The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

It is not that one has to buy a book to read how contrasting thoughts across age, gender and states of India can be.  It is just that this combination of demographic, psychographic and behavioral contrasts give rise to situations that sometimes become anecdotal. This one happened on a flight that was connecting Delhi to Chennai, an just about five months back. The name of the airline is not important. The configuration of the aircraft really is.

It just so happens that Seat 27E of this flight is next to a safety door. What is more important that there is a seat at that safety door which is occupied by a flight attendant during take off and landing. In this case, the flight attendant occupying this particular seat was a lady, and if you like, you can use the conventional term which is air hostess. And if you are a young man by age or heart, you know how hard you must try to ignore the situation. More so, if your seat number is 28E, in which case the you almost face the air hostess during that time. And if you are on 29F, you not just get additional leg room, you face the airhostess completely.

This particular flight, I was on Seat 28E, which means that that I was almost facing the airhostess. We were waiting for the flight to take off. Not sure if you agree, but in the proximity of beautiful women,  lot of men in the middle ages feel teen aged, retirees feel in their thirties, and those in their thirties feel as if they just started wearing trousers to school. They also try futile ploys and invent logic in defence of their unexplainable mental pattern ( A cousin of mine claims he flies only Kingfisher because their flights are on time). Men make the most of their flying experience even more so when their better half is not in the same flight, which appears to be the case with most of the actors in this particular flight.

Our aircraft was tenth in queue for take off. Which means, if you take an average of about 2 minutes per aircraft, we waited about 20 minutes. The good old days when the flight attendants would offer the customary cotton ball, wet face towel and lozenges are far gone. Which means they have nothing worthwhile to do on the ground once the doors are closed till the time the flight takes off and they can begin their sky commerce by selling from their food cart.

The seat belts were on, and the captain ordered the crew on stations for take-off. So, while we wait for our turn to take off, the lady appears from no where, and to the delight of men who know their wives cannot monitor them, occupy the seat next to the safety door. The old man on Seat 29F, suddenly becomes even more straight and upright on his seat. The guy on 28C started pretended to be reading something in the newspapers, when actually he was rolling his eyes every 15 seconds – on the pretext of looking out of the window. The guy on 27E, who was in his fifties had actually very little leg room and must be in great inconvenience, but he was not displaying any symptoms of suffering from compressed patella or a femur that actually threatened to reduce his height by 1 inch by the time he landed in Chennai. In fact, he seemed delighted at his state and hardly had time to worry about such silly stuff. He was actually turning his neck  every thirty seconds and looking towards the airhostess, who was occupying that strange kind of seat, almost next to him, but directionally opposite. And I, well, I was giving that bored look on the face when actually I was looking at these strange specimen around me.

The  airhostess started to give a briefing on how to operate the emergency door. All the men within in the three rows front and three behind the emergency door actually listened to it as if the kindergarten teacher was narrating a jingle. Two of them were also nodding their head in appreciation of their newly developed understanding.

The airhostess started her first sentence beyond the official script by asking me, “Sir, are you from Chennai?”.

All the men looked at me jealously. I don’t know why I felt it necessary do so but I also started rambling, “Actually, I have lived in ten states of India, and started to count them aloud- UP, MP, Orissa, Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Delhi, Haryana, Tamil Nadu….”. She repeated her question, “Do you belong to Chennai?” . I said well, I have been living their for nine years, which was a truthful representation of facts.

“Sir, how does one spend a day in Chennai?”

Before I had the scope to marvel myself at selecting a good shirt this morning, she clarified, "Actually, sir, this crew has a day layover in Chennai and we are not familiar with Chennai."

Before I could marvel my personality any further, the guy seated next to her interjected, "Visit the Kapaleeshwar temple in Mylapore I am sure you go there once, you would go every time."

Her next question, again directed to me.

"Sir,is it possible to go to Tirupati darshan and come back the same day?"

I began, "No, actually, it is 165 kms and then their it is waiting time in the queue. Frankly, same day could be a challenge."

27E interjected once again, this time barely concealing his displeasure at my dudness. He could barely wait for me to finish. That a particular question is not addressed to them often does not matter to old, opinionated men.

And by the way, all men feel of all others as old men.

"Go to T. Nagar. They have TTD office. They run same day buses from there. Very nice service. I have done Balaji darshan several times  by the same day bus service."

She again ignored him, and asked me,  “What if one has to spend an evening outdoors? Could you give me some ideas on places to visit”.

I started, “The Spencers is old, while it is good, you may want to visit the Inox theatre in City Center and the food court is not bad either”.

Individual 27E started again , “Check out the Hindu for the sabha listings. Check out some nice vocal at Narad Gana Sabha tomorrow. Check out the Kucheris this entire month. You will relish. You must make your booking today itself else you will not get any tickets. I will help you in that case”.

Jealous men, like jealous women, can hardly keep quiet. This guy too had the manifestation of mental displayria.

The flight meanwhile had reached the stable height and the captain pulled back the seat belt sign on.

The air hostess left her seat to start the sky commerce and 27E started to immediately whine about how uncomfortable his seat was.

