Catalyst

Why does the Superglue not stick to
the tube in which it comes?

When a friend recently asked me this rather ubiquitous yet ambiguous question, it got me thinking; about Catalysts. The simple textbook answer to this question would be that, the chemical in Superglue requires moisture to harden and as moisture is not available inside the tube, it does not harden and does not stick to the walls of the tube. Here, moisture is the catalyst for the reaction which causes the ‘trigger’ leading to the chemical bonding and hence when the superglue comes into contact with the moisture in the air, adhesion takes place.

A catalyst, as defined by the dictionary, is a person or thing that precipitates change. A catalyst also aids in the speeding up of a reaction thereby causing the change to take place. Deconstructing the question on the verbal elements I observed that the question had an adjective-Super, for glue. Would this question have made the same impact on my mind, had my friend not added this adjective? The adjective added potency to the question, which in itself was the catalyst to my thought process. Common glue also requires a catalyst to trigger the process of adhesion but because of the adjective ‘super’ the question assumes a rather nagging dimension. Does something superlative also require an external aid to help it achieve its objective? The adjective also necessitates the question about the quantity of the catalyst required.

Moving away from the realm of glue and adhesion, to the implications of these questions when posed in a human context? What triggers humans to achieve what they set themselves as targets? As moisture in itself is not responsible for the adhesion, this discussion here is about external catalysts, and will not delve on the topic of essential requirement of the ‘chemical’- the target which the human wants to achieve and will to do it, but only on what triggers this process. Motivation, appreciation, recognition etc can be considered as some examples which usually are cited as the catalysts which trigger performance among humans. It is also evident that companions and teams play the important role of catalysts for most men and women. Connecting with the right companion, or working in a right team is many a times a very significant performance trigger for humans.

But just as the adjective ‘super’ necessitated the question of the amount of catalyst required, this questions also pops up when superlatives among men were involved. There are an exceptional few, who among men have the unique distinction of being able to command the adjective of being super. If these superlative few also require an external catalyst, what is its nature and what quantity of it is required when compared to normal men and women?

As an answer consider this unusual twist. The chemical compound out of which Superglue is made out of also has moisture (the catalyst) in it, albeit in a different chemical form. All it needs is that little extra of one of its own ingredients to be realized externally to create the superlative adhesion. Similarly, the ‘ingredients’ which constitute supermen, already have all that is required within them, and the only catalyst they require for their superlative achievements, is to find that little bit of themselves (or their greatness) in others!

Acquired Competence or Instinct?

“How Hardwired Is Human Behaviour?” asks Nigel Nicholson, professor of Organizational Behaviour at London Business School in a Harvard Business Review article (July-August 1998). The theme of the article analyzes aspects of evolutionary psychology and its implications on “how the human mind came to be constructed”. It contends that the evolution of the human mind through the ages leaves behind ‘traces’ of the dominant psychology of the era, and how those behaviours manifest themselves in current day organizations and society in general.

So, it contends for example, that the reflexes developed by the human mind as a requirement of the physiological situation during the Stone Age are still remnant in our minds today, and that we are born with these qualities, pre-programmed into our brains.

After being introduced to this article and subsequent discussions on the same in the classroom during an Organizational Behaviour course, I have been trying to resolve conflicts in my mind about this. Its implications bother me, as it does not gel with my personal views on one the fundamental tenets of philosophy; epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, which studies man’s means of cognition. “Is reason a faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses – or is it fed by innate ideas, implanted in man’s mind before he was born” asks Ayn Rand on epistemology. And, being a strong believer in the advocacy of ‘reason’, as a basis of understanding, the idea of being hardwired seems incorrect to me.

Photograph courtsey Amartya De

I watched the tribal dance show put up at the Singapore National Zoo today, and observed reactions of the audiences’ fascination of the performer, who (during the show) accurately managed to puncture balloons from a distance by shooting darts through a ‘pea-shooter’. It got me wondering if this concept of ‘hardwired brain’ also extended to the realm of ‘skills’. Are we naturally gifted with certain kind of survival skills or does man have to gain these through the employment of sensory stimuli to a rational exercise of practice?

It also got me wondering if the audience would appreciate the performer being naturally gifted with these hunting skills, or if he had gained the same through practice. Personally, I believe it should be the latter, appreciation for competence gained through the application of reason, rather than it being available as an innate pre-programmed instinct.

References:

1. “How Hardwired Is Human Behaviour”, Nigel Nicholson – HBR July-August 1998
2. “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, Ayn Rand

"It's just so perfect!"

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour
- Arnold Toynbee

Given my limited travels around this world, it’s in this harbour city of Singapore, that I have realized how true this above statement is. But hang on, one will need another adjective when it comes to Singapore, and that would be “Synchronized Movement”. The sheer scale of this synchronism boggles the mind! Call it culture shock or an alien milieu, for someone who comes from beautiful chaos of India, this place presents a paradigm change. So much so, that one feels a sense of aversion for the perfection; as a friend commented,

Why would you want to stay here? It’s just so perfect!

Singapore harbour as seen from the cable car

Rose for your girlfriend, sir?

Church Street, the narrow road between the Brigade road and St. Mark’s road; parallel to MG Road in Bangalore’s bustling up-market area. It is late evening on a dry summer’s day. The sun has set and the light from the many buildings, billboards and the street lights illuminate most of the street, but still leave certain sections of the street, dark.

The lady, who sells assorted dry fruits on a push cart by the parked cars, is counting the day’s earnings. There has been a good sale of the cashew today but the walnuts, chestnuts and almonds are not sold. Her daughter has not persisted in pestering the Chinese couple who had bought some cashew that afternoon to buy other items. She looks for her daughter now and realizes that it is evening and the sale of ‘rose flowers’ must have started.

A shapely young girl of about 22 years stands waiting on the narrow pavement, beside the pushcart with her back to the two wheeler parking lot of a dingy, cream colored six storey building.

