The New Stages of Grief

 

This is the year of strangeness. A year back no one would have imagined the position they find themselves in. But beyond everything else, there is hope that lingers on. Because hope is what makes us human. That and worrying about a future we know nothing about. Amongst our closest ancestors and relatives, we probably are the only species that worry so much about what the future holds for us. The big primates seldom do. And that is an evolutionary marvel that probably allowed the homo sapiens to race through and become masters of the world around. All that we do is with an eye on the future. Even “Carpe Diem” that tells us to seize the day loses its sheen after a few glorious years. Because if something is an absolute in this world, it’s regret.

 

There are events in world history that change a lot of our daily lives. Let’s take margarine for example – first thought of as a butter substitute for the French Army and the poorer sections of the society it became the saviour as World War II ravaged the world. And then it fell from grace again as the world attained prosperity. Often, it’s all about being at the right place and the right time but more often than not, it is about missed chances.

 

The strangest things however were playing out in our minds and the phases of grief were playing out in a completely different order. In the beginning of the year there was disorganization and despair all around. Information was scarce, the hubris of the human race was at full display and we were winging it in the true sense of the word. Then came the shock and numbness when we couldn’t meet family, things went from bad to worse and there would be a glimmer of hope which would then die down. But we picked ourselves up and moved on to yearn and search for meaning between never ending calls, the need to head back to work even though things were not quite the same. Some of us were luckier than the rest and this was the year I felt we finally began the see the invisible hands that moved every economy. There were people out there braving the virus while we kept safe at our homes. We are now in the reorganization and recovery phase with the hope of a vaccine helping us go through the process to get back to normalcy.

 

At your workplace too, you truly realize who you are. This was a year when the usual stressors at work were mostly at bay because something gigantic had usurped their places as our key irritant. This was a year when you needed to find our who you are – at home and at work.

 

But the truth also is that if you didn’t bother to find that out, it’s all good. By the time the year was halfway through, Linkedin posts almost made you feel that everyone on the world had gotten a minimum of two PhDs with all the time they had in the world. Thankfully for me, I had mentors who told me it’s ok.

 

So here we are, having survived 2020 with a story we can tell our grandchildren. And probably given the strangeness of it all, instead of ringing in 2021 at the stroke of midnight hour, maybe we should pause and observe a moment of silence for all those who we had to leave behind.

 

See you in 2021.

 

PS: Stages of Grief is an amazing concept. If you want to read further, I recommend starting with the book On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. It was written in the late sixties so modern scientific understanding has really taken this forward.

 

10 Years of IIMB

Somehow, unknown to me, a life event passed by, silently, without much fanfare I associate with such dates. Sometime back it was the 10^th anniversary of a fresh graduate stepping into the strange world of management education. The call was to study for two more years. The call was also to postpone the inevitable employment for two more years. But what IIMB did to me was more than just that.

Don Bosco and Calcutta had given me my moral fibre and the very foundation of who I am - with my idiosyncrasies, my mannerisms, my accent and maybe even my ideologies. BITS Pilani took all of that, took me as a person and threw me into a cultural cauldron, something I had never witnessed before. I embraced it and before I knew it, it made me ready for the world outside.

But IIMB? IIMB was different. IIMB made me find my love. And like all true love, it did not come easy. I spent a year searching for what made me happy, till one day, while attending a lecture I knew I had found it. I really believe in the “Conspiracy of Universe” Theory and therefore what happened in the second year at IIMB would not be any less exciting than a fairy tale. While Year 1 was about surviving with the help of phone calls from Pilani and Bangalore, year 2 was all about taking the devil by its horns and facing it.

And the only thing I took away from college? Never stop learning. It sounds grandiose but it’s true. The biggest bane of anyone in the marketing industry is the curse of the “know-it-all”. I call it at times the “been there done that” syndrome. It essentially attacks as you grow older, when you believe that you have seen it all! The tragedy is that situations repeat and yet they are never the same. It’s critical therefore to ensure that you know your basics and never forget them.

