Unaided Recall

So the other day I was savouring the excellently made Palak Dosa and talking about my cycling escapades to P. P is a good listener. She can hear on and on without grumbling and answering my incessant ramblings with only her sunglasses going up and down her nose. She might have caught a few rounds of napping too. After all as I spoke, I also ate, unlike her who is on a perpetual diet.

So I was telling her of my new theory on relationships. I know I started with cycles, which then turned into Karmic cycles and finally love triangles and then to relationships. I mean the path s from cycles to relationships are not that important. If they were there would have been posts about them.

As I was saying, if you simplify everything in this world to an exercise of segmenting, targeting and positioning (yes yes its classic Kotler) you’ll see that relationships can only survive if both the parties have a strong unaided recall in each other’s minds. We associate various things to people. For example, my lunch break memories from school are of A while the travel back home is definitely of S. Both were my closest of friends. Yet, they had a special place in some aspect.

You must have felt similarly some point of time in your life. For example, an evening at the India Gate can never be complete without someone while at the Gateway you will not really miss the same person.

So, for any relationship to survive, you have to have strong unaided recall in the mind of the other person. This will ensure that most of the things that they find important in lives have a memory associated with the other person.

Often stories are told about relationships that get nurtured without any sense of physical proximity. It can be a chance meeting over the world wide web, it can be a cross connection over the phone. It can remain the same if both parties agree, for it offers each of them a form of escape as you can paint a picture of who you are not, or who you would perhaps want to become.

However, if you want to develop it into something more than just virtual, you definitely need to meet the person and there is the issue. Expectations have got built up over time and you have painted a certain picture. Given the nature of human mind to exaggerate, you often end up painting a picture that is different from reality. So when you finally meet, you’ll never be able to make moments that ensure an immensely high percentage of Unaided Recall.

(Marketing enthusiasts please note that I am not talking of Top of Mind Awareness or TOMA, which in relationships happen only at the very outset or at maturity.)

The other day one of my favourite couples invited a few of us. They had been coupling for some time till their families also decided to entangle and get them married off. So like nice married couples, they keep inviting people to their home and make pani puris for people to gobble up. Now these are rituals. These are examples of how as they grow older they’ll not only increase their share of unaided recall but also their TOMA. I really am happy for them. On the other hand I know of couples who not only carry immense love and need for each other, but also enormous bitterness. I am not sure how they would end up.

At this point of time, P woke up from her slumber and said two extremely important things. First she said, “Can we please ask for the cheque?” and secondly she said, “Banjo! Thank God you are spending your life in office!!!” and shook her head exactly 5 and a half times and I am sure with a sigh.