Her fair complexion, accentuated with generous amounts of make-up causes the crimson lipstick to stand out. She has shoulder length brown hair with streaks of gold recently colored into them. Her ears sport a light weight, yet prominent designer ornaments which almost reach up to her shoulders.

She is wearing a knee length black skirt and a sleeveless zebra stripped top. She is a tall girl, but still wears dainty little black shoes with three inch heels. She is clutching a black handbag close to her body with her left hand, even while the strap of the handbag is slung over her shoulder. Her right hand clutches a black Nokia mobile phone.

It is getting late and he has not even bothered to call, yet. The two service messages she got from her network provider turned out to be false alarms. Her face betrays the irritation. She jerks her head away from the sight of a couple walking arm in arm.

At the other end of the street a young man on a purple colored ‘macho’ Pulsar motorbike turns into Church Street from Brigade Road. He is tall, sports an unshaven look and is rather muscular. He wears a brown leather jacket. Despite the helmet rule imposed by the government, he does not wear one; rather it is hung on his left forearm. It is uncomfortable, but it is at hand and if a police man decides to move towards him, it can be worn at short notice. More importantly, he wants to avoid ‘helmet hair’.

His face is lost in deep thought and there is a sense of urgency on it. But, somehow he is not able to bring himself to ride any faster. He pulls over to the left and is lucky to find a narrow parking slot. He manages to maneuver the bulky motorbike into the narrow space between whole rows of tightly parked two wheel vehicles but is unable put the side-stand, let alone alight from the motorbike. Irritated, he looks for someone to come help him hold the motorbike while he alights or make space for him to do so.

Another man wearing a red cap, un-tucked brown check shirt and with grease stained hands comes and starts moving the vehicle to the right of the young man. The young man can now alight, but still with some difficulty especially as he does not want to stain or tear his khaki trousers. He gives the man with the red cap two rupees and reaches for his mobile phone which is in a small leather pouch hung from his brown trouser belt.

At the other end of the street the dry fruit lady lifts her head from the counting as she hears an attractive jingle. She can’t recognize the tune which is from Mylo’s ‘Drop the pressure’, and just looks for the source of the sudden melody. The young girl looks at her mobile phone and is relieved but she waits a few moments before answering it.

“Where are you?” he asks in an Indian language before she can say ‘hello’.

“Hello!” she replies with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “It’s been 30 minutes, you know!” then she continues in vernacular “Where are you? I am in front of Kaati Zone”

“Kaati Zone? Okay. I could not find parking space.”

“Are you still looking for parking? Why didn’t you come here directly? I told you, I would be waiting here, in front of Kaati Zone”

“No. I just found a space. I’m walking towards Kaati Zone now.” He replies leaning against his motorbike.

The guy with a red cap who is still moving an adjoining vehicle looks in the direction of Kaati Zone, searching for someone. It is quite a distance, he wonders. If only his daughter knew that this guy was going to walk all the way there, she might be able to approach him on the way.

“Why are you walking till here? Where have you parked? Anyways, come quick” she hangs up and reaches for something inside her black purse.

The lady selling dry fruits, who’s been distracted from her counting by the ringtone, now wonders how many roses has been sold that evening.

The young man is now walking towards Kaati Zone. He is now feeling very uncomfortable. He is wondering if it was worth all this. She had actually asked him to send her a Valentine day’s card by post on February 14^th, even though he had met her that day! “I mean, who does that” he thought. He had half a mind to stop at the vendor selling pirated books by the street side and delay reaching Kaati Zone some more time. “I wonder if she has ever read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull” he wonders as he sees the book. He continues walking.

Meanwhile, “I am sure he will notice it. He always notices this kind of stuff” the young girl has got a Maybelline Moisture Extreme lip gloss and is contemplating if she should use it. “I am sure he has discussed how luscious my lips look, with his creepy friends.” Instead, she gets a tissue paper and deftly starts removing the gloss from her lips. “Creep!” she thinks aloud and discards the tissue paper.

He notices her standing from a distance. “Wow!” he thinks, his face shows the exclamation. “Nice choice of clothes, madam!” he thinks and hastens his pace. “What was I thinking? Someone, this ‘interesting’ has to be given more consideration!” he chuckles to himself. “And besides, she is one hell of a dancer. And look! No ugly shiny lipstick also today!” Finally!

“Hi!” he says grinning cheerily, approaching her from behind.

She has noticed him coming, but turns a little slowly and maintains a poker face. With one hand on her hip she asks him without blinking her large eyes, “How come so late?”

“Sorry, sorry!” he replies eagerly “Friday evening is bad for the parking scene, Madam”

“Madam!” she is amused by the way he always calls her that. “So what?” she asks.

“He did send me two Valentine’s Day cards, and did not act smart about it when I asked him for it” she is thinking “Surely, he would have had to stand in the queue for an hour at Archie’s gallery to buy those cards”

“Sorry, sorry. I got a little delayed and thought it would be best to park my bike in the first spot I could find. Did you wait long?”

“Hello! It has been one hour, been standing here” she vehemently argues.

He looks lost. “How stupid of me, I was worried if she read some lousy book” he thinks “How am I going to salvage this?”

“Rose for your girlfriend, sir? Red rose, Sir. Please buy!” a noisy voice interrupts him. A little girl of ten is standing between them looking up, holding a bunch of red roses with small thorns still in their long stems. The lady selling the dry fruits is looking at them with unabated curiosity.

Both of them look at the little girl and then look at each other. He looks inquiringly, she avoids his eyes and tries to look away.

“How much?” he asks the little girl.

“Just fifteen rupees for two, Sir.” She replies looking at the girl. “How many you want madam?”

She looks at him with a mischievous inquiring look. “How much are you going to buy for me, ‘Sir’” she wonders.

He hesitates. “How many do you have?” he asks the little girl in all earnest.

