 'pink-shirted' guy, why was he wearing a pink, he said he liked the color and had many more pink shirts and that even I should get some as the color would suit me ( wtf....!! ). When I asked a girl about the guys wearing pink here, she said she simply did not have an issue with it.

So the first thing is what is the problem? I have a friend who has interned in Germany and tells me that the guys there are so secure about their sexuality that they don't mind wearing pink. But here that is not the case. The whole point is that people here simply don't know!!

The second thing is why is it a problem and why am I being so fussy about a mega pink shirt bonanza proliferating in the state of Gujarat. So let me tell you, that anybody like me who has a sister studying in one of the premier fashion technology institutes in the country, better be aware of what he is wearing. In the year 2004 ( when I was supposedly innocent ), I had bought a Rs 900 redish-orangish shirt for myself ( OK.... It was pink! ) from a Delhi showroom. The first time I wore it was in front of my sister, which resulted in me being called 'Pinky-boy' the whole day with added suggestions that I should throw the shirt away. But unfortunately the 900 bucks made me ignore the suggestions and I again wore it to my college in Delhi. Whatever happened then would be difficult to explain in words but you can make sense from the fact that:
1) I had my class from 8 to 12 that day, so there were no chances of going back to hostel, changing the shirt and coming back
2) I never wore that shirt again.

So here I was looking for vengeance on a soul to take out my frustration. For years I searched for men whom I knew and had accidentally put on a pink shirt. But I found none in Delhi or in Mumbai or in Rudrapur or in Lucknow. And finally when I got a whole herd of pink shirt gujratis, there is no one to support me in making fun of them. In fact people think I am a freak making fun of their prestigious pink shirts.

On the whole the lesson learnt from the brief Gujarat stay was 'ignorance is bliss' since although any other guy at any other place would think more than twice before wearing a pink shirt, this pink parade is coming from a state having reported the highest number of extra marital affairs and establishment of condom vending machines during navratri. Hopefully one day I will see some of my IIT friends who are working in Gujarat or studying at IIM-A wearing pink. Finally we will have something more to learn from this place than money making and stock markets.

Back!!

2009 has particularly been a bad year for Thoughtspot. Although it gained tremendous hits ( more than the last two year traffic put altogether), but still only I have myself to blame for just 11 posts (and now 12) in the past 10 months. But there were reasons, which are sorted now and I think I would be in a position to give my time to writing.

To begin with, some of the best things that happened to me are over and one of them is my IIT stay, which I used to think was the driving force for all my blogs. Another was working for a 'youth centric online news channel' from which I have taken a break due to my Baroda stay. The point is, I used to think that my blogs were a result of the 'arbit- fun- filled' life I had been living for the past 5 years and as that got over so I would never have anything to write in my blogs. There was a time I was so convinced that I would fall short of new ideas, that I had planned to end this blog with my IIT stay!

However as I lately realized, that it was not the circumstances that had changed around me, maybe on some level, it was just me who had changed. And although I have no regrets, the sole point is I am feeling like writing once more. Once again this world has started appearing funny and once again the uncanny thought juggling in my mind has started resulting in weird stories and observations that I feel like penning down....

.... Once again there is so much to be written.

Just that this time there won't be any IIT girls to make fun of !!

But I promise I will write more often and Thoughtspot would retain its identity as a society humor. ( I had told some people that I might start writing about brands and marketing, but now I think why do that for free :) )

Vision of change II: Not just a vision anymore

The tortoise, winner of the race,
Stood proudly in the winner's place.
The moral of the story I'll say,
Slow and steady wins the day.

Almost everyone who knows V.I.S.V.A.S. (visionary initiative to sculpt a virtuous academic system) at IIT Delhi would like to thank the messy IIT reading room and the institute library that closed at at 6; which inspired the two IIT guys Vinayak Garg and Bhushan Shinde to start a social entrepreneurial venture called V.I.S.V.A.S. The idea was simple: Students join the initiative by bringing their problems in the academic system and together work out a solutions for it. Within no time the V.I.S.V.A.S. team changed the reading room outlook and convinced the IIT authorities to extend the library timings. But that was just the beginning for them because since then what started as a soc

ial entrepreneurship venture has now emerged as an NGO and is expanding in other Delhi colleges by starting V.I.S.V.A.S. chapters there.

About an year ago I had first written about this venture as I thought that a social entrepreneurhsip venture from an institute that is know for producing business magnets is worth getting inspired. An year later I called up Vinayak and his team for lunch to get a status check and found that the team had nothing to leave anybody dissappointed.