If I have been invited to a college to speak, I cringe when I hear wrong definitions of basic marketing terms. I feign ignorance when asked to decide between two decidedly wrong theories. I apparently fainted when evaluating case studies recently submitted in a competition. But then they are still better than the consultant friend who calls whenever he has a client with a marketing challenge. “Dude. Still selling soap? Ha Ha Ha. Listen have a marketing query. I am recommending XYZ. Should I call it a line extension or a brand extension? You marketing guys. Love to make things complicated. Ha ha ha”

Whenever caught in any of these situations, the only things that keep running in my mind is either “Schiffman Kanuk, Schiffman Kanuk”, or “Kumar Kumar Kumar”. It’s like performing an exorcism on myself to defend against the demons of incomplete knowledge. And then I go home and read a bit.

You may call me weird but I have often found a hard bound copy of Aaker to be more therapeutic than banging my head against my desk.

Anyway, you might have got the gist. I love my job. I love creating stories. I get angry when someone makes better stories than me. And then I applaud and get down to work even harder. That’s what IIMB gave me. I think often people in my situation get the creation bug. And they become entrepreneurs. In the last 8 years or so, I have created three stories. While the credit for that is not just IIMB but my organization (SNDU in case you have forgotten – Sabun, Nakhun and Datun Unlimited) too, the genesis has to be IIMB.

2017 would be my 10^th employment anniversary and also the 10^th anniversary of the Class of 2007. It would be a good time to pause and reflect. Today I can just be thankful for the opportunity.

“Schiffman, Kanuk, Kumar. Om Shantih Shantih Shantih”

The Tough Task

SNDU (if you have forgotten by now, it’s the company I work for – Sabun, Nakhun and Datun Unlimited) sometime back started asking me to go and recruit from campuses. Amongst all the tasks that increase my heart’s palpitation, this probably is the toughest. It’s even more stressful than the times when you have to disagree with your boss on the costumes of your model in the ads that you make or when data fails to answer a question and you have to swallow hard and take a stance. Now close to 8 years later you have enough confidence to take that stance, but nothing prepares you to face a Placement Committee Member (Placeu as we called them) and tell her how many candidates have you decided to make an offer to.

Now these Placeus come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them make puppy faces, some of them play the martyr, some are plain obnoxious (to both the candidate and the company) but generally they have a tough job trying to place a batch that believes that getting a job offer at the highest pay scale is their birthright.

Anyway, the placeus are always handled well by the world famous (really, true story!) HR team of SNDU. So that takes care of the first problem. But then begins the most important task of selecting a candidate.

Multiple rounds continue, the day changes to night and we meet some of the brightest youngsters in India. Sometimes, they freeze up, sometimes they try to put on a show, sometimes they realize as soon as they walk in and this probably is not what they have wanted to do in their lives but for the most of them, it’s an opportunity they have been waiting for.

I was talking to my grandma the other day about how this stresses me out. Not because I cannot do it, but mainly because every time I say “No” my heart feels a pang of sorrow. And there is no way I can select someone who I do not think is right for the organization I love so much. She reminded me of a Tagore line, “When the judge feels the pain of the convicted, that’s the greatest justice that can be done.” The important feeling to have is empathy that ensures when someone walks out after meeting you, they feel nice about the process irrespective of its outcome.

But still, every time I walk into that room I am scared as if I am the one going in for mine.

The Danger of ‘Group Think’

All throughout evolution, different species have decided how their societies would be formed. Sometimes like the Tigers, they have decided to go alone, like lions in smaller groups or like wolves in packs.

The human species however carry the traits of almost all species. We have had individual thinkers – visionaries who changed the world with the light of their knowledge. We have had the world’s first democratic councils in Athens and in India where the Lichhavi council stood up to invasions and we have had clans travelling on their horsebacks plundering without a second thought – The tigers, the lions and the wolves.

Anthropologic studies have shown (For those interested in further studies, do look up Dunbar’s Number) that any human being can possibly maintain between 100 to 200 social relationships and that is the reason we lose touch with great friends from yesteryears.

But over the last few months, I have also been realizing how thought processes evolve. More and more due to structured thinking so ingrained into our education and corporate system, we are seeing a situation where otherwise intelligent individuals tend to follow ‘group think’. It’s evident in various ways that it manifests itself; we crave for leaders who show ‘direction’, leaders desire those that follow without question and a huge rung of the in-betweens try to figure out which way the wind blows. They are the ones who struggle to find, adopt and worship ‘best practice’

The biggest danger of ‘group think’ happens in a mob. Rational individuals, who can make socially acceptable decisions on their own, often change their behaviour completely in a crowd. That’s why you have bystanders who become a mob that tears down shutters, looting and plundering.