“I have ten rose, Sir. That will be seventy five rupees”

He shifts his focus from the flower girl to the ‘madam’ who is now giggling. “Give me the ten!” he says to the flower girl and the ‘madam’ bursts out laughing.

The dry fruit seller smiles at a person wearing a red cap who is now standing beside her.

The giggling is now interrupted by the ringtone again,

“…… gonna drop the pressure”.

‘Madam’ waits for a moment and then disconnects the call.

Laissez Faire Capitalism: Political Freedom to Economic Freedom

“In a capitalist society, it costs money to discriminate, and it is very difficult given the impersonal nature of market transactions.”

If there ever was a pithy answer you could give to all those who advocate communism & reservations to counter the apparent discrimination in a free & capitalist economy, Milton Friedman’s above statement would have to be the one!

In the family tree of advocates for a Laissez Faire capitalist economy during the 20^th century, Milton Friedman was amongst the most prominent. An heir to the theories of economists like Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises, Professor Freidman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, for his achievement in the field of consumption analysis.

From being an advocate of John Maynard Keynes’ theory of a mixed economy during the WW-II years, Professor Friedman changed his views favoring the free market economy in the post war years.

His book “Capitalism and Freedom” originally published in 1962 is recognized as amongst 50 best books of the 20^th Century and has had profound influence on the economic policies of nations around the world.

As early as 1955, Professor Friedman in a memorandum to the Indian government, wrote

“The great untapped resource of technical and scientific knowledge available to India for the taking is the economic equivalent of the untapped continent available to the US 150 years ago”

Professor Milton Friedman passed away on November 16^th, 2006.

Reference:

1. www.wikipedia.com
2. http://indiatodayonline.blogspot.com/2006/11/milton-friedman-on-india.html

The advertisement is selling you!

Selling a product, a service, an idea can be rather complicated. One must actually know what is being sold, what its applications are and who would find these products, services, ideas and their applications interesting.

Selling “those who find these applications interesting” to the seller, so that he can sell his products, his services, his ideas, to them can be even more complicated. The latter is what I have been trying to do for the past ten months.

You might by now be wondering what this profession is where I am apparently involved in selling people to another seller. Before you get all confused, angry and repulsed about the profession I am in and decide not to ever read anything written by such a disgusting person, I will tell you what this profession is. Its Advertising!

“Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor” – Definitions Committee of the American Marketing Association

Now, here is the question. Through advertising is a person or an entity actually selling products, services & ideas; or are they selling people to these products, services & ideas?

I think it is the latter.

If you are a marketing grad you would surely have had your professors and others tell you that “Advertising is a mass medium tool aimed at disseminating brand information”; or if you are an average Joe with a cable TV connection, you would have probably seen the show ‘Storyboard’ on CNBC-TV18, where guys with French beards, orange streaked hair and ear rings tell you stuff about target audience, product planning, branding, channels of distribution etc in relation to advertising.

At first instance, both the marketing grads and the average Joes amongst you might point out (to me) that, what the definitions committee, your professors and the French beard guys are telling, contradicts the “selling people to the product” idea.

But, voluntarily or involuntarily, what they are actually telling you is that Advertising is more of selling people to a product, service or idea, rather than the other way round!

Am I just stupid to continue asserting this, or is there some slinky, cunning meaning to this?

Well, you guessed right. Logical fallacy or not, consider the following reasoning.

You are a toothpaste company trying to sell your brand, through advertising. Once you have identified that your toothpaste is orange in color, you next go about identifying all those who find this an invigorating color for toothpaste. You then release an advertisement extolling the benefits of orange toothpaste in whitening ones teeth.

This process can also be understood as follows. Finding out the interested audience; application of this audience and the toothpaste’s interest in it, in context to the advertisement, is its purchasing power; and your goal for the advertisement is to “make a sale” of this audience’s purchasing power!

In effect, what actually is getting sold through an advertisement is the interested audience’s purchasing power for the product, service or an idea. Hence, there is a focus on target audience, product planning, branding, channels of distribution etc from the French beard guys and the focus on the masses that are being sold through the medium of advertising in your professors’ definition!

Make sense? Or, do you think I am saying this from an advertisement salesman’s (or more aptly, response executive, as we are known in my organization) perspective? To make your job easier in making sense of this, I will leave you with this further thought to chew upon. If my job it is to sell an advertisement to a toothpaste company wanting to sell their toothpaste, what will I be trying to “make a sale of” through the ad?

The toothpaste, the toothpaste company, the ad itself or ------------------------------------------------ your purchasing power for the toothpaste!

Three Cheers to Angelina!

This post is inspired by the recent CNN exclusive that I saw, titled “Angelina Jolie: On Her Mission and Motherhood”. I am not really a great fan of the charity and philanthropy brigade, who go about claiming to be pseudo saviors of the down-trodden and the backward, but something about the profile of this sultry screen icon as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador seemed genuine. I have previously taken a stance that, charity and philanthropy should be consequence of individual’s judgment and not something as dictated by the society, and this was exactly the impression I got when I saw and heard about Angelina’s mission.

What is it that drives this sinfully beautiful Hollywood celebrity to take such an active interest in the lives of the refugees in Africa or Afghanistan or Cambodia? Surely it cannot be for publicity, she cannot have enough of it as a result of her celebrity life. Is she competing in a beauty pageant where she is being judged on her “Charitable Quotient”? I am confident that all men and most women would not disagree with me when I say that Angelina Jolie, would win any beauty pageant hands down, irrespective of her having a “Charitable Quotient” or not!

Whether it is adopting children who have been orphaned because of AIDS affected parents or supporting the cause of Afghan refugees during the height of post 9/11 Anti-Afghanistan frenzy, Angelina Jolie has stood her ground against the barrage of criticism. Criticism, for the fact that her philanthropy was based not on what society deemed fit, but based on her judgment.