Everyone in IIT Delhi has seen V.I.S.V.A.S. building up its avenues from scratch and bringing very satisfactory improvements in their projects. All V.I.S.V.A.S. projects however are directed towards creating a better acedemic system which in fact is the niche of the organizations working model. In fact it is perhaps India's only student organization which encourages students to search problems in their own academic system and helps them to reach a solution. Notices Vinayak Garg,"Other NGOs work for the society and try to raise the bars. We at V.I.S.V.A.S. just do that for the academic system"
So why have an organization working for improving academic systems of institutes which have already established their reputation in academic brilliance like IITs? Replies Garg," Every academic institutes will have its own problems. What is different about the working of V.I.S.V.A.S. is that each project we take up has a core ideology behind it. We just try to solve the ideology, the problems get solved on their own." This in fact might be the reason why V.I.S.V.A.S. has gained so much popularity among student community speacially in I.I.T where the organization is helping out students in their every day academic problems. One of the very recent task accomplished by V.I.S.V.A.S. was the establishment of an online exam archive where students can download previous exam papers. Ankit, a third year student who has been working on the project since past one year puts the core philosophy behind the archive. "We established the archive not just because students can download previous years papers and get relevant questions but also because availability of an open online archive would force the faculty to test parameters like pracicality and applicability rather than rote slogging."

As far as the organizations progress is concerned, apart from establishing itself as an NGO, V.I.S.V.A.S. has slowly but steadily achieved great milestones. For example,during minor 1 examinations the online exam archive established by V.I.S.V.A.S. was accessed by some 650-700 students among around 1500 IIT students who gave the exam and thats a debut success rate of 50% . Their reading room and library initiative was recognized and awarded by the IITD alumni association. Another project in working is Droabe, which is a web based portal for educational institutes aimed at providing effective commuication between students. Pankaj, who is looking after the Droabe project puts it this way,"There was a need for an online notice board cum communication and news distribution channel for students. Droabe fulfills all these needs" In fact many other delhi institutes have shown interest in Droabe and no wonder all present energies of V.I.S.V.A.S. are being focussed on this dream project which will also mark the entry of this NGO in other Delhi colleges.

Although V.I.S.V.A.S. is just more than a year old, it has built a very solid student reputation, especailly in IIT. Presently it has some 40 working members from IIT itself along with others from various other college chapters. This year V.I.S.V.A.S. would be featured in 'IITD ke funde', an official institute booklet given to freshers to introduce them to IIT life.
However all this glory and success has been achieved through a lot of struggle specially as it requires a lot of investment of time, which in IIT can sometimes be a costly affair. For example in the beginning, the founders Vinayak and Bhushan had to do a lot of convincing to students as well as faculty to launch an idea like V.I.S.V.A.S.so that it does not gather a rebellious or political image. Ankit who worked on the exam archive used to utilize his lunch hours to find time for sitting in IIT computer center and uploading exam papers. And this all must be true for everyone who is putting his time for V.I.S.V.A.S. But finally all the hard work is showing results. Today many educational institutes like SRCC are showing interest in opening their own V.I.S.V.A.S. chapters seeing its success in IIT.

"We still have a lot to do", says Vinayak. "We will soon be launching 'Dayitva', an Entrepreneurship contest in IIT with a difference that this would be more focussed on implementation rather than just B-plans and ideas. This would include IIT administration supported projects which can be carried out in IIT itself." The team is currenlty also working on Video introduction of elective courses and 'Samvaad' a seminar series for increasing awareness amongst students and enabling them to excersice an informed choice.

A dedicated workforce, a brilliant concept and some established credentials; V.I.S.V.A.S. has every ingredient for a success story. Finally it is good to see a group of students that is working on creating gloably competitive education systems. Now it would be all the more interesting to see what route this NGO takes up now. After all, that's how revolutions are created.

Michael and Me!!

I know that it might really seem illogical to some , but surely dance was not originated by very smart people. Wondering, who got the first idea of dancing, I think it must be some early man who got happy with a kill and started jumping out of joy to seek others' attention. Maybe some more who wanted a share in the kill started jumping so as to show their enthusiasm and here we have something called the origin of dance!! Some state that origin of dances were inspired from animal movements and dances like honey bee etc. but they do that because they can't communicate, we humans can! Even if dance was originated in form a rhythmic body movements to please God, as some state, do you think that was a good idea. I mean would God be like,"Hey dude! that girl moves real nice. Let me shower some good love and blessings on her!" and "What, you can't dance! Get lost, its hell you will be getting!"