Cowardice also spreads due to this behaviour. Imagine a crowd facing one individual who for the right reason or wrong, makes the first attack. Suddenly the entire crowd forgets they have the power of numbers and slink back. While all of you would have laughed at Bollywood heroes for taking on a gang single handed, it has its basis in how humans behave.

The ubiquitous middle class of every society is the one that faces this conundrum. Years of conditioning have taught them to live in their cocoons, living in an imagined world of security. That’s why whenever there is a problem, we tend to turn our backs or try to go in as a group, but never alone. This is also the reason why most revolutions in the world are brought in by students who have not yet succumbed to the pressure of ‘group think’.

The world requires thinkers who have not been conditioned by ‘group think’ and that seems to be a challenge.

The Green Man

He started his professional life as a Green Man, learning to despise the colour yellow and at times grudgingly admire it, sometimes even envy it. For around 5 years he toiled, harder than most, to understand what it meant to be a Green Man in the lives of millions of women around the world. He travelled all over the word, bar perhaps the Americas learning about food and about culture. He went into kitchens, learning how to cook exotic dishes along with mothers, trained himself to understand flavours and at the end of it create magic on the table.

He believed that nothing was more sacred than Food, the foremost amongst the basic necessities of life. And perhaps nothing else in the world could easily straddle every step in Maslow’s Hierarchy. Imagine working in a category where every single individual you spoke to across the world was concerned about what she was eating that day. It makes you realize that your success can spread smiles across continents.

Surprisingly, he became a decent cook, a lot less fussy about food, a lot more experimental in what he ate and slowly he began to understand what drove billions of moms around the world every day to make a tasty meal for the family.

And he learnt when it comes to food, moms seldom disagree.

He loved being a Green Man. But then when he looked at his hands from time to time, they were turning green and he figured probably it was a good time to wash them. So he decided to leave KSS and return to his old organization SNDU, planning to wash away all the germs in less than 10 seconds.

But leaving your love after such a long time can be a bittersweet symphony. As he walked around his desk, cleaning up for the next Green Woman, he realized that there is so much that he will miss. He will miss the Bros, he will miss the dictator in the kitchen, he will miss the cheerleaders of weight loss and he will miss the mother hen, the lunches, the bets, the coffee and the free starbucks for every second thing.

This was a life free from internal strife, free from one-upmanship, free from endless debates. This was a life of learning and fighting against a common enemy, fighting for a common friend.

Interestingly, just as he shall no longer be a Green Man, he can also no longer fall in Love with Green in the foreseeable future. And that’s how he realized that the Wheel of Time turns!

Timelines

May is going to be an interesting month this year. Quite a few milestones are coming my way. I will complete 5 years working with SNDU. If you have forgotten I work with this chota sa nanha sa company called Sabun Nakhun and Datun Unlimited. We sell soaps, nail polish and tooth brushes. When I started out, this was a milestone we never even thought would come along. And the fact remains that still on Monday mornings, I look forward to going to work and sell some more soaps or soups, whatever the case might be.

There are distinct changes in behaviour that have crept in over the last few years. Brand preferences and dislikes are stronger than ever. The World of Brands seems more and more like an “Us and Them” situation. Imagine what wouldn’t you give to know if you truly are a Nikon loyalist or is it you truly are a canon buff but have been coaxed into the Nikon fold. “us and them” Always :)

Today in the super market I went all around to find a bottle of ketchup that I love. It had to be that one and nothing else would make the omelette taste as good and I made her wait. And you don’t dare do that when we are already getting late.The more I see around me, the more I realize how Brands become a part of our daily inertia and if are not in the consideration set, or in the subconscious, then you are not in the shopping basket. Sigh.

Coming back to the second milestone, I complete 9 months in a new city outside India. 9 months is an important time frame. It’s the time required for a new birth. And it seems the same for me. Singapore is no longer a new city. Singapore has helped me blend in a lot easier than I thought possible. But I miss the simple joys of life. Most importantly my second source of income has dried down significantly. Let me explain.

In Mumbai, we used to get 3 newspapers, TOI, Mumbai Mirror and Eco Times. Now whether we read them or not, at the end of the month there were always newspapers which needed to be sold. Add to that the ketchup bottles and other paraphernalia that typically gets collected in a house. Now we always had our “kabadiwala” come at a specified date with the gossip about our more famous neighbours and we would know the rates a famous bollywood actress’ gatekeeper charged for the newspapers. So by selling them the stuff, not only would I earn about Rs. 100 every month but also get the latest news even before it appeared on Page 3. And the joy of buying veggies that day with the 100 bucks? Priceless.

