Thursday, November 13, 2008

Urbanization of the Seven Ages of Man (& also woman)


If William Shakespeare were to write his famous monologue - All the world's a stage, again in 2008 am sure it wouldnt have seven ages.
Just to refresh my memory the seven ages as described by him were (hail Google!) -
Infant, school boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon (semi old age) & second childhood

Thanks to the rapid pace of development (not sure if it really is) around the world, the seven ages shrinks to four ages.

The four ages being -
1) infant
2) training to be a rat
3) rat race
4) late realization - race was not worth it &i am not a rat.

Infant
The infant still mewls & pukes in the nurse's arms as in the Shakespearean time.
From the nurse's arm the infant goes straight to the maid's arm because the mom has to join the dad in the race...rat race.
(not restricted to the Mumbai full Marathon, Delhi Half Marathon, Bangalore Quarter Marathon..... )

Training to be a rat
This age starts at around 6-7 yrs (may be earlier in case of overzealous parents) and can run upto late 20's.
The human rat as opposed to his namesake aspires to be highly skilled, multi tasker, all rounder & dreaming of getting into colleges starting with I's & earning salary which has zeros greater than the inflation rate at that point of time.
The training involves classes in maths - music - muscles (health) to name a few.

Rat race
This race only has a start line; the finish line is only a mirage.
When we start running the race we realize that what we trained for is not exactly what we need to win the race.
The best part of this race is that even if a rat is ahead of a dozen of his other fellow rats he
feels he’s losing out the race. The race is a good leveler though… coz the rat at the front and the last rat feel almost the same… a sense of inadequacy.

Late realization - race was not worth it &i am not a rat
After years of running the human rat realizes that the race has no finish line…and he has spent all his life doing just one thing i.e.) running & nothing else…. he also realizes that
he is still at the bottom of Maslow’s need hierarchy pyramid fulfilling the basic needs of roti (at a five star restaurant), Kapda (of a designer label) & makan ( at a luxury by invitation only property zone). It also dawns on him that he is not a rat but a human being….

My only question…why are human beings always after being what they are not – rats, dogs, asses….we have better options don’t we?

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Do you see what i see..? i see SXC

We had a professor at St Xaviers Calcutta (SXC) called Prof Saha who taught business mathematics.
Saha didnt teach our section but the other commerce sections.
This was the time when the US had its "smoke him out" policy fully out against Osama bin laden.

Xaviers as with most of the old Jesuit institutions had beautiful gothic architecture.
This beauty translated into amphitheatre style seating, long corridors & huge classrooms.
This architectural beauty also made sure that if you didnt whisper your voice would reach atleast three - four adjacent classrooms
when there is pin drop silence.
Pindrop silence at Xaviers was a reality not only when Fr Felix Raj the Vice Principal was on his rounds but also otherwise.

Now coming back to Prof Saha....he was small, diminutive & generally a harmless creature from the Indian hinterland.
Harmless even when tortured by stupid, irrelevant doubts by sleepy but bright commerce guys.
He was more African in looks than even a true blue African native.
The US agenda against Osama caught up with Saha sadly enuf.....
Whenever Prof Saha came up the staircase passing through the classes filled with those sleepy bright commerce students
there would be this bee like humming which filled the corridor " Oooo Sahaaa Bin Ladeeen"

Prof Saha showed infinite amount of patience which just strengthened the bee like humming to the almost lion like roar.
This soon became the talk of the town almost ( atleast near Park Street i guess).

Then one day almost a month after this had started a class tried the same stunt ...this time when he was in the middle of
the explanation of a complex maths problem with his back to the class & face towards the black board.
As soon as the " Oooo Sahaaa Bin Ladeeen" anthem gained momentum..Prof Saha jumped & turned (simultaneously)
suddenly now facing the class in pin drop silence..threw the chalk in his hand at the boy who was in the middle of the class...
simultaneously yelling "thor baap osama binladen"

I am sure had this incident taken place now ... the humming would have been " Oooo baamaa " & Prof Saha wouldnt have reacted the way he did.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Who is a Media Planner

Sandhi Vicched , the little hindi grammatical tool from class V/VI comes handy i guess..
Media +Planner = Media Planner i.e) one who plans media.

One who plans media...? nahh...

Let me try again ...a Media Planner is one who....

1) ..... can plan everything but his /her own life
2)... whos folks,siblings seldom understand what their beloved actually does in advertising .....
when he is neither responsible for the content,copy nor the idea of an ad.
3) ... spends nights in office creating sumthing called logs; yes they actually are tougher then the wooden ones.
4) ....shows off his motiyo jaise daant when he sees his ads in newspapers,billboards,websites and commercial breaks.
5) .... is comfortable writing letters in excel sheets.
6) .....juggles with crs & crs of currency fully knowing that a cr is 1 and 7 zeros which appear in ppts and excel sheets and
not in their ICICI/Citibank/HSBC savings account.
7) ....one who has to pick his clients calls even if he were just being wheeled out of an OT after a open heart surgery.
8)..... one who thinks of "innovative ways" to irritate TV viewers, newspaper readers, radio listeners , web surfers and
even the poor guy driving to/from his office....and gets awarded if he/she has been truly successful.
9)......one who has a love hate relationship with client servicing teams in creative agencies.
10).....one who waits for his/her- Team/Agency/Company's name to be flashed in afaqs/e4m articles even if it
just gets the penultimate line mention.,,,feels sad at times...but happy coz he /she knows deep down in some corner of the heart that
"i am luving it."