Hence I think people will understand why I really get confused when I am asked to dance in parties. First of all, I don't understand, why do people need to lift their hands, jump on a leg, twist their neck, shake their knees, move their back and sweat like pigs to show that they are happy and enjoying the party. Secondly, I, like 98% of this world population cannot dance well, so there is no chance of 'impressing anyone' (I am sure that would have been the case either way, but I rather have the benefit of doubt :P). Thirdly, these 98% not so good dancers need others to dance with them, so that nobody notices and makes fun of them in the crowd. Hence, although they themselves know that they are doing something funny and laughable ,yet they do it. That clearly shows party dancing is a herd's mentality. Fourthly, around half (that is 49% of people) of them have the habit of dragging peaceful people from the crowd and encourage them to dance with them so as to show others that they can dance better than at least somebody else. I, on the contrary would have no benchmark and prefer to stay in the rest 49%. In fact in the whole of my life I have met just one guy who dances worse than me and how many parties can I take him with me to show that I am not the worst. Now, around one-third ( 33%) of the people in a party would always be drunk, and are too drunk to know that they are dancing. I surprisingly have never been so drunk to enter this category. Similarly, surely at least one in ten people in a party (10%) would be thinking he has paid way too much and would be dancing to make up for it. Moreover, if you take into account miscellaneous people like those who are dancing because they were bored or being forced to dance etc etc they will definitely account for some 5%. So you see people like me who have no reason to dance form just 1% of the disc population. We are a rare, peaceful and harmless species. Why bother us?

However, surely there needs to be a reason why I can't dance. As a child I used to one of those 4-5 kids who are made to sit with the groom on the ghodi during the baraat to make him realize the first lessons of the implications of an unplanned family. But that meant no dancing for us. Then came the school and with it the teenage obesity. So that definitely meant no dancing..... for philanthropic purposes. Even 'dancelessness' runs in my family and hence I cannot take help of my genes either. My ma just knows one step of dance and that's what she has been using for all of her life till now. So you see I was born not to dance!

But maybe the main reason why I can't dance is that I don't see any reason for it. And if anybody is still not convinced must learn from bollywood which has been constantly giving the us the message of uselessness of dancing, showing that the good guy has to dance around trees for seven long songs to get the average looking girl in saree while the bad guy does not even shake a leg to get the hotter and wilder 'Mona Darling'.
But guess you never saw that coming!

Alcovirginity

As he held the bottle of Absolut Vodka in his hands... he heard this voice for the zillionth time in that day. 'Again...why am I doing this?' He could clearly remember his friend telling him,' to get the best effect, start with a glass of beer and then go for the shots, otherwise it would become to difficult for you to handle. You won't like to screw up the first time you decide getting drunk!'

But for him, this act was more like a psychological experiment than just about getting drunk. He always used to be the 'coke and pineapple juice guy' in all the booze parties. 'Dude.. why don't you drink??' was the most common question asked to him in those flashing lights in Disc bars by friends who were on their third glass or maybe more. 'Hmm.. interesting question. Let me see it this way. Why should I drink?'
'Because it's fun dude. It is the ultimate bliss. Your inner self comes out. For you forget everything, and be what you want to be, say what you want to say, do what you want to do.'
'Hehe.. see thats the point. I don't want my 'inner self to come out. Maybe I am too complicated to handle that.'
'Stop this shit yaar, here, try the first sip from my glass'
'Ohh.. so you too are a 'try first sip from my glass' kind of guy, trying to gain psychological satisfaction of having made somebody take the first step towards dependency for life. So, after this first sip if I ask for more, you can be happy for the entire night with each shot that I take, that whatever I am doing is because of you!!'
' Get lost then, if you think you are so fucking complicated'


However today, as he sat in his living room alone holding the vodka and beer bottle, with a video camera running and taping all his movements, the prime reason was his complicatedness. For years he had wondered at his own unpredictability, identity crisis and failure to understand what makes him do things that he actually does. For once he wanted to know, 'what lay inside him' , 'who was he' and maybe to get drunk was the best way.

He poured the first shot and gulped it. He could feel his throat burning and a bitter taste in his mouth. He could remember the taste similar to the pulse polio drug taken in his childhood. 'Wait, pulse polio!! Am I drunk in a single shot?' He poured another but suddenly he started feeling the resistance to take it. As if his mind was pitching a battle against its disclosure. But he forced the shot in his throat. Surprisingly, this one tasted better. With a dizzy head, he looked at the light of the video camera placed in his book shelf, a place he had chosen so that maybe it might stays away from his own eyes when he is drunk.

He rested his back on his couch and picked the bottle to pour another one. Just then it occured to him that he must get somebody to talk to him to get the best out from the situation. Maybe there is no point in this whole thing if there is nobody to actually make him talk.
'Wow! I am so intelligent when I am drunk.'
He needed somebody good enough to handle him and the situation and he knew the exact person for that. He picked up his cell and dialed her number.
'Hello' came the voice from the other side.
'Hii.. listen. To begin things, I am slightly drunk'
' O..K..'Waise that is pretty apparent from your voice.Define slightly.
'That is not the point. You know I never drink. The reason why I did is... (again...why did I do this?). Yeah.. I remember. You know I always used to say that I have surpassed the limits of complicatedness and I really want to know, who actually am I, what goes inside my head. So this is like the only way I can know that. It is like an experiment. So if you can come here and make me talk, that would really help.'
'You are impossible. As I see it, it looks like an excuse to get drunk. I am seriously not interested'
'Cmon.. you are the only friend I have'
'See.. I am running very busy now. I don't know if I will be able to make it. Bye'

As he put the phone down, the shots had started having some good effect on him. 'Bitch, what does she think of herself. I need another shot. 'He poured another one, then another one and thats the last he remembered....