I will conclude this post with a linguistic alliteration. As I saw the television documentary on Angelina, and saw the pictures of her amongst the malnourished and petrified natives of a suffering African nation I could not help but wonder if they thought of her as someone who had descended from the heavens, their own ‘pretty little angel’ which when translated into French would be ‘Angelina Jolie’ !

Read More here at Wikipedia

Note:

On a humorous note, to point out the fact that everyone has their own interest when it comes to charity, as I write this post I am also watching an episode of Sienfeld where Jerry is about to be audited by the IRS for claiming illegal tax deductions for contributing for a fraudulent volcano relief fund for Krakatoa. It becomes really hilarious when Jerry claims he did so “thinking only of the brave Krakatoans, who have suffered so much for so long!”

“We want the industry to do it voluntarily!”

A book called Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. I read it in 2001. There were two kinds of people in the book, the people who were pure evil and those who were unparalleled in their goodness. I thought, when I read it that this was a very unrealistic view of the world. In the book, the evil people scheme unrelentingly with a façade of doing a great help to the society and the good people initially bear these obnoxious atrocities without batting an eyelid. I thought, when I read the book that the ways of the world was not so "black and white", and that there have to be many shades of gray in between.

Over the past five years, one by one these shades of gray have started disappearing. But still, come on! There are still shades of gray, right? I mean that book was too much! Take for instance this court scene in this book. There is this brilliant industrialist who is single handedly capable of keeping the economy afloat and he is being prosecuted for something as stupid as selling his product to another company when there is some government regulation which prohibits this. Here is a small excerpt from this court scene “drama”

… He noted the stillness in the room. By the rules of complicated pretense which all those people played for one another’ benefit, they should have considered his stand as incomprehensible folly; there should have been rustles of astonishment and derision; there were none, they sat still; they understood.

“Do you mean that you are refusing to obey the law?” asked the judge.

“No. I am complying with the law – to the letter. Your law holds that my life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very well, you may now dispose of me without my participation in the matter. I will not play the part of defending myself where no defense is possible, and I will not simulate the illusion of dealing with a tribunal of justice.”

“But, Mr. Rearden, the law provides specifically that you are to be given an opportunity to present your side of the case and to defend yourself”

“A prisoner bought to trial can defend himself only if there is an objective principle of justice recognized by his judges, a principle upholding his rights, which they may not violate and which he can invoke. The law, by which you are trying me, holds that there are no principles, that I have no rights and that you may do with me whatever you please. Very well. Do it.”

“Mr. Rearden, the law which you are denouncing is based on the highest principle – the principle of the public good.”

“Who is the public? What does it hold as good? There was a time when men believed that ‘the good’ was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it – well, so does the burglar. There is only this difference: the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act.”…

{A few paragraphs and dialogues later}

“But we are giving you a chance to defend yourself – and it is you who are rejecting it.”

“I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognized. I will not help you preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend that you are administering justice.”

“But the law compels you to volunteer a defense!”

There was laughter at the back of the courtroom.

“That is the flaw in your theory, gentlemen.” Said Rearden gravely, “and I will not help you out of it. If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition – which you cannot force – that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do; I will do it at the point of the gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there – I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine – I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me – use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action.”

Although this may seem out of context when read here, what the excerpt conveys is a logical fallacy. The judges are unable to pretend about the righteousness of their "laws" when the victim refuses to recognize the crime. If the victim refuses to voluntarily accept his “guilt” the tribunal is unable to interpret its own laws. I thought, when I read the book, that this was very unrealistic. I mean, what’s with all the volunteering? Surely, nobody would want another to voluntarily accept a noose around his own neck?

Today I saw an interview of Ms. Meira Kumar, Honorable Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, conducted by Karan Thapar on CNBC TV18 on the topic of Reservations in the private sector. I would like to provide another excerpt, but as I do not have it verbatim, I will try to provide the gist. (*)

The topic revolved around the subject of whether the industry should be forced into accepting the reservations for SC/STs. After many instances of when the honorable minister shouted her way away from answering many of Mr. Thapar’s questions directly, there came her way a question.

Karan Thapar: “Minister, if the captains of industry (whom you have asked to come back with details of how many SCs and STs they have on their rolls) come back and tell you, that they do so in sufficient numbers what would you do then?”

Meira Kumar: “That’s too hypothetical a situation”

Karan Thapar: “But you want to base your decision to impose reservations on hypothetical data, which even your government data shows to be wrong, but here you do not want to answer a hypothetical question.”

Meira Kumar: “No, I will have to apply myself to this”

Karan Thapar: “Would you be verifying their data?”

Meira Kumar: “No, you are making it out that as though I am suspecting the captians of industry. I mean I will have to apply myself to this. I will have to look at what course of action I can take.”

Karan Thapar: “What would be your response to this after you have applied yourself to this. Would you then impose this reservation? What would be the course of action you take?”

Meira Kumar: “I don’t have to disclose every action I intend to take on television. It was I who told them [the industry] to check that they may already have SCs and STs on their rolls. Don’t be averse to having SC/STs on your rolls.”

Karan Thapar: “Yes, and if the industry has sufficient numbers already, then?”

Meira Kumar: “No, I will have to apply myself to this. I cannot say what my course of action would be. We don’t want it to be forced; we want the industry to create reservations in their rolls voluntarily.”

That’s when I realized that one more shade of gray had forever disappeared. This debate was very similar to the prosecution of Mr. Rearden in that book. This was not only about imposing reservations to some backward caste, tribe, class, sect etc in private sector. This was also about wanting the industry to voluntarily do it. Voluntarily hire people based not on the merit of being able to do the job, but being born in a backward segment of society. Voluntarily put a spanner in a running machine and pretend it is in the effort to administer justice. Voluntarily put a noose around one’s own neck and pretend it is the highest principle - the principle for the public good.

