The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

As with any other follower of IPL matches on TV, I have to pay the price of suffering the ads every few minutes. There are some ads that are barely recorded by the mind, they are neither great not so bad. There are others that are impactful, but you really worry whether the impact is positive or negative.

There are two ads that are particularly notable in this area. One is by Tata Indicom which seeks to pull customers to its fold by offering superior network quality. Sadly it ends up irritating you so much that Tata Indicom is out of my considered set, though I am suffering from dissonance with my existing cellphone service provider. Take a look:

The other ad is by rival Vodafone. Not sure what you make out of it, but I don’t feel gravitated enough to give them a call. Like Tata Indicom, they too have a series built around them.

Sometimes you wonder if ads are made for being raved by the admakers themselves.

Note: All IPs pertaining to the ads belong to their respective owners.

To call C as a photographer would be incorrect. A commando would be a better appelation.  C holds his camera with as much pride as a commando and points it the moment he has a doubt of some monkey business anywhere. And unlike the commando, C starts firing indiscriminately without any orders.

I am not going to identify C since the flavour of the season is anonymity spurred by the deep throat who blogs as the Fake IPL Player.

Coming back to C now. C honestly believes that his big camera is actually part of his human anatomy. He cannot live without it for a moment. He also believes everyone is interested in his elevator pitch on his camera particularly on virtues of optical zoom.It is amazing how he does it. 

Of course, C loves photography. But that love does not translate onto his love for his subjects. That’s why when people smile in a frame or look towards the lens, he yells,”Waste. Photo should appear natural”. Essentially means people have to have the dull, infinite-focus mode or animated discussions, but should not be even side-glancing towards the lens. And somewhere he also nurses the film-maker syndrome deep within. Nothing wrong with that – only with the retakes. Imagine his subject standing in the center of the road median in the April sun with vehicles whizzing past him from both sides. Not just that, the subject, another friend who I would call K points his right hand towards the sky towards an imaginary aeroplane that C taught him to visualize.  C meanwhile has his telephoto connected and standing in a shadow and adjusting his lens manually while K comes with his choicest abuses asking him to hurry up.

Ocassionally C gets into trouble with his camera. Once, driving by the outskirts, he is believed to have  stopped his car at an idyllic location and got down from his car with the camera. He also fitted a massively long lens in the front and pointed it to a villageman who was heading towards him. He kept adjusting till the villageman was possibly ten yards away from him. Finally, the villageman notices this retraction and expansion of lens that C was constantly doing in the hope of getting the perfect frame. He grew suspicious in case C could be holding a weapon! He became suspicious of C’s intentions. He just threw a stone towards C and ran back to the direction he came from. C also folded up and scooted the next moment.

But why do you need a long telephoto lens to take the above picture when the subject is just ten yards away is another dimension. Sometimes C suffers from the delusions that he is Rajanikanth and needs no framework of logic to define his actions.

And car is part of an extension of his body connected from a different part of his body. That’s why C often steps out of his house and gets into the car and goes nowhere and comes back. I think I’ve already sounded you out that he does not needs precise human-moded activities such as starting a car. It is just that C starts missing the car so much so he gets inside sits for the moment looks around and comes back!

Never mind, C!

In a normal times I am used to getting and ignoring all sort of sms marketing messages, which includes selling services such as car wash, PAN cards application facilitation, and products such as laptops, typewriters, furniture sale, crockery, dresses, mobile phones, sunglasses and everything else that I don’t need. One even gets messages from politicians asking for votes.

But, a car?! Read the text message that I received this morning -typos included and telephone numbers masked.

Get Ur NANO booking form, NANO booking loan and NANO car loan, from STATE BANK OF INDIA – GUINDY, PayRs 2999 & book NANO Standard. Call 9XXXXXXXXX/9YYYYYYYYYY

The professor of marketing may scoff at such supposedly unsegmented marketing via text message blitzkrieg. But think of it, such a mass text messaging has a fairly good chance of succeeding in a product like the Tata Nano. The car is different, and perhaps the conventional wisdom of marketing can be kept aside for the moment? These are not normal times anyways!!

At the outset I must tell you about two strong possibilities I have started believing in. First, Rehman must be a much sought-after ladies tailor.Second, his mobile number must be quite similar to mine. What else can possibly explain the numerous calls I have started getting from his clients of late.