But in The First World Nation of Singapore, there is no Kabadiwala and there is no additional income and there’s no gossip.

And there’s 100 days! Last known it was this awesome thriller where Jackie Shroff was the villain who was actually not a true blue villain (In pre Darr days, before SRK changed the game, we never had anti heroes) and Madhuri had supernatural powers and there was Moon Moon Sen in what could have been the equivalent of Hitchcock’s psycho’s famous death scene. However, my 100 days are happy ones. Of having someone to come back to, of looking forward to peeling potatoes and pumpkins, of buying soupy noodles through people coming in from India, of buying more apples than wafers while shopping for groceries and actually learning to be more responsible.

Phew! May is a tough one :)

Loo-Natic

The door opened by itself and I walked in to the soulful music of Dire Straits. As I slid my hands under the tap in the restroom of my favourite restaurant in Singapore, I realized this is also number 2 in my list of favourite restrooms across the world.

Working for SNDU has scarred me in ways more than one :) Fascination with restroom is just one of them. Very rarely does a job require you to look intently at a squat style Indian toilet with deep reverence in Andheri West and ask the lady of the house, “aap acid kyun use karte hain? Achha... saath mein detergent bhi?” and then on the next day admire pictures of squat toilets in South East Asia and understand similarities and differences! (True Story)

That was the moment in end 2007 when the tryst with restrooms started. And that’s why I get really irritated at times. What’s with the restrooms around the world? I mean has no one ever noticed how confusing signs can be? Given that selecting the wrong door can lead to some of the most embarrassing moments in a person’s life, I would have hoped that someone would have done something about it. You know, at least have some kind of standardization?

Let’s take one of the ad agencies I worked with. You had to stand in front of their doors to figure out whether the image was of a man’s or woman’s. Fantastic creativity! In fact, the first time I guessed it, I went WOW! But then when you are rushing, you can’t actually appreciate creativity, Can you?

In one of the now defunct pubs in South Mumbai, I was sitting with 3 people who had by that time drunk enough to visit the restroom multiple times. But what I wasn’t prepared for was scared shouts from grown up men as they ran out of the male restroom as my friend walked in straight into the last male bastion and later claimed famously, “it showed a figure wearing pants. I was wearing pants.” She later, when sober and in office, refused to accept that she had made this statement and the world lost one of the greatest feminist icons of all times!

One day, I was sitting peacefully in a restroom wondering about the world around me and then suddenly I heard voices. Now that’s not strange in a world with 7 billion people. I am sure very few people have personal restrooms in this world. In fact, that’s when I figured out one of the reasons I love travelling alone on work – I am the master of my own bogs!

The airports across the world can be rated according to the cleanliness of their toilets. Chennai and Calcutta would be amongst the worst while Dubai, Delhi T3 and Singapore can claim to be amongst the best. Sometimes in Changi I feel at few given points in time, there are more restrooms than travellers in the airport.

I still remember the awesomeness I felt at a Dubai restroom. It was my first international trip and I could feel the difference. In India, except perhaps at T3 in Delhi, you would shudder to use a public restroom. Women in India have it the hardest and more often than not, if you are observant, you will realize how women in India have learnt to cope. It’s a rare moment when I feel anger but I still remember I felt extremely extremely angry and helpless at that moment in Dubai. And that’s why I love Sulabhs in India. Maybe not the best amongst the world but for an average Indian, they often are lifesavers.

I blame it on our use of water without going into too much graphic details about it. Being both a water conservationist and a paper conservationist, you might choose to save paper, but do remember that water spreads. What does your culture ask you to use? With that disturbing thought I stop! :)

Enough about restrooms so here’s the last bit. My favourite restroom is the one beside Wimpy’s near the D gates in Jo’Berg Airport. I have been there about 4 times now and that’s the only restroom I actively seek out. It’s a place where the gentleman in charge of the restroom welcomes every passenger with a glittering South African smile and a statement – “Welcome to my Office”. I really tried to recommend him for his fantastic attitude towards his work but I could not find a feedback kiosk in Jo’berg.

It feels nice to be in a restroom beside your own where you know it is cared for.