I realized that amongst my gray shades of doubt, one hue had become black. It proved the existence of a kind of rot in society which wanted others to volunteer guilt where none existed. It has also made me realize that I must look for those who when faced with such a request would react as Mr. Rearden reacted in the book at the end of that trial, by saying,

“… If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their mood requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!”

Notes

(*) Please note that the dialogue posted here between Ms. Meira Kumar and Mr. Karan Thapar is not the exact transcript and has been written in my words, about what I heard transpired in that interview. If anybody can provide me with the actual transcripts I would immediately replace the same here.

References

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Signet Books, 1957

Rear Window

Any search on the internet for the best crime/mystery movies will always link somehow to Alfred Hitchcock. And among his many movies two stand out: “Psycho” and “Rear Window.” Both these movies are cult classics mainly because of their superb story telling in archetypal Hitchcock-ian style. After seeing the History Channel’s montage on Hollywood villains, and after being bitten by the bug, I decided to rent a Hitchcock movie, on a recent rainy Sunday afternoon.

Rear Window, based on Cornell Woolrich’s short story was released after Psycho with a punch-line which read “See it! If your nerves can stand it after PSYCHO.” A classic crime noir fiction, Rear Window is a story about how an invalidated shutter bug with a nothing much else to do as his leg is in a cast, sets about trying to solve a neighborhood murder.

What sets it apart from the macabre Psycho is the humorous undercurrent in the entire movie. The lead character, L.B. Jefferies played by James Stewart is uncomfortable about his plight, but is nevertheless indifferent about it. He is going through his six weeks stuck to his wheel chair and his situation is an apt example for the proverb “An idle mind is a devil’s workshop”. Not only does he spend his time looking through the window and into the lives of his neighbors, he also starts doubting if his fiancée is the right woman for him!

Rear Window is also a romance in its own right. The fiancée played by Grace Kelly is a popular socialite. She, according to James Stewart’s character, who as a news photographer travels to the distant and unknown parts of the world, is too high society for his comfort. Part of the movie is how Grace Kelly’s character proves to him that she is just as adventurous as he is.

Written by Cornell Woolrich, who has been termed as the father of noir fiction, and directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window is a great picture for crime movie buffs.

Market Research and the Media

{Also cross-posted at the Indian Media Bash Blog. Read Here }

Having recently joined the media advertising industry, I now have to deal with an overwhelming amount of data pertaining to various market data. In the print industry certain figures hold a lot of value; they are the Audit Bureau of Circulation figures called the ABCs and the National Readership Survey figures called the NRS-es. These data provide an estimate of the number and habits of people reading newspapers and magazines. This is very relevant for marketing the newspaper or magazine to the advertisers because most decisions about media buying are based on these figures. It helps the advertiser ascertain the kind of readers who will eventually see their advertisements and if it will provide them with expected response.

Targeting the Decision Maker

With the demographics of India showing a considerable skew towards a youthful populace and as youngsters with larger disposable incomes become independent decision makers, more and more advertisers are now very interested in knowing the habits of these decision makers. While the ABCs and the NRS-es give the data about the reach the media instruments have, the DMS or the Decision Makers Survey, now presents a very important value proposition to the advertiser. What this mainly describes is the kind of readership the publication has among decision makers, whether it be in terms of corporate decisions or day to day household purchase decisions. For instance FMCG companies selling a product like Sunflower Oil would rather advertise in a family channel like Star Plus which is watched by a large number of household purchase decision makers, the housewives rather than CNBC which is watched more by business men.

Experiential Media

What is also relevant in the media today is a shift towards more experiential platforms of advertising. Advertisers today are looking at providing the customer with an experience with their brands and not just the product. This is based on the psychographics, or attitudes and behaviors of the consumer. It has been ascertained, for instance that due to the rising attention deficiency syndrome amongst readers of a newspaper the time spent by an average reader with a newspaper is significantly lower than before. What this means is that, the print advertisements although reaching the audience indicated by the readership figures of the NRS-es and ABCs, are not actually providing brand connect. Hence it becomes imperative for the advertiser to look for media which does not only provide an Opportunity to See, but actually an Opportunity to Experience.

So its market research then?

So it is clear that market research and surveys is an integral cog in the wheels of the media decision vehicle. But can all decisions be taken based on these surveys? Although generally when one is presented with such a question, we usually disagree and say that not all marketing decisions can be taken based on market research; there are very few arguments which disapprove of it as a useful tool. But, I was recently introduced to a rather potent argument about how market research is not all powerful as claimed by the statisticians and hardcore data junkies. Consider a scenario where a toothpaste company conducting a market survey about its product, poses various questions to its users about the taste, smell, color, package ergonomics etc. The kind of response which can be expected could be about wanting a higher mint flavor, a fresher smell, a greener color and so on. But what the argument contends is that by conducting such a conventional market survey, what the toothpaste company is getting are only incremental improvement suggestions for their product and not very significant experiential changes. For instance, because of a restrictive question set in the market survey pertaining to the past and current experiences of consumers about the product, the company loses out in tapping aspirations of the consumer for newer experiences like that of a teeth protecting chewing gum.

Capturing Relevant Audiences

This above situation is a very relevant discrepancy in terms of a market research exercise because of its reliance on past and current experiences as the basis on which the future is to be extrapolated. While these suggestions are predominantly incremental improvements in nature, what is more relevant today is capturing the experiential aspirations for the future. Also important is the need to make the advertising reach the relevant audience more than anybody, and with values becoming more and more embedded in experiences than in just the product, market research has to be redefined from being survey figures to being portals to experiential aspirations of relevant audiences.

Well, That Sounds About Right

It was Newton I think who said something about momentum and how things keep gaining it, if there is no friction. I am sure there have been other geniuses who have taken this to an abstract level and equated it to human activities as well; by which I mean to say that, an author can keep on writing, a poet can keep on composing when not impeded by any distractions, so on and so forth. For “Content Driven” bloggers like me, (Someone commented about one of my posts with that adjective!) a little momentum is all we require, but fall flat at the first mention of any friction. On Jan 25^th, 2006 came the first mention of friction in my blogging career, a trip to sunny Goa!