--------------------------------------------------------

He opened his eyes and his head started paining like hell. He wanted to know where he was. But he did not seem to have the energy. He closed his eyes again and everything became all right.

---------------------------------------------------------

He could hear his phone ringing. He opened his eyes. He could see the bright sunlight in his room. He somehow managed to grab the phone. It was her. He suddenly remebered his last night's booze and the phone call.
'Hi... were you able to make it last night then. What all did I do?'
'you dont remember anything!'
'No... not one thing'
'Yeah...actually I called to apologize. I could not make it. This work is taking the hell out of me. I am sorry.'
'Its fine.... chal I think I need to go back to sleep'

Just as he put the phone down, he saw the video cam. He recalled having put it there. It's battery had run off. He took out the tape and put it on play. It began with the first shot and the second. The he could see the phone conversation. Then began the shot extravaganza. 'Wow.... I managed four. No wait.... five!!' Just then he heard the door bell ringing. As he saw himself getting out of the camera frame to open the door, he wondered who came last in night. Just then he saw her appearing in the camera frame.

'What... she was here! But then why didn't she tell me.'

They began talking on some arbitrary topic, with her telling him, how drunk he looked. Topics rolled from office to how gorgeous she was looking. But then he saw himself doing something, he could not have imagined in the wildest of his dreams. In the next fifteen minutes he heard himself telling her the feelings he had for her. Moreover, the 'drunk' him convinced her in such a flawless way, he could never have done in his senses!! As he saw her on the tape, believing every lie after lie he was telling her, he realized where everything was going. It was not long that the camera showed them kissing each other passionately in a way he would never remember having learnt from anywhere. And as the clothes went off, everything that he saw thereafter made good sense to him why she lied to him on phone.

Finally from an analyst point of view, it was an interesting experiment. The drunk took advantage of the non-drunk. He had two of his 'first times' last night, and he could not recall any one of them. Finally as for the whole 'Who am I' thing the only result that can be interpreted was.. he was complicated.

Intutius' Guest Post

Not another girl post on thoughtspot!! But then you can't stop Intutius from writing on this topic. Moreover, it would have been a crime to ask him to write his typical post and not expect anything on girls.
On a personal note, I really think that the type of girl mentioned in this blog (hot, intelligent and Atkin loving) is kind of rare. Hopefully this is his imagination or otherwise I need to know more people in IIT [:P]. As for 'We can be friends since you have done the MEL120 assignment', well sure.. I have personally experienced it many times.
- Achintya

( Intutius aka himanshu writes for 'Intuiting Life' . You can read more of his posts @ intutius.wordpress.com)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First day at college. @ Orientation Function.
(IIT Boy sees a hot girl sitting at front desk)
IIT Boy: {Wow… what a chick!! I knew this place would be awesome… Let’s begin.} Hieee..!! Myself Chirag. (Smiles) What about you?
IIT Girl: {Ohh God!! Yet another! This one’s third since the morning. Why these boys don’t mind their own business and disturb me? I’ve got to listen to this orientation and know about the labs and professors out here.} 2008CH70312.
{Boy gulps his saliva and decides to try once more.}
IIT Boy: Can we be friends? {Ohkk… this girl may be rude, but she’s hot too.}
IIT Girl: Are you in computer science? {I should be loving CS boys ‘coz my senior told me they generally score a good CGPA, get good jobs and moreover they are dumb too.}
IIT Boy: No.
IIT Girl: {Then Fuck Off!}
(Girl is back to her work.)


After one semester:
IIT Boy: Hieee!! How you doing? {She’s still hot!!}
IIT Girl: Great. My CSL assignment is complete and I’ve just finished my second revision of Atkins. My life rocks!! {I am very happy.}
IIT Boy: {I should gulp my saliva again.} Hey may I ask you a thing if you don’t mind..??
IIT Girl: {Oh God!! I wish he didn’t ask me the formula of critical ambient temperature, I’ve skipped it in my revisions.} Ya sure.
IIT Boy: Do you have a boyfriend?
IIT Girl: {Is he asking about a boy-friend or a boyfriend? I am confused.} No.
IIT Boy: {Yipeeee!!!!} Any crushes? Ok tell me who was your first crush?
IIT Girl: {Should I tell him about H.C. Verma?} What’s a crush?
IIT Boy: {Where’s my saliva?}
IIT Boy: Can we be friends?
IIT Girl: Is your CGPA greater than 8.22? {My CG is only 8.22, I desperately need to raise it this semester.}
IIT Boy: No. {It’s 5.8.}
IIT Girl: {Then fuck off… again!!}
IIT Girl: Wait… have you completed your MEL120 assignment? {The deadline is tomorrow.}
IIT Boy: {No.} Yes.
IIT Girl: Sure… we can be friends.
IIT Boy: Thanks. {I should start making my assignment now.}