Usually I manage to keep my cool and politely conclude the call as soon as I hear the ‘R’ word. But this morning’s call turned out to be different. I was climbing the stairs back towards the house after the cleaning the car in hot-sweaty weather. If you have such experience, you’d realize that the Indian male usually looks for warm cuppa tea that time, not surprise calls.

“Rehman, This is Mrs Raghavan speaking”

“No, err…”

“You spoiled my blouses. The entire set has gone waste”

I was not sure I deserved this barrage, which sounded much worse than it looks here. But Mrs Raghavan was in no mood to relent.

“But I..”

“Yes, you spoiled them all. Don’t do that again(almost screams). I am coming to your shop in thirty minutes. And keep your shop open, don’t back up and vanish, okay?”

I could mumble a meek sounding ‘okay’. Mrs Raghavan was kind enough to hang-up at this point. I felt totally overpowered and remain quite worried about future Rehman calls.

Sorry if I don’t take your call in next few weeks. I remain dreadfully frightened about the possibility of the next Rehman call!!

A shoe is an item of footwear evolved at first to protect the human foot and later, additionally, as an item of decoration in itself.

Ask the petrified politicians if he agrees, quite likely he’d not.

George Bush wasted time looking for WMDs. They finally came his way in a press conference. The Chinese were taken aback as well and Indian politicians are just learning the potency of this olfactory-cum-tactile projectile, usually hand delivered.

Next what? ‘Footwear not allowed’ press meets? Or keeping janta-janardan crowds so far away that a hand lobbed dirty-smelly-sweaty flying object of the above description does not proximate the dignitary’s honour. A flying shoe has the following impact:

1. Physical (Damage value – minimal)
2. Biochemical ( Damage value – moderate – the sweatly smell effect- yukks)
3. Emotional – Makes an amazing newsclip – media loves such short, shocking drama. No editing required. Can be replayed ad-nauseum. (Damage value – very high. TRP builder. It hurts, aaah.)

But bad, too bad. Politicians ‘serve’ their respective countries. They’d even say yes if you ask them whether they would lay down their lives for the honour of their countries if you ask them. But being treated with shoes?! Some footwear company’s ad once said their shoes are designed for better aerodynamics. Never understood then!

Update: Looks like it happened in Haryana this time around. Oops!