Go Goa!

One can make up his mind all he wants about maintaining notes to write a travelogue, but once he hits the sandy beaches in Goa, it just becomes impossible. People don’t necessarily become lazy and start wasting time, but what happens is one experiences a complete disconnection from the world back home. Clocks are tuned to beach time and the mind is also numbed by a sense of casual un-belonging.

There is nothing really to the hype that is Goa. Miles and miles of Blue Ocean, sandy beaches, rocky forts, a city which thrives only on the moolah of the passing traveler and the sale of alcohol. One can never know that tourism is such big business until one sees the entire economy of a city based on it.

Anything and everything is created and designed to attract the eye of the traveler. Bright colors, vibrant designs and fresh aromas confront the traveler at every corner, making it easy for him to loosen his purse.

Falling off the Parachute is also fun!

Well not literally off the parachute, but an unplanned dive into the water when the boat pulling your parasail makes a sudden stop in the open sea, thanks to the anchor rope of a rogue boat, is definitely a lot of fun. Especially when the money paid for the “adventure sport” is refunded fully, thanks to this rather unfortunate [?] incident!

Incoherent and unable to write to a coherent post

Well, as is evident from the rambling above in this post, the long break from blogging has taken a toll on my ability to write anything coherently. A lot else too has happened in this period of my absence from the blogosphere, which have evidently doomed my comeback, diary entry like post. For lack of any other title and footnote, well that sounds just about right! [Barely!]

Say, are you game for some Satire?

{Also cross-posted at the Indian Media Bash Blog. Read Here }

For MAD magazine fanatics like me, everything in those pieces of satire is like pure gold! But believe me, the humor of MAD does not appeal to everyone. From “Alfred E. Neuman’s” various avatars to the “Letters and Tomatoes Department” and from the “The MAD Movie Satires” to the unforgettable “Spy Vs Spy” bloodbaths, all of them are unbelievably cruel. Cruel in the sense that, they go all out to make the life of those being parodied, unbearably funny. The caricatures of celebrities are not only realistic, but the situations they seem to be portrayed in, are very relevant to their “personalities”. Ya, I mean I know most of you are thinking that that is what they are supposed to be doing, but somehow I feel that after RK Laxman’s cartoons, no other cartoons seem to be able to convey the humor with a punch like those found in MAD.

The Gods of Movie Satire and everything else!

The features where they have cartoon parodies of the latest, famous movies, TV serials, and political events are just hilarious. Some of my favorites are from the Kicking the Hobbit Department: “Bored of the Rings” and from the Serge in General Department: “MAD look at Jackass”. One of the most memorable recent issues of MAD I read was the “The Official Unofficial History of MAD” [Thanks to a friend whose copy I borrowed and have still not returned!]. It carried the chronological history of how MAD developed and in a sort of “Forrest Gump-ish” way connected the important happenings of the 20^th century with the issues of MAD. The bit about how Bill Gaines, the editor of MAD in 1987 skipped lunch for a week and by doing so saved Ghana from a famine has me in splits ever since!

Cine Blitz has Gone MAD?

Now back in India and to some interesting notes about our desi magazines, I found that Cine Blitz, the film magazine from the Mallyas [I did not know this, but the credits say that Mr. Vijay Mallya is the chairman] has a section on movie satire which is a ditto copy of the MAD version. I generally don’t page through Cine Blitz or Star Dust or any other movie magazines when I am in our club library, because most of the people there give me a nasty look, thinking that I am wasting my time ogling the glossy pictures of filmy babes, apart from all that’s on TV anyway. But today, seeing that Time magazine was already in the hands of someone else, I decided to page through a couple of these magazines. I pity the people who spend time writing articles in these magazines, I doubt if anyone reads them anyway. [Note to editors, magazine owners and others: This previous comment does not in anyway indicate my disinclination towards writing such articles if they are offered to me.] Everybody is so busy paging through the glossy airbrushed pictures of film stars and models that I doubt if anyone reads beyond the first two lines of the write-ups. Anyway, coming back to what I was saying before, Cine Blitz it seems now carries a movie satire piece with cartoons.

I found that I actually was reading October, 2005’s edition of Cine Blitz and it carried a parody about Aamir Khan’s movie Mangal Pandey- The Rising. It had caricatures of Aamir Khan, Amisha Patel, Rani Mukherjee and other cast members of the movie in goofy Mangal Pandey situations. I found that it also carried a joke similar to what I had conjured up in this post, about how unemployed dancing girls will find jobs in movie item numbers.

Satire in Indian Media

Well, this piece in Cine Blitz was nowhere as good as what is found on MAD, simply because it was not wicked enough! But satire and parodies in our Media is rather sparse according to me. Yes we have Shekar Suman with his Vajpayee imitations, NDTV’s puppet show, Double Take and a few others, but most satires are not of any mentionable quality. We are not such a satirical people as the Americans are [which is good] and many have complained to me that they don’t want to feel guilty by reading trash like MAD, but some laughing at ourselves will do us no harm. As I write this piece, the Apsara Award show is being aired on TV and I find that the event organizers too have come up with an attempt at satire. I must say, Ganesh Hegde and Diya Mirza’s parody about the hit movie songs of 2004-2005 looks like a good attempt. The comedians of the Great Indian Laughter Challenge also do a great job. And if the popularity of that show is any indication, it would be that we can afford to laugh a little more at MAD like satires and not feel guilty about it!

Newselicious!

[Updated: Read the updates to this post below]

{Also cross-posted at the Indian Media Bash Blog. Read Here}

There is lots of news going on about news media in India. A whole bunch of new channels have sprouted in a very short period of time, and the journalistic world is all upbeat about the variety and richness in content that is expected by this increase in the number of channels. Many blogs have also commented on this topic, like here and here. I remember vaguely when Star News started in the mid-90s with Prannoy Roy’s NDTV providing the content. This started the change in the way people got news, very different from the way DD news used to handle it. The content was more opinionated and the journalists were also more “involved”. From the famous “News-Readers” of the DD era like Minu Singh and Usha Albuquerque we grew up to “News-Presenters” like Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt.

