It's About the Ad

After yet another tiring day at work. I was on my way back to the Guesthouse and was sitting in front of the Taxi. Lots of random thoughts were running thro' my head and I was just staring at some of the Billboards which having the latest publicity Ad's like "Nach Baliye" , "Jhalak Dikhlaja" , "Dhoom-II" etc.

My colleague sitting at the back called me "Hey Vivek " , I turned around at him questioningly and he says " Hey, this Cricket weds Entertainment......" , and pointed to the huge Billboard and I was like "Ya, ..... " , and he popped this question " Which Cricketer is getting married..... , Is it an Indian Cricketer? ". Fortunately I turned in front just in time to hide the smirk on my face. I went on to explain for what it was for, and what it implied. He nodded sincerely and then said " So.. No one is getting married..........????".

Before moving on, I ll describe this guy, he is a complete nerd, a total weirdo, he s done mining engineering somewhere and landed up here. After work he takes loads of printouts of some Software technical stuff and stays uptill 2 or 3 AM everyday reading them. His TV viewing is typically limited to watching only Telugu Channels and his typical Sunday would mean he s slept till 10 and spent the rest of the day on the bed just changing channels.

Now, I thought that Ad for Champions Trophy was pretty innovative if not awesome and also thought most people should have got the idea at the first glance, considering that this is Cricket Crazy Nation and almost everyone knows we are hosting it. Who would have thought that a few random guys like this colleague of mine would have no idea and would mistake it for someone's Wedding?

Would that mean all the Ads have to send out a message that can be understood by everyone? Is there a possibility that probably half the people who look at an Ad would mistake its implication? What kind of Ads would appeal to the whole cross section of the society? Is it possible to make Ads like the Good Ol Washing Powder Nirma Ad which lasted for years, from which the implied idea was very clear ?

Personally, I think it s better that Ads cater only to certain sections of the society depending on whatever the campaign is for. Atleast it would be appreciated. I am sure in all target audiences there would be one subset who will never ever get it (Like my colleague), however good the Ad is. Also, a good Ad will always have face competition and Agencies would be forced to come out with something better. In general it s good for the Advertising Industry because we still have a long way to go as far as global advertising is concerned.

I have a lot of friends in the advertising industry and it s amazing to see their work, their views on everyday Ads which most people barely see as they have already changed the channel. Even though it may not be well paying as a Tech Job, it s the whole Creativity thing that gives them the High.

Anyway, Cheers to all my Media Friends. Keep it going, Don't let a few people who are never going to get a good, creative, smart Ad affect the work. It s better if these dumb people don't get it.

Benching - Waiting to be Assigned

I am another one of those software junkies, supposedly working in a big software companies. Big not only because of revenues or profits, also because of the number of people they employ.

I started out a year back, with hopes of maybe a career in software. To begin with I was trained for almost 6 months after which I was supposed to be able to code in almost any technology like Unix, Oracle, HTML, C++,XML etc. But looking back I hardly remember anything at all.

At the end of this training we were supposed to be assigned a project almost immediately. Apparently there were soo many project lined up or almost signed and they needed a huge number of people working on them. Little did we realize that, we would not be assigned a project for almost 4 months. These 4 months, we were on Bench or rather to make it sound better " Waiting to be Assigned". This Blog Entry is all about how 20 of us, all from the same training batch spent our time awaiting the project and of course, help other fellow benchers to kill time by using some of the methods that we did.

Initially, we were a little worried about when we may get assigned, so we used to turn up at office by 8:30 or 9:00 at the most. We would have breakfast, coffee etc etc and head to our cubicles, switch on our PC s and stare at them wondering when the mail stating our allotment will arrive. But we were hoping we would get a break of atleast a couple of weeks before starting out on the project as we were had just made it thro' a hectic training.