Important to note that while landing, the name badge of the flight attendant who occupied that  seat read ‘Vinod Sharma’! And if this is of any interest, there were no conversations this time round.

No, I have not trained and become a pilot, much as I would like to. I recently visited Hindustan University to attend a programme. I was pleasantly surprised to see a simulator and when invited to try my hands, I could not say no. The simulator is configured to give an experience of flying a Cessna. The computer is programmed to simulate and experience of a real airport and there is a giant screen in front. With some difficulty, my craft took off. As I flew for few minutes, I felt confident and decided to make a landing. I took a U turn, located the landing strip (had a ‘visual’), and then lowered the height gradually. The landing was less than perfect, but I sure had a great time. I even loved the sound that plays in the audio to compliment the flying experience.

In those few minutes behind the control, my respect for men and women who pilot us in the commercial flights went up several time. Next time I get a bumpy landing, I am going to take it easy – I now know it is tough!

I was looking at my Hindi blog after a while my browser, the ever helpful Google Chrome offered to translate the page into English. I okayed, and the entire page became hilarious. Here’s my intro of myself, as it existed in Hindi and what it reads after English translation.

After reading the translation, I came to the believe that humans have no threats from robots. At least not for the next few decades.

I came across this excellent cartoon on Vikram Nandwani’s blog and liked it.

It is the same Google that the darling of the websphere for a long time. Actually too long a time!

This particular clip covers Milagrow’s distinguished CEO and and transformational business leader Rajeev Karwal at the unique CSR activity, called Venture Doctors. The programme shows a short clip of a MSME entrepreneur taking Rajeev’s advice on his business venture ( a sort of Shaadi. com for rural masses). Once a month, all consultants in the company devote their time for counselling such MSME Entrepreneurs. To my mind, this is the most unique CSR one can think of. I am proud to have devoted few days of my time to this activity and what a happiness one gets!

Coming back to the clip. The visiting crew also decided to take a short clipping of some of us, and I found myself in the final clip that went on air. I realized in the process that speaking business in Hindi is far tougher than running a Hindi blog! Take look!!

To me, having worked with Rajeev and participated in Venture Doctors is the quiet reward for me. That I feature in the clip is incidental.

In 1991, as an engineering student on vacation to my parent’s place in Delhi, I remember my stunned mother telling me about Rajiv Gandhi’s demise at the hands of an assassin. She was finding it hard to control her tears. He was regaining popularity that time, and one believed, he was all set to come back to power.

While driving back from Vellore few days back, we decided to stop at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial at Sriperumbudur. This is at the same spot where he lived his last. The memorial is built over a large area on the Chennai Bangalore highway.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi statue at the traffic island near the Rajiv Gandhi memorial. The inscription at the memorial reads that Rajiv Gandhi had just garlanded this statue and moved on the meeting venue when the incident happened.

Sriperumbudur has a positive claim to fame, which is that it is the birth place or the great mathematician, Srinivas Ramanujam.

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I stand at the entrance of the memorial. It is written as Rajiv Gandhi Ninaivakam. Whoever designed it had great aesthetic sense indeed.

We had reached some time before the sunset when the national flag was being lowered down for the day with the respect it deserves. That’s my daughter watching it with attention. The flag is indeed huge in size. I estimate it to be about 20 feet width. The staff holding it is also almost a feet in diameter at the base.

The inscription at the memorial, that I read several times. It is written in English, Hindi and Tamil. I read it in English and Hindi.

This is the path on which Rajiv Gandhi took his last walk. The white box in the center represents the place where his end came. The columns are high and strong, as if protecting someone in the center. No two columns are alike, yet, like the diversity of India, they stand united on common purpose. Very touching.

As I watched this, the missus was somewhere else. Lost deep in contemplation, actually.

The mural represented India.I liked it.

As we left the place, we were quite stirred. There was silence in the car for quite some time.

Salute to the fallen leader.

I happened to be at a lecture cum interaction by none other than the CEO of Nissan-Renault Alliance, Carlos Ghosn in Chennai on 18th March 2010. Having read a lot about him and having read his book ‘The Shift’ way back in 2006, I was really very keen to see and hear the great man himself. One of the boons of living in IIT Madras campus.

True to expectation, the ‘Cost Cutter’ did not disappoint anyone.  He was witty, sharp and fully there.

I had read earlier that he was very good with numbers and he gave a vivid demonstration of the that by rattling back whatever the Director of IIT Madras, Dr Ananth had told him few minutes back(So many lakhs sat in JEE, only so many got selected, so many boys, so many girls etc). Some samples from the Q&A.

Q: You have so many alliances in India? What is the strategy behind them? It seems to be so confusing!

A: All the alliances have a specific purpose which is different from another. The Indian market is so much unlike any other market. We are learning from all our partners and it is like having so many teachers teaching you different you aspects of the market. Like you have a teacher to teach you physics and another to teach you math and so on. Do you get confused by having so many teachers?

Q. The Indian government is not giving subsidy on electric cars..

A: The fact is that vehicle type adoption is largely governed by what the governments want to let happen in their markets. That’s why you have diesel vehicles in Europe and none in US and Japan. I would expect the electric cars to take market first in USA, EU and Japan. Remember, we are talking the same about just 10 % electric vehicles market after 20 years. That leaves out 90% and there is tremendous scope for evolution of technology.