News with Views

Talk shows and debates also got introduced into the news channels. Shows like “The Big Fight” and “We the People” hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt respectively very not only a must see on Saturdays and Sundays, but both of them attained cult status with the our generation. Compared to the days of dull news reporting of DD, this was a paradigm change and people’s voices were heard. They asked tougher questions than those before them, but many felt a bias of a socialist nature in the views expressed by them. This also started the interesting trend of news channels making an “Impact” on the people’s lives. From taking the case of finding homes for abandoned babies to generating aid for a blind girl to go to school, news channels connected with the audience in a way, so as to involve them in social stigmas.

Channel Mela

The completion of Star news’ contract with NDTV saw the launch of new channels like 24X7 and India by NDTV. While these channels maintained the same look, feel and content like their earlier persona as Star News, Star TV itself took the tabloid way out. At the same time, the India Today group which had been running the highly successful Aaj Tak, Hindi news channels launched Headlines Today in English. Although Headlines Today is similar (Very generalized word) in its feel with NDTV, the competition has never been fierce. Unfortunately for HT, their tag line of “Sharp news for sharp people” has not caught on, and the only news presenter most people can associate with HT is Jujhar Singh and not for his news reading skills but for his funny accent!

NDTV 24X7 is still my most preferred news channel. Apart from Prannoy Roy, the dependable and seasoned presenter/head honcho of NDTV, five presenters stood out, Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt each with their trademark shows and Vikram Chandra, Arnab Goswami and Sonia Verma with the daily news. Around an year ago, Rajedeep Sardesai went missing from the screens of NDTV and from the show the Big Fight and finally about a six months ago I read in the print media that he was now editor in chief of “IBN- India Broadcast News”, and with a tie up with CNN was soon to launch a channel of his own. To be very frank, I did not notice the exit of Arnab Goswami from NDTV, until I saw him as a presenter in the promotional features of a yet to be launched new channel “Times Now” from the Times of India Group. Barkha Dutt & Vikram Chandra are still active on NDTV, but Sonia Verma is a rarity these days, although I doubt if she is involved with another channel.

Bite from the NDTV apple.

Now that CNN-IBN is out and a couple of months old, the similarities with NDTV are not easily hidden. It is not very surprising since many from the NDTV staff have been poached by Rajdeep for his channel. Anubha Bhosle, Suhasini Haider, Priyanjana Dutta are just some of them who have made the switch from NDTV to CNN-IBN. Even Headlines Today has lost a few like HR Venkatesh to CNN-IBN. If NDTV started the sensationalization of news to some extent and Headlines Today was one step ahead, I think CNN-IBN is taking it to the next level. But I think the team there deserves some latitude from the viewers in this regard, as they are a young channel and still finding their footing in the market.

But a few things do look and feel a little funny with CNN-IBN. I found it very amusing to note that CNN-IBN gives fancy names like “Chief Cricket Correspondent” and “Chief International Affairs Correspondent” to their journalists similar to the fancy names for their shows like LOC- The Love of Cricket! But, Sonali Chander of NDTV with her flirtatious attitude towards Navjot Sidhu does a much better job of covering cricket, than Nishant Arora of CNN-IBN. Another thing new which I observed with Rajdeep’s channel was the CNN-like feel to hosting news shows. The anchor in the studio is not the overall compeer, but field reporters also link to other field reporters while developing a story. This kind of tagged-presenting is very common with CNN’s anchor driven shows like Anderson Cooper 360, or News Night with Aaron Brown.

It is taking Whatever!

There is a deluge of media portals that have opened up recently. General news channels like NDTV and Zee News have also sprouted business channels like NDTV profit and Zee Business to compete in the business news space with CNBC-TV18. With all this activity in the TV space, radio and print are not far behind. With the recent legislation of allowing more private FM players into the market, maybe we will soon have a city based radio news channel as well. The print media has seen brand new papers like Mumbai Mirror and DNA in Mumbai and the entry of Hindustan Times into the Mumbai market. With the economy of Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad also booming, it won’t be long before many news papers start making a foray into these markets as well. Finally, the greatest revolution in news media is going to be in the internet space with the Blogosphere gaining popularity as in your face kind of journalism. The plethora of ideas and vastness of the coverage that the Blogosphere is made up of cannot be ignored. With the world moving towards a pod-casting, RSS- Really Simple Syndication and Push Button Publishing kind of a market, the content is not only going to get diverse, but also very customer specific.

Update 1: I think, CNN-IBN's "Whatever it takes" tag-line is going a bit too far. Today another "CNN-IBN IMPACT" feature was aired. Titled "The King is Dying" it was about the dwindling population of Lions in the Gir Forest in Gujrat. The creepy part was that it was hosted by a person called "Bahar Dutt", sporting a bob-cut look, with gestures and reporting style very similar to NDTV's Barkha Dutt! Come on Rajdeep! You can do better! [Unfortunately, the poor corrspondent is not to be blamed for having a similar name and look, but I smell a rat somewhere!]-21/1/2006

Update 2: As indicated by an anonymous commentator and later google verified by me it is confirmed that Bahar Dutt is actually Barkha's sister. So no blame can be passed to her about the similarity of gestures with her sis!

Venice in Yelahanka!?!

Incongruity What, Where?