At Barista
(The boy finally manages to take the girl out on a date at Barista Café just situated just in front of IIT Main Gate.)
IIT Boy: You’re looking great. {Just look at her cleavage man!!}
IIT Girl: {I know.} Thanks.
IIT Boy: So tell me what can I have you? Amor Frappe? Hazelnut Cappuccino?
IIT Girl: No, I would rather take Iced Tea. {It contains antioxidants and alkaloids.}
(Half an hour later)
IIT Boy: I wanna say something… {Now I can’t hold it anymore. I’ve got to propose her now.}
IIT Girl: {Oh God! Does he want me to share the bill !} Yes?
IIT Boy: I Love You. (Bends on his knees) Will you be my girl?
IIT Girl: {Oh God! I’d rather shared the bill.} Umm..well… I’m sorry.
IIT Boy: {Oopsss!!!}
IIT Girl: {I love you too … but I’m not allowed to date. I’ve got my assignments, projects and practicals. I wish I could have some more time.}
IIT Boy: Ok… then let’s share the bill…
IIT Girl: {Yeah..} Yeah.
(And so how it ends. The boy surrenders and decides to stop trying while the girl scores 8.65 that semester. Isn’t that so much for this happy ending..? :P )

***
PS – No offense made. :P
PS – Thanks Achintya for the space in Thoughtspot. (And sorry for so so late utilization of it.)
PS – Summers in Delhi suck!
PS - I guess I should get some water.
PS - Adieu.

Hottie-culture

Scene1
You are with a friend in a lift. Both of you are waiting to reach the top floor. It is a quiet moment and both of you are not even bothered about each other’s presence. Just then the lift halts, the door slides open and you see a sizzling hot girl enter the lift. The door closes and everything gets quite again, except the fan which of course goes on making this humming noise. But now you realize that everything has changed. You keep on looking at the girl, and then for a brief moment look at your friend to check if both of you are on the same page. He too looks back at you and the mental conversation starts..
‘Dude, check out the girl’
‘Yeah, she is hot!’
‘God is great’
‘Yeah… hope the lift never stops’

Scene 2
It’s a beautiful day. You enter the coffee house for a client meet. You are young, ambitious and focused. You are getting to take big tasks at a very early age. You are enthusiastic and thankful.
‘God, I Love my job’
The client arrives and the conversation starts. Everything is going fine. He is listening to your deliverables. Just then the door opens and the sizzling hot girl enters the coffee house. Suddenly you realize that you cannot kill the eye contact, have a good look at the girl and prove to your client that you are a perv. You start feeling helpless. By now, all he is saying has stopped making sense, or maybe you have stopped listening. Now it is just a bald head and moving lips. You pray to god for a miracle to happen, but she grabs the coffee and leaves. The door closes and it is still the bald head and the moving lips.
‘God, I Hate my job’

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Technically speaking takes around five seconds to check out a girl properly, three with practice. And although the society does not think very highly of this act, but let me tell you it is not that simple. If you are from a decent family, studying in the country’s premier engineering institute, you cannot act like the rogue standing at a local panwari shop and make noises at girls ( which by the way is eveteasing and I am in no way supporting it in this blog) . For him, it is a very easy job and that’s how the entire practice gets labeled as a mal practice. But for us it has to be casual and decent as there is always a risk of getting caught staring. Now although I am sure that none of us think very highly of this act but then it can't be helped. It comes as an instinct. By the time you realize, you have done it and you end up feeling like a pervert.

However, how much lousy this act be, every man does it irrespective of age and status. In fact if somebody doesn’t then he should seriously question his sexuality (or testosterone secretion). Sometimes this 'checking-out' act becomes so challenging that it can give people an adrenalin rush. For example during cultural festivals like Rendezvous when suddenly the whole IIT wasteland gets lighted up with gorgeous women moving in groups of 4-6, you realize that it becomes impossible to check out all of them together. You obviously can’t hold your look on one and then move to another and then the third. That could get you killed. And what if you are walking past this group of women. That practically gives you 5-8 seconds to check them out, which technically speaking is beyond the potential of human scanner.

Let me tell you that like any other educated person who thinks highly of females, I too despise the checking out practice. However on a second thought it might not appear so ‘animal’. Just think, maybe on some level this checking out is a sign of admiration. The ‘Hot’ designation does not come easy. One has to work hard to achieve it, stay away from cravings and spend hours in front of mirror. So checking them out is a way to pay homage to their dedication and sacrifice. In fact would these so called hot girls, who spend hours in gym and a fortune in dresses and make up, like if nobody looks at them. It is guys like us, who are indirectly promoting the fitness, cosmetic and fashion industry and let’s face it, we are their driving force. History gives us evidences that women have ruled the world with their beauty. It is one domain you people own. So in a way ‘checking out’ is like promoting feminism.