A month went by and nothing happened.... We were also enjoying our time on the Bench doing nothing. It was around this time, that people in the group starting getting really innovative on how to pass time doing nothing. We started to sleep late into the morning and head to office only at around 10:30 or 11:00. Then we would sit and check our mails. These mails would contain all sorts of forwards, from the intellectual stuff to pictures, funny videos etc etc and then forward these again to the rest of the crowd. We would head to lunch at 12:00 and after lunch, a few of us used to head to the dormitory for a nap that would probably last till 4 in the evening.

Some of guys, spent a lot of time at the couches in the reception, reading all the literature available on the tables. It would begin with the Hindu, go to Times of India, Economic times, Deccan Chronicle, then Magazines like India Today, BusinessWorld, The Week and the more interested - BusinessWeek. One of these guys started solving Sudoko and eventually would spend the whole day solving the puzzles on all the newspapers. He would keep solving and it became such an obsession that he would turn up on Saturdays and Sundays to cut the puzzles out the papers and take them home and would spend the rest of the weekend trying to crack it.

We realized after awhile that, at the location we were posted, the number of people who were actually working could be attributed to negligible. There was always a crowd at the Food Courts, the sofas at the receptions, and smoking zones. The gym would be full at 4:45 PM (NOTE: Official Work Timings end at 5:15 PM). After awhile we got bored of doing these things as well, which is when we realized that we could make good use of this time to go home and spend some time with Family or make other trips to catch up with our not-so-jobless friends in other cities, of course without applying for any leave. What is the purpose of losing hard earned leaves if no one is going to miss us ????

We all made huge 10-15 day trips. Each of us would cover for the other guys who were out of town and we also took turns to make these trips.

We suddenly had a new crisis, No internet access to do idle browsing. So we devoted all our energies to finding new and more innovative methods to browse. Finally after 2 weeks of absolute failure we managed to get the User Id's and Passwords of 2 guys in another Department who had just got internet access and had lots more work to do rather than browse the net. We also had found other ways to access the Net, which I shall not discuss here for security reasons.

At this point almost 3 months had gone by and there was not even a glimmer of hope of a project coming our way. Most of us stopped coming to Office during office hours, we would turn up at 6:00 PM, head to the GYM, Go Browse the Net, Play some Sport. Basically we made really good use of the recreational facilities available to us. One of these guys decided it was enough and never turned up at all, he was spending his time studying for CAT and preparing for other Job interviews. Last I heard was that, He has been put into another Department, where again he is on bench.

We also discovered some of the unused PC's or idle PC's left by people who were onsite or at other locations, in our floor which had loads of Music, Music Videos and other interesting stuff. With this, we killed time for another 10-15 days. At this time more than 70% of us were either not coming to office or we were out of town.

One fine morning when about 6 of us were taking a break from all the joblessness, our HR had come looking for us. We were a lil worried, wondering if we had been busted for all the loitering around or coming late, or taking those vacations we had taken to go home. We reported to her immediately. She wanted to know if we knew J2EE. We clearly explained that we did not, however fate overtook us and they put us into a project which involved only Java, JSP and all the 'J' Stuff. So that kind of ended our Honeymoon Period of 4 months where we were paid for doing nothing.

Note: I was into the Project exactly 2 months back. The workload has been unbelievable, which is why I have made this Entry after this long. It s like they are making us work for all those days that we were doing nothing. On a more serious note, the time on bench was quite frustrating also. After awhile you really lose your mind doing nothing.You are kind of stuck in the same place, without being able to do anything at all. You can't move to other jobs, coz you have no experience in your current job and you can't stick on either. Thankfully the project came through almost at the right time and I was able to hold on to my sanity.

MBA Pursuit

Almost anyone between between the ages 18-25, either in college or in some software company would have definitely heard about the revered exam - CAT. In these days, its rat race to get into those exclusive B-Schools, whether Tier I, Tier II or even Tier V.