Venice is apparently the most enchanting place on earth, and it is being recreated in good old suburb of Bangalore called Yelahanka. Inspired by the magical landscape of Venice, the new luxury apartment complex in Yelahanka will be equipped with not just sparkling waterways and lush gardens it will also have a vast piazza and even a magnificent Bell Tower! So a public square or market place will be in the midst of high rise apartment blocks. Well maybe it will be a place where all the street hawkers who carry vegetable baskets on their heads will assemble everyday, or the place where scores of men who exchange old clothes for utensils will make a raucous, calling out to the many matrons of the flats. But a bell tower in an apartment complex? I wonder what this will be used for. Since Bangalore [or is it Bengalooru] is a city of the future, maybe the bell will be used for reminding the inhabitants of the apartments the intervals of time, with a loud gong every hour and twelve gongs at noon. Also, every aspect of this high end home will be very thoughtfully designed. It will have all the amenities required for the people inside the large compound of Venicelahanka. From vitrified floors to ornate lobbies leading to water purifying plants, the place will be packed with look-alike artifacts from Venetian palaces and buildings. With swimming pools, health spas, Jacuzzis, tennis courts and gyms, the inhabitants will not have to step out of the compound for days on end, excepting of course to buy Mortein mosquito mats, for the swarms which will make the waterways their homes. Or maybe, people in Venicelahanka will board their Gondola and take their gently rocking boats to the Piazza to buy mosquito coils every time the gong from the bell tower sounds!

Originality When, How?

Who wants originality when one can experience “the spirit of Venice” in Bangalore’s homes. Who is bothered about the function of architecture when form can fake the luxury of having cobbled streets and Grecian relief in ones backyard? Incongruity be dammed if the nouveau rich can have the feeling of floating in a narrow gondola through the waterways of Venice to get to their neighbor’s apartment. This kind of a faking of reality is cancerous according to me. This is not only creativity at its gaudiest but also a relinquishing of one’s cultural integrity. The problem is not that people crave for a luxurious lifestyle but a need to ape the west in such irrelevant pretences.

Culture? Naw, we want tradition baby!

Culture is always mistaken with tradition. In the name of copying the western culture, we Indians end up copying their architecture and dress codes and not their values. We want the cobbled streets of Geneva in our cities but not the Swiss sense of quality. We want the fountains of Berlin in our parks but not the punctuality of the Germans. We want Italian automobiles on our roads but don’t have the basic decency to wait for the traffic signal to turn green before proceeding. Culture police will lament about how globalization and free markets have eroded Indian culture by allowing such incongruity to set in, but will not question the lack of self integrity when it comes to choosing the right things. Then people will indulge in wasteful activities like re-christening of cities to have a sense of belonging with one’s culture and tradition. Unfortunately, it is only the tradition of the west that we seem to ape and not their value systems. Concepts like free trade, punctuality, quality and common road sense seem lost to us, but a gargoyle shaped fountain is what we aspire for in our luxury homes!

The Coconut Picker

The view from the window of my bedroom in our second floor apartment is that of crisscrossing bristles of the green leaves of a coconut tree. Trying to thwart the habit of an afternoon siesta, which is unbecoming of a twenty three year old like me, I lay on my bed beside the window this past Sunday afternoon enjoying the view of squirrels scurrying among the yellow green coconuts which looked ripe enough to be picked very soon. It had rained the previous night and the green leaves looked bright and a couple of the dried brown ones hugging the trunk of the tree also glistened in the afternoon sun. Just as I was wondering about the need to pick the ripe coconuts and pull down the dried leaves lest they should come crashing down in the next rain, I saw a pair of thin, sun burnt brown arms of an old man who picked the coconuts, climbing the gray trunk of the tree.

I sat up, amazed at this coincidence and observed as the old man climbed up to within reach of the coconuts with the ease and confidence of a skilled person. His legs were wrapped around the trunk of the tree, a small piece of jute rope looped across his ankles and one of his hands holding a small curved machete. He was a lean man in his late fifties but his arms and legs did not show signs of age. He wore a turban over his squat face and the white bristles of his unshaven beard were in contrast with the brown of his wrinkled skin. The skin over his gaunt face was pulled taut with concentration as he clung on to the tree at the precarious height with just his legs and used both his arms to cut the dead leaves of the tree.

He was one of the regulars who plied the street selling tender coconut and had been for many years now, the person who picked the coconuts when they were ripe. Nobody had to inform him when to come and just as the thought of trimming the trees popped up in the minds of the housewives and grandmothers of the houses on the street, he would be there the next day offering to do the job. He was a quite man, someone who probably knew when the coconut trees on this street were ready to be pruned and turned up without fail at the right time. It was probably the recognition of his skill that there was a tacit understanding between him and the matrons of the houses and there was never any haggling between them unlike the few other younger men who turned up at infrequent intervals and demanded exorbitant charges.

I sat watching him using his machete to cut the coconuts off the tree and seeing them fall down some thirty feet with a thud and rolling off to all corners of the garden below. There was a simple beauty in the way he executed this, holding the coconut he was cutting in his left hand and using the machete in his right hand to dislodge it from the tree with just one slash. He then let it go from the height where it always landed on the mud below before it bounced off with tremendous force towards the pots, but never managed to break them. This reminded me of a fable which my mother had told me about a traveler who rested below a large banyan tree on his road and wondered why God had blessed such a vast tree with tiny cheery sized fruit and a small shrub with a big fruit like a pumpkin. The beauty of nature dawns on him when he is awoken by the small fruit popping over his head and realizes that he is lucky that it was not a large pumpkin that fell on his head instead.

I had always wondered whether the coconut tree had been an anomaly to this wonderful order in nature and why such a hard shelled fruit hung so high above our heads. But as I saw this skilled man at the top of the tree ripping the coconuts from the tree with a calm casual brilliance, I realized that there was a superior order of nature - the competence of man’s mind which has the cognizance to discern good from bad and in the process of ensuring its welfare also finds the nectar hidden in the giddy heights it has scaled. After all, isn’t it this ability to appreciate good things that inspired a Kannada poet to ask his fellow men

“… Thindidiya khobri bella?”

(Have you had the pleasure of eating the mixture of coconut and jaggery?)