On the whole, it was a great event. The only disappointment was NDTV’s Siddharth, who was looking very handsome indeed, but that’s about it.

Helpful Link: My review of Mr. Ghosn’s book ‘The Shift’.

This post is largely an outcome of my real life experiences as a nouveau Airtel mobile service customer. Sorry, a short lived customer and an ex-customer at present.

It just so happened that after relocating back to Chennai recently ( and having heard the very impressive group CIO of Bharti group, Jai Menon in Delhi recently), I decided to take a mobile connection from Airtel this time. I filled out an application form and handed over to a dealer’s representative, who had paid me a visit to my office to collect the documentation.

Sure enough, the connection started working in a day’s time. I logged into the Airtel portal out of curiosity, and found my name written as ‘Rajesh Kumar S’. I thought I should point out the typo and called them on March 6th, which they promised by an SMS to revert by March 9th. In the next couple of days or so, I happened to receive a ‘welcome letter’ from someone called Aidtya Chile, (GM KTN – go figure out) that had exactly the same error in my name.

Few days later, a representative of Airtel, dropped in at my residence for address verification, and was about to leave after asking me my name, when I saw that the copy of the application form carried by him did not have my signature. I took it in my hand, and then found out it was some other handwriting, and interestingly, instead of my photo, it had someone else’s picture. My name as written as Rajesh Kumar S. On my own insistence on noting this down on the form, he handed me the form. I recorded that the picture & signature were not mine, and mine and my father’s name were only partially correct. Happy that I have set the ball rolling for a correction to happen and waiting to hear back from Airtel, I got on. About a week down on a Saturday evening, I received an sms saying my connection may be cut and I should talk to my dealer. Worried that the line would be disconnected, I frantically looked for the dealer’s number, I realized I had left it in the office. I decided to approach the Airtel outlet in Shastri Nagar with a copy of the id and address proofs. I was told that I must approach the dealer only and they cannot do anything to help me. Finally, when I spoke to the dealer, he promised to take care of ‘everything’ on Monday and call back by Monday evening to confirm.  To be sure, I also called 121 customer care to ask them the matter and they said they need to reverify my address, which they would do in the next two working days and then everything would be alright. I was relieved mentally.

But, as one would expect, the call from the dealer did not materialize on Monday or Tuesday. Not even Wednesday. Nor did anyone come for re-verification. Thursday morning, my phone refused to pick up my emails or connect any calls. I could place the problem and approached 121, which is the customer care. I asked them the matter.

“Sir, we have a negative address and id verification. The signature and photos do not match, the name is a partial match only. Therefore we have decided to disconnect the outgoing line”. I explained that actually that is my issue against them, not vice versa. In my anger, I asked him the address of Mr. Aditya Chile to be able to share the details with him. I was refused. I took out the letter that came from Aditya Chile to locate his address and phone number. That masterpiece of a letter did not have one. So much for being a customer friendly organization. I asked the customer care what it took to cancel the connection. Pat came the reply,”Don’t bother sir, we are doing so from our side”. The phone outgoing is cut and probably anytime now, the incoming calls would stop too.

Next:

1. I wrote a letter to Aditya Chile, and sent to Airtel’s office in T Nagar, which I could locate by chance. Not sure if the letter reached him or if he cared to think much over it.
2. I asked Aircel to send their rep to my house and Tuesday onwards, expect me to be on Aircel, my 8 old trusted brand.

From Airtel perspective it was operation successful, patient dead. So much for a brand that paints the town read! RIP 80560 38888!!!

It is not that Indian companies stay completely away from the reality of brand management in social media.  I even received a response from ICICI Bank one day, when I tweeted about some issues on their website.  It took them a day to come back-  in digital world, a day can be too late.

Vijay in this post has published a nice presentation on a particular incident that had the potential to hurt Cafe Coffee Day’s digital reputation. CCD reacted on the same platform and came up with quick remedies to the situation. The wonderful presentation tells you what happened, and how CCD came into the picture and then how it went about the whole issue.

The point is, it is currently easier for smaller companies to react quickly as CCD did, in this case. Multi division companies, even if they have all the right intentions, may not have the same speed of reaction, when there is an incident on the web like this one. Speed and decisiveness may remain the key to making or breaking a reputation.

Nevertheless, companies are taking the right baby steps in this direction. Daksh has compiled an excellent presentation on Indian companies on Twitter that is worth a serious look.

PS: Blogging will me more frequent now.

It is not easy to find Dr Jagdish Sheth’s time, even if it is just one minute. On the sidelines of Milagrow World SME Conference,  I succeeded in getting more than a minute. Last I heard him was at Madras Management Association, couple of years back.

Then I actually succeeded in persuading Prof Anil Gupta to pose for this picture. Those of us who have the propensity to use the term ‘innovation’ a dozen times a day would do well to listen to a lecture of Prof Gupta to figure out what innovation actually is. 

These are my jewel moments at the World SME Conference 2009, which I shall cherish for several years.