Personally, my feelings for these ‘hot girls’ is more of respect than admiration. And the day I would actually get to talk to one of them, I would like to ask her, how she copes with so much pressure of literally having a control on so many things. Just think, in an examination hall, a ‘hot girl’ enters and chooses a front table, which changes everything for the guys who would now like to position themselves in a favorable location, which changes everything for the class dufus who was completely relying on copying from his friends, which changes everything for the class topper as all his favorite front seats have now been occupied , which changes everything for the girl who hates him and wanted to sit nowhere near him and ultimately everybody ends up performing differently.

Maybe one day Marvel and DC comics would realize the 'hot -girl' power and might develop a character out of it. By the way if they do, they better give the 'checking-out' power to the super villian otherwise as things are going, the hot-girl power might become unsurpassable.

The Beggar Blog

No, I am not obsessed with the down trodden and the poor in this country. So, if my previous post was about the 'bais' and this about the beggars, that doesn't mean I have developed some sort of liking towards the backward class. It is just that I am getting to observe some newer sides of the society.

When as a child the first time I would have seen a beggar, the first impression would have been less of annoyance or pity, but more of curiosity, 'Why doesn't he earn it on his own instead of asking for it?' Surprisingly, that's a question for which even today I am finding an answer. Although the beggar community constantly keeps on trying to give me reasons, like I am blind, lame, old etc, but then they are hardly reasons. I have seen disabled people working, selling stuff in trains, polishing shoes or any other small business. So although the reasons might be genuine in some cases; but in a vast majority, they are just fraud marketing.

So let’s face it, begging is a profession. The purchases in this segment are impulse based. Somewhat the same as you spend your money on an alpenliebe or hajmola candy. You have never planned it before hand, it takes a fraction of a second to make a purchasing decision and the satisfaction just lasts for a minute or two and then it’s all forgotten. Now, coming back to my first memory of beggars, I remember my parents telling me to ignore them and that they are just a bunch of lazy people who don't want to work and earn money sitting. At that time it was difficult to digest the orders to ignore a poor man who was looking so pathetic, but with time I evolved and hardened my attitude towards them. But surprisingly they evolved too and changed their sales strategies. By the time I got comfortable with ignoring a lazy man sitting with a cup, they had poor children and women 'touching' you in railway station platforms or traffic light to get the money out of you in annoyance.

As an impulse, it might seem that for a business model that demands just one or two rupees from your pocket, spending that much is worth it to get rid of the sleazy stinking person standing in front of you. But then lately they too realized that this aggressive 'push' strategy was actually a mistake and that you can't fight with your customer's ego. So they changed that too. Now they are using 'pull' strategies, that is we don't want to beg, we are not beggars, we agree with you that it is a profession of lazy burdens on the planet, but what can we do, circumstances have led us to do this. But it is only momentary. The moment we get over it, we will be back in business, working hard to get back on our lives.

Now that sounds more convincing, but how are they doing it? On traffic light a woman approached me with a doctor's prescription saying she needed money for her husband's medicines. I would have given her money, and then I noticed that the date on the receipt was two months old. I asked her, why don't you update this, it would fetch you more money. She said nothing and turned away to the next vehicle! But then I realized it was a good strategy and she could have fooled anyone and many other beggars would be using the same at other traffic lights in other cities. But interestingly there is a clear cultural divide between beggars of metros and beggars of tier 2 cities. The Delhi beggars have evolved to such convincing ways, while beggars in my Bharuch are still relaxing on platforms with a cup in hand.

Whatever may be the case, every time a beggar approaches, I (and I am sure that must be the case with all of you) feel hard to convince myself to ignore that guy. On one hand I might be refusing a person really needing money, and on the other I might be encouraging such a profession. But then how many times have you heard a beggar dying of hunger. It is the hard working man who is too proud to beg that dies out of sickness or hunger. And what convinced me to this was a little incident a friend told me. She believed in 'you give a man a fish and you feed him for once and you teach him how to fish, you feed him forever theory' and hence when a girl approached her for money, gave her an address where she would get work . The girl asked, how much would this pay in a month.

"Two thousand", she replied.

"I make five thousand per month”, and went away.

The 'Bai' Blog

This post is dedicated to the last few days I spent at home...


What is common to Kanchan, Sushila, Vimla, Ranjan, Geeta, Kapila, Urmila & Somi. They are some of the names in the 'list of honor' of all 'bais' who have worked in my house. Although I am sure that my house would have witness some more occupants of the 'house bai' position, these names were all I could recall.