Why this sudden mad rush? Everyone has their reasons. Most of them would provide lots of crap like entrepreneurship, climb up the corporate ladder without even having the faintest idea of what they are talking about. Some would say that they feel they have managerial skills based on the few events they have organized while others would say they can't code or survive in the technical line. A very few of them will actually say that its more for the moolah than anything else, which I would say is more or less the truth.

The number of people writing CAT has just gone up year after year, all these B-Schools are making great use of it. First you shell out 1100 Rs for an application. After which for some other college in the Tier I or II you shell out another few thousands just for the application. It's fast becoming a huge money making industry which includes coaching institutes and the B Schools. Most of the coaching institutes charge for their course, mock tests and even provide training for group discussion and personal interviews. The B-Schools of course are the bigger money making machines, by demanding anywhere from 500 to 2000 Rs for an application. Only about one-tenth of the applicants make it through and the schools just pocket it and most schools even demand that the applications be submitted before the date of the CAT or any of the other entrances that are conducted.

People have gone so crazy that they just take a year off so that they can focus on these MBA entrances. Ask them about it and you will get to hear a barrage of one liners such as 'I need to get through this time', 'Its all in your attitude', 'If you believe that you can make it then nobody can stop you' and stuff like that. They cut themselves for a year from everything else and do nothing but study. Are these people normal? They don't watch a movie, don't try to woo a girl, no social outings and then crack the CAT. On getting the interview call, they sit around with Businessworlds, Economic Times, Articles from the net and then try and ace the interview. The interviewers are no less. They pose questions such as 'Where do you see yourself in 5 years?' 'Why an MBA?' and most of the people have one common stereotyped answer (courtesy:coaching institutes) for all these questions.

But are these the kind of people that the B-Schools want??? According to most schools, they want to bring in some kind of diversity to ensure a better learning environment. Does their diversity include these weirdos who do nothing except study for a year to crack some MBA entrance? Will this kind of diversity do any good to any B-school education? I am not saying that everyone who walks into a B-School are all wierdos who just cracked CAT by studying for a whole year. There are others as well, namely the studs who seem like they have been born to crack the CAT, those who clear everything with almost no preparation at all. Of course they form a miniscule percentage of the people who write the numerous entrances.

This process will not be producing the best leaders, CEOs or Managers. They will just produce ordinary MBAs who are not going to be changing anything at all. The whole purpose of diversity, competitive exams, selecting the creme of the applicants will go for a toss. The whole purpose of producing MBAs will cease the hold the importance that it holds today, and the end of this crazy pursuit.

Note:
I am also among those involved in this MBA pursuit, who wrote a number of entrances in a hope to break into one of the B-Schools. Even though I did not make it, I am pretty certain that I will be taking another shot at it and my reasons would be anyone of those that I have mentioned in the second paragraph. This article is not a judge on what's right or wrong. It s only my view and opinions on the MBA Dream.

We are like this Only !!!!!

What makes us Indian? We have a proud heritage, we are a crucible of many religions and are well endowed with cultural tradition. But our everyday action has a different Indian to reveal. It is here we get to meet the Indian in its dazzling, confounding, cacophonic complexity.

The average Indian lives from festival to festival, one family function to another and from one public holiday to another. A lot of our action is rooted in a memory of scarcity and thus we have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to work around it. Our Idea of enjoyment should have nothing to do with expenditure. Take the game of Antakshari-we can spend hours singing at each other loudly, tunelessly without spending a paisa.

We learn to recycle everything-sell old clothes for utensils, grow plants in ice cream tubes, reuse the old milkpacket to pack something else and even sell old newspapers to the local kabaddiwalas to add a few notes to our non-taxable income. We throw nothing away, lofts are crammed with an impossible array of useless things we hang on to 'just in case', shoes are re-soled, some use is found for the TV's packaging consisting of bubble wrapping, thermocol etc. Call us frugal, call us thrifty. Call us kinky? Call us masters of improvisation, we hoard cardboard boxes, gift wrappings, disposables, ribbons, used envelopes and stamps, even the baby’s potty. Because we believe in the ‘what if’ principle. What if the salesperson forgets to gift wrap a present? (No worry; there’s wrapping paper saved from last year’s Diwali gifts.).