It has been just about two weeks since I daily started passing through Chennai’s Rajiv Gandhi Salai, aka IT Corridor on my way to work. But if you in Chennai, you’d rather choose to call this road by its old name, Old Mahabalipuram Road, or the shorter and modern sounding – OMR. Now, if you are marketing person you’d be worried to see your brand having such diverse monikers but in Chennai we just love it. In some ways it is like a much adored kid in the family whose maternal grandpa insists calling him Lalan Prasad, paternal grandma insisted he be called Ganesh Narayan, and the parents decided to call him Mantu at home while naming him Himanshu at school. Things get only a little more complicated when the kid grows up and introduces himself as, “Hi, I am Himanshu – call me Him”. Now why you’d call him as Him is to be understood only after sneaking undercover of the semantic logic, whereby Him in Sanskrit means ice and represents strength. And lastly, what’s in a name – I have had friends named Mrityunjay, but where called Mrityu by the entire gang![Mrityunjay = One who is victorious over death. Mrityu = Death].
Back to OMR. As I started daily going towards the hallowed world of Chennai’s IT city, I had experiences that gave me rainbow feelings. The MRTS train has a station at Thiruvanmiyur which is bang opposite one of the IT parks [Loud question : What has ‘IT’ got to do with ‘park’?]. Call it recession of whatever, but lot of people do seem to be thinking that using trains is after all, not such a bad idea. At least the number of people getting out of the station did indicate so. Sadly, the MRTS train does not go far along on the OMR.
As you move forward, the traffic slows down considerably, especially near a very fashionable building having sharp edges. Besides general traffic disorder, a contributory factor seems to be craning necks of male drivers – that sharp looking building is a fashion school for real and the crowd probably is quite fashionable. In other words, it is not the sharpness, but the curves that make that traffic jam. But I miss out probably because I am yet to master that the steal-a-look drive which my friend MR swore he’d mastered.
Now, if you are a lane conscious driver ( in India that is a choice in most parts, rather than an enforced standard), you’d get considerably perturbed to see cars overtaking your vehicle from the left side and then almost stalling in after coming in front of you. The same could happen from the right side as well. Don’t get perturbed. Take it easy and enjoy. It looks like a video game. Weird, isn’t it? If you are driving in the 2nd of the three lanes, you would even get the pleasure of being overtaken from left as well as right, at the exact same time!!!!
Xanadu? I never said this area is Xanadu. But just picture this – a reasonably well intentioned and intelligent person, aka me, getting ready for work, perfume, deo and so on. And after putting that Stetson after-shave (that came in as gift) to good use, getting into the car and driving towards IT Corridor with high thoughts of some world beater of an idea, which I hope to develop in the course of my few kms drive along the IT Corridor. I cross the junction that is the starting point of OMR aka Rajiv Gandhi Salai aka IT Corridor thinking about the idea that would soon world beater when the car AC system gives a weird stink. Small matter that a garbage truck, loosely covered by a sheet- I mean a fairly dirty looking open bed truck loaded with town’s garbage and covered with a flimsy sheet overtakes you from left and then miraculously fits in the exact space between your car and the vehicle ahead of you just as we all hit a traffic jam!! But then, how do you possibly nurture the new mind-blowing business model, or develop that recession proof niche service which the VCs would fall over one another to finance when the ghastly looking bespoke truck stands right in front of you. I mean it surely should be possible. But, a lesser mortal like mine just buries the idea that very point and starts looking at the possibility of a creeping lane change. Mad honking pushes some bikers out of the way and I succeed in changing the lane while the traffic is still static (only the packing factor changes). I mean you know it if you have done it. And no, unlike some slimy parts of the world, cows are not seen on this road. Only buffaloes, that too only twice in last two weeks. And truckloads of chickens being transported in cages to be processed. Where can you better see such direct examples of farm-to-fork business model?!!!!

A few kilometers down you are made cognizant to the existence of the imposing toll plaza via large boards. So you either Rs 17 one way, or buy a smartcard which can be loaded with 50 or 100 trips. Being that genetically incorrigible technology loving man, I buy the smartcard and load it with 50 trips. Also, I did not want to be robbed daily, once a month sounded a better option. Next time I approach the toll-gate, no cash business, I wave the magical smartcard to the toll-gate attendant who takes it near a sensor and the gate opens, I move on. This, I felt was wow. This was IT corridor. A few days down, my sense of wow multiplied manifold when I noticed that every-time the display shows the remaining number of trips as 49. Being that mild opportunist, I decide not to point out the problem to the attendant. Actually, every time I see that number 49 with my side-glance, I suppress my wow feeling, just give a bored look to the attendant and moved on. But inside I felt this was a real wow. Smugly I thought to myself that there was a problem with an update query in their data-base. I decided not to think too hard about how they could do better error handling, or maybe one of the companies around here can give them a ‘solution’. I also tried too hard not to think whether this happened to others as well? I also decided not to ask the question to my colleagues in case they feel jealous of me and complain!!! But ten days down in one of the ‘bored look’ moments, I had to rub my eyes, because somewhere the data square-off had happened and the system was showing the remaining number of trips as 40. I mean how cruel to a well-intentioned, reasonably intelligent and good-looking man like me!!!
Every evening as I reach home, I defrag my mind of all these experiences. Defrag is a technology term. In plain English, I mean I just purge of all useless thoughts from my mind. Like work. Next morning is another reboot with another attempt at developing another crazy business idea, as I take the Rajiv Gandhi Salai, a.k.a OMR, which I have gradually started to like.

Certainly 2009 has seen very few posts. Today I woke up and realized that I am unnecessarily running two URLs – one on Blogger where I ran this blog earlier and had some 150 odd posts, and the second one being this one.

I have decided to merge the contents (my first experience at M&A, even if they both acquirer and acquirer aka target are mine!). So you would find lot more categories on the right panel and some of my very old posts.

I invite you to read one of my favourite posts, which is based on an imaginary conversation between ex-Presidents of India and Pakistan, the venerable Dr Kalam and Pervez Musharraf. Of course, this is humour and please take it that way.