The reason why I am dedicating a whole post to this female free lance housekeeping entrepreneurial venture is because I very recently realized that for us 'Bai' is much more than just a house maid. This 'bai' word has had a very tremendous impact on me since childhood. When years ago when we shifted to Gujarat from Kota, the first lesson that I was taught at home was to call the 'bai' at home 'masi' as they didn't like being called 'bai' ( I still think it is a cool name). As I grew up, the first time when I visited the staff room of my school, the first lady teacher gossip I overheard was 'Aaj humari bai nahin aayee'.

Be it the mightiest of the mothers, the news that the 'bai' won't come sends shivers everywhere in a universe that doesn't get bothered even if Lehman collapses. In my house, I am not even allowed to joke about the 'bai' not getting to work. So what's the big deal about the house maid not turning up to work? I think the first reason why 'bais' get so much importance in India has to do something with our topology. We are a very dusty country and hence our homes and our clothes need more regular cleaning. So we can't survive without everyday or every alternate day cleaning. So that day the 'bai' doesn't come to work, the lady knows she would have to get her own hands dirtied. Moreover in the present times 'bais' are the strongest weapon of the working women. Hence the USP of the Indian 'Bai' Community is not the work she does when she is present but the mess she creates when she isn't.

But that's not all. 'Bais' are the colony's hottest gossip channel and I am sure there must be a cut throat competition among women to acquire the 'bai' that gives the colony's hottest news. After all who wouldn't want to know what's happening in Mrs. Sharma's house. They are also the main driving force behind the TRP success of Ekkta Kapoor serials for hadn't it been for them, our mothers would never have had so much free afternoon time. They ruthlessly waste your washing soap, cleaning detergent, liquid dishwash and floor cleaner thereby giving a boost to FMCG product industry. If this claim appears unconvincing to you just think that even if a 'bai' wastes 15% of these commodities this would automatically lead to 15% increase in product consumption in millions of Indian homes and hence a 15% rise in sales which is something you get in a 'great' year in sales. Moreover, its not just the economic impact, these 'bais' have a significant socio-cultural impact on our society too. "Aaj humari bai nahin ayee' must be rated as the no.1 conversation starter of this country which our house wives have used over tea, office gossips and over the house boundary wall talks.

Now let's have a simple estimate of the 'bai' market size in India. We have a 400 million middle and upper middle class population who must be employing 'bais' (assuming the rich upper class goes for servants). Now taking 5 people per house hold leaves us with 80 million household requiring 'bais'. Now if on an average each house hold spends Rs 500 ($10) a month on bai then this adds up to $ 800 million a month or to say around $ 10 billion per annum business currently suffering from massive attrition, absenteesm & mismanagement. I don't know why corporate and conglomerates who are ready to sell us 'sabzis' have not thought about giving us a better managed 'bai'.

Moreover if the bai service gets centralized then this can become an effective tool for word-of-mouth campaigns, especially for consumer goods. There is anyway so much communication between the bai and the housewives everyday. Why not get leverage out of it and use the communication for product marketing. Think of the mind boggling consumer network these 'bai' campaign can generate leading to mammoth marketing avenues. In the past Microsoft tried something similar with Mumbai Dabbawallas for its asli pc campaign.

Finally, on a positive note, house cleaning is a great workout. You need not worry about heart problems and obesity with a mop and a broom in hand. But then why scare away the luxury. Let's spend 500 a month on bai, 1000 a month in gym and some thousands more on washing machine, vaccuum cleaners and dishwashers to be prepared for the day she doesn't come.

Endless

It seemed like a normal journey from Mumbai to my hometown. Like every time the train left Mumbai Central at 7 in the evening and like every time the first stop was going to be Borivali. When life becomes so monotonous, you rarely like experimenting and hence like every time I was sitting at the corner seat and was engroseed in some book to cut time, rarely expecting any thing interesting to occur in the journey. But then the unexpected happened.

Now everyone has a definition for unexpected. In this case the matter was so trivial that I could have easily overlooked it and continued with my book. But something made me look at him again. This guy was sitting on the corner berth with his eyes closed and head rested. Everything appeared normal with this guy, 2 eyes, 2 ears, one nose and I can go on and on but I think I made my point. However the reason the subject made me turn from my PG Wodehouse masterpiece was that his face appeared amazingly familiar.

How often does it happen that you see a face that appears familiar and yet you cannot recall where you have seen that person? For me it is the most exhilarating situation where there is a face right in front of me, crushing me every time I look at it because every time I do that, the more sure I become that I have seen this face somewhere, but where, that is the quest left to be answered.

Now this guy had nothing worth remembering. He was middle aged, dull complexioned and had a slim built. He was semi-formally dressed although his attire showed that he belonged to lower middle class and the tiffin in his hand showed that he must be returning from work at this time of the day. And like any other guy returning from a hard day's work, he had preferred to doze off on his train seat to momentarily ward away daily troubles of house bills, kid's education, office progress and many others that haunt a middle class guy. But little did he know that his very face was giving me a hard time and the 'curiosity' of knowing why the face appeared so familiar was killing me.