Education is a means to get ahead economically, it has nothing to do with knowledge. We put degrees on our name plates and ensure that they get mixed up with our initials. In addition we also add obscure certificates to elongate our polysyllabic qualification. Ph.D holders consider it a rare honour to attach the prefix ‘Dr’ before their names. In developed countries, barring medical practitioners, nobody is recognised as a ‘Dr’. Ph.D holders simply prefix ‘Prof.’, which is actually considered higher than ‘Dr’. A glance at the Nobel laureates list is proof of this. Indian politicians even manage to get ‘honorary’ doctorates.

Society plays the biggest role in the Indian's life. From paying absurd sums for college seat to spending huge sums to get daughters married off in a style 'that the world will see'. An underlying anxiety about the future guides much of our behaviour. These days we even have people importing stuff from abroad for a marriage. Flowers are being imported, the wedding sari is from Europe. Limos ferry guests, helicopters shower flowers. The barat is incomplete without the traditional ghodi. Even an ordinary Birthday celebration has soo many strings attached to it. They are theme parties with a hired party conductor. And the return gift is an autographed cricket bat or an expensive video game. Whatever happened to the good old birthday cake, samosa and birthday bumps?

We have schools named as Convent of Rani Jhansi without a trace of irony. Our bhajan's are set to the tune of Bollywood hip-shakers and we sway devotedly to these without embarrassment. Our conversations, instead of following the linear when-you-talk-I-listen mode, follows let-us-talk-together-and-may-our-pleasure-multiply mode. Our traffic follows a similar pattern with many parallel universes co-habiting the same space. What appears to be unbridled chaos is a more refined form of negotiated disorder, where everyone transacts with the road on a second-to-second basis. We honk madly and rape our sense, we overtake on the wrong side, flash blinding headlights and speed off, only to screech halt at the next traffic signal.

The Indian Thali or even the South Indian Meals shows a similar structure. Unlike western meal which proceeds on a sequential basis, the thali is about the joyous symphony of diverse tastes, textures, colours and flavours in one mouthful. The South Indian Meals has everything on one leaf, the culmination of rice,sambhar,curry,chutney is not complete unless the papad is broken on top of all this and then consumed.

The Entire India Ethos revolves around a 6 letter word called Adjust. Borrowing the word from the English language, we have embraced it as our very own. Every self-respecting Indian has gone ahead and adjusted it in his vocabulary. A commuter with one precarious toe on the footboard cries "adjust". As parking in cities gets harder, the adjust mantra saves. Adjust and fold the rearview mirrors, the other drivers will squeeze into imaginary spaces. Why, even Time magazine in one of its issues, quoted a senior Indian official as saying that India would offer to "adjust" the Line of Control by a matter of miles. We are trained well and can adjust to almost anything.

What this comfort with paradoxes has done is to arm us with sophisticated method of dealing with change. Modernity in India, is a continous act of tradition expanding to accommodate our emerging needs. We talk about how things must change. But all we do is go home, take a shower, watch Tv and continue to survive in the same manner.

We are strange lot, we have our idiosyncrasies, and yes, we are changing. Still, we are like this only.

Note:Extracts from the The Week dated 26 December,2004. View complete Article here

Prologue

Hi

Thanks for visiting my blog.

I am yet another newcomer to the blogosphere. After reading a few blogs, I just wanted a blog where I could reflect my thoughts, views, ideas, opinions on anything I wished to. Hence after much deliberation I decided to name it Alternate Impressions.

Alternate Impressions is about anything and everything. It could be a travelogue, political insights, stock market tips, football fixtures, book reviews, or even just some article that I found in some magazine.

Enjoy