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Foot & Mouth Disease


Foot-and-mouth disease(FMD) is a highly contagious and sometimes fatal viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic animals such as cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats and pigs.

In humans though FMD takes the form of a verbal disease.(Foot-in-mouth disease)
The FMD in humans may not be fatal but can leave you red/pink/blue or black faced for a really long time.
It is not a seasonal disease but can occur anywhere.. anytime.
People prone to frequent bouts of verbal dysentery are prone more to this than others.

Though i belong to the later category i was taken into the grip of this dreaded disease many times over.

The most severe attack happened to me in office.

It was a pleasant Dec Monday morning in Mumbai and all of us had just settled into our work stations.I got a call from my colleague Sharad who had joined us 6 months ago.Sharad told me that he was quitting and didnt know how & when to inform Rajneesh our GM.I didnt know what to say hence told him that i would speak to him later.

The fact that Sharad was quitting wasnt that much of a surprise as the fact that he had lasted for 6 long months.
I say 6 long months not because the workplace was bad but because Sharad followed the semester system at workplace:moving to a new place after each semester was over.

"Putting in your papers" can be a very traumatic experience,i have done it myself once in my close to 3.5 yrs of work exp.Full of empathy i decided to call back Sharad...lo & behold i forgot his extension number.I was never good at numbers of any kind.I decided to look up the extn no. list pinned near my desk and call him up. Full of wisdom and empathy i dialled 645 and blurted out "Sharad our MD is coming from Delhi Tomorrow i think you should put in your papers today evening instead of tomorrow." I expected a decent Thank you from the other end but to my surprise the voice on the other end said "sale kya bakwaas kar raha hai?" I knew sumthing had gone terribly wrong but it took me a good 3 secs to realise that i had dialled 645instead of 654 which ideally i shud have.
Well 645 happened to be the extn of my GM, whom i had just jolted by informing( inadvertently)that one of his team members was quitting.

I swirled my chair backwards, now facing towards my GM and gestured that i would come and explain.Explain i did and my GM listened to it patiently.
No one thankfully had noticed as to what had happened.
In the meantime Sharad mustered up the courage to inform Rajneesh abt his noble intentions.
Rajneesh accepted it without much fuss...a deviation from what usually happens.

Sharad came out smiling and happy..during lunch when i narrated this to all my colleagues including Sharad, they just cudnt stop laughing.I had become the butt of the joke - that if anyone intends to put in his papers pl inform Shibu first to have a smooth exit.
By the way the Thank You from Sharad did come albeit a lil late for facilitating his smooth exit.

Last but not the least:The antidote to this disease - None: practically.

Friday, October 17, 2008

"Your Dreams are not yours alone"


This tag line of Union Bank of India’s corporate campaign seems very relevant to me specially in these turbulent times.
Relevant - not in the way the copy writers/account planners at Mudra would have wanted it to be.

Your Dreams are not yours alone - coz now it depends not only on individuals around you
{ your boss in office, your boss's boss, your family, colleagues and other heavenly bodies}
but it also depends on the Federal Reserve, Dow Jones,CRR, Sensex & Nifty.

These words are soon sneaking into our day to day conversations.

The US subprime crisis < MNCs in India cutting cost < IT/Airline Industry giving out pink slips
Only other thought which comes to me is "Next is what?" Aamir Khan... any answers?

Next is ..
.your MD walking into office
Asking " Kitne aadmi hai - office mein? "

GM replies: "Sarkar x"
MD:" Aur accounts?" (The advertising terminology one)
GM replies:" x - 1"
MD: "Bahut na insafi, take the extra ones to a 3 day Morning - Evening workshop to Bangkok /Goa.
Am sure a few of them will quit midway (strongly believing in the ppt torture we are gonna inflict on them).
The strongest will survive and we will be profitable again ( for a few weeks albeit, after which we will repeat this excercise)

GM: "Sarkar, we dont have money for the workshop"
MD: "You were given your appraisal/bonus last month na? Am sure you can do something with that extra cash flow...
if you still have a problem i will organize it myself, not a problem...but i promise you will not make it back to office from the workshop"

On a serious note i just hope this meltdown shit stops fast and the above conversation doesn’t take place even in the offices of my rival/competing ad/media agencies.

The economic meltdown isko laga dala to (hum sab ki) life jhingalala

Thursday, October 16, 2008

The need to Blog ...?


There can be multiple reasons which push a person to blog.

As for me the need arose because there are too many channels for recieving information
( TV :300+channels, Print : 2 newspapers,Online,Radio,Cell Phone etc)
and just one to give out info ( Word Of Mouth).


A blog helps you to organise and make a lil sense of this information overload.

Other sundry but equally imp reasons are :
a) Free time in office
b) Checking if you really can write things over and above office emails.
c) Exploring alternate career opportunities & 0.001% chances of winning some lit award ( if Arvind Adiga can so can i...high hopes but then y not! )


Speaking about careers the current economic slowdown scenario gives me a clear cut picture as to why most parents eat their children's brain to become a doctor.....i dont think medical expenditure is cut during recession ..?
...well almost true with the exception of the body part(s) enhancement medical expenditure i guess.