Although I might have called it 'curiosity' but then on a second thought this appears a pretty inappropriate terminology to use. It is a different thing to as oneself, 'Where did the universe start', 'Where is Angola situated' or 'where are the safest kissing points in IIT Delhi' because these questions come under curiosity and such questions have fixed methodology for knowing the solution.Moreover you know that by the end of the day, even if you fail to find one, then there will always be somebody who would be knowing the answers. But unfortunately googling 'where have I seen this face before' doesn't help much and that is a question you yourself have to answer. Hence there I was sitting on a train window seat, staring at an unknown guy whose face seemed weirdly familiar.

'Weirdly' because I knew that this guy surely doesn't know me. I have not talked to him, nor have I met him. Also he is the very same person and not a look alike I am searching for. If my intuition is right, then his face must have passed me in a flash, like in a market, college or office. But then why out of thousand faces would I remember him. And why would I meet such a person in a city that I rarely visit. Maybe I have seen him today somewhere in the afternoon, maybe in newspapers, in the wanted section, or he might be a terrorist......wait a second, this thought process is proceeding in a gravely unstructured manner, and the one thing that I had learnt from the billion scolding, comments and suggestions that I received from my 'super awesome' mugga party during job prep was to solve problems in a structured manner. So let's see, this guy is definitely a mumbaikar, hence I must have seen him in Mumbai. Now in Mumbai I was either at home, or in my uncle's office or in Santacruz to visit a friend. Now this guy was definitely not from my house or office and as for the brief Santacruz visit, I don't think at that time I would have been in the mood to observe any random guy's face. So that leaves news articles, magazine pics, endless shopkeepers I must have visited, wanted section photos and people I see during my morning walk.

Yeah.... It sucks. Back to unstructured thoughts.
And then I went back to my random brainstorming on this intoxicating wretched familiar face with a background voice hammering my brain...
where...
where....
where...

But just then the train halted at Borivali and he opened his eyes. And with each passing moment as I became more sure that it was no déjà vu and I had seen this very man somewhere, he searched for his tiffin, found it under his seat and got up to get down. And at that moment I got a look at his seat number and then a wide smile spread on my face....
.... How stupid of me!!


PS: Read the title.

The Ticket

This will not be like the other pen and paper rendezvous where the whole 700 words had nothing to do with the title. It is good to have an abstract title, makes a writer look sophisticated. However, in this case when this post calls itself ‘The ticket’, it will be about a ticket; a normal yellow colored Mumbai local train ticket from Santacruz to Goregaon dated 17th December 2007.

What do you look in your love? Compatibility? Chemistry? She was the first best friend he ever made. In school they were great chums; both good debaters, speakers and insanely verbose conversation dominators. They could spend hours talking with each other and he claimed to his college pals that ‘her 8th standard bench partner’ was the reason why he talked so much. He was known for his sense of humor and she was one of the few surviving members of female species who knew how to crack situational jokes, a type quickly getting extinct. When they grew up they both realized that they had interests in marketing, movies and in frequent hours of online and on-phone brainstorming in which they discussed practically nothing and almost everything.

There was particularly nothing special in the ticket. It was old, had its dye fading and had all chances of being lost as a piece of junk. It had blunt edges, nothing like a new shining train ticket. Moreover it had got crumpled with time and a close look made it appear like a country’s map with rivers and state boundaries. Yet he preserved it and the ticket had a permanent place in his wallet.

What do you look in your love? Signs? Magic? Serendipity? When in 8th standard the teacher decided to make each guy sit with a girl and started picking random pairs, he wished ‘what if I was made to sit with that girl’. The next thing, he got her as a bench partner. Years later, long after they parted their ways; he started studying in Delhi and she was doing her bachelor’s in Calcutta; one day he recalled her childhood friend and wished to contact her. The next day he saw her sister’s contact on one of his friend’s Orkut profile. Some years later for no reason he secretly wished to see her in Delhi. In a week he came to know she would be visiting the city to meet her friends.

Technically speaking it is rather sick to preserve a ticket. After all, who preserves a ticket? Yes, people do have weird hobbies of collecting tickets, but then they ‘collect’ them and that too ‘many’ of different kinds. Yet, this was a single piece of paper and the subject had shown no previous signs of instability, freakiness and wierdism.

What do you look in your love? Looks? Attraction? To him she looked the most beautiful woman when he saw her at the Andheri station stairs. They had met after seven years. She had grown up into a fine woman and appeared exactly like the birthday pictures she had sent her a few days back but only better. The same was the case when they met again a year later. Nothing had changed. He could still remember her face as she bid him farewell at the Mumbai Santacruz station. The train starts moving; she takes two or three quick steps to make pace with the train. Then she stops. The train gathers speed and he loses her sight. This was the last time he had seen her.


The story makers do make good stories but perhaps the best stories of life are made by life itself.

What do you look in your love?