May the 4th be With You

I believe in Jedi Knights. I believe that Yoda looks after young padawans. Sometimes I feel like Obi-Wan. Sometimes like a lost Sky Walker.

But whatever happens, I believe that it is within us to believe that the force is with us. May 4^th and Star Wars is probably the greatest PJ ever created on earth but for the believers it means so much more when their official beginning of their working life happens to be around that day.

This year, the week of May Fourth was important as it was also the fourth year of my active employment. I know the celebrations are due for next year but when in the fourth year itself, you feel a little lost and a lot tired, you wanna look up at the Stars.

The week had started well. On the exact day I completed my fourth year, I was out in the small hen-coops of Mumbai which pass as houses talking to consumers about their kids, their holidays and their life in general. That’s what keeps me going even till this date and then slowly things started unravelling.

But the point is not about what went wrong. The point has always been what’s gone right. And how happy you can be with what’s happening around you. It was late in the night. We just had come back from a stressed out meeting. But when I walked on the paved boulevards of Marine Drive, I could feel the sea telling me, “All is well. It’s a Friday Night after all.”

The Teacher had come to meet me the other day. And these days when all seems lost I think about the time we spent together in the 1 BHK overlooking a putrid canal wondering about life. His first charts as a teacher, his vacillation, my worried support. It was a strange time. And in my uneventful life, it was almost akin to the renunciation of the prince of Kapilavastu. All through my life I have met heroes – normal people who stood up and did something that surprised every bit of conventional wisdom in the book. Heroes are human, very human, with every little failing our kind is prone to. But when you know them you want to believe. I am not a hero, my ex roommate is :) But what I can do is be the chronicler – the Callisthenes to the Alexander.

It’s been a long day and I am tired. Tomorrow I have to head to office, search hard for the grey matter within the cranium and figure out a way to make sense of the world around me.

But you know what the world around is not a bad place to be. Last Saturday when I was breaking my head over numbers and had in a moment of desperation cribbed in public, Juicy Girl raised up her antenna, felt my distress across the airwaves, (not for the work, but for lack of caffeine) and led me to the secret chamber of nectar. I know good people :)

And if you are reading this, “May the Fourth be with you to show you the path you so desperately seek.”

Growing Up Professionally

Last few months have been excruciatingly painful on the professional front. The work has piled up, there seems to be no end in sight to the task at hand, things are always in a flux and suddenly between office and bed, friends have taken a back seat. Sometimes they understand, sometimes they don’t but these months are having an impact on my life than few others have had.

This has been a time when I have realized the need for maturing as a professional, taking the tough calls, being accountable, taking decisions in a snap and being answerable for them. It’s not that this gives me some kind of an adrenalin rush. It’s just that I feel responsible towards what I think is the right thing to do.

Suddenly last week the recurring theme amongst many people have been, “when’s the last time you did something for the first time?” And I think I am lucky in that aspect. Everyday over the last month I have done something new, something different, something I have not done before. The back aches at times but the mind gets exhilarated.

The other day I was at a professional photographer’s studio. I looked with awe at the meticulous work that goes into his work, the level of detailing that needs to be done for each shot and I should admit that I felt a tiny pang of jealousy at him being so much better than I ever will be.

But my mind raced back to BITS and the first days of joining Dopy, the Department of Photography. My intense love of photography had made me take a decision which had baffled most at that point of time. And that day as I discussed the technicalities of the shot I realized why no one ever understands why certain events occur in our lives and how each of them lead us to our destiny.

An Anniversary

Around three months back there was an anniversary of sorts. Now those of you who know me, I have no capability of remembering any dates. I don’t remember birthdays or anniversaries of friends or family. Not that I am proud of it, it’s just that I don’t remember. Now some people have issues with numbers, some with faces, I have the same with dates. The last dates I remembered were of course the history dates you had to remember for ICSE. I remember deadlines and have nightmares about them but thankfully I don’t have yearly repeated deadlines, at least not yet. :)

Anyway, a friend suddenly reminded me today that I had completed a year of working as a professional three months back. Well, he was surprised and so was I. Imagine surviving all those doomsday predictions and actually going through one whole year. I guess I love what I do to get the bread on the table. And that has been the only trick so far. In loving my work I guess I have been luckier than most. I just hope it remains the same. I have met some amazing people, have worked with a variety of bosses and have had a roller coaster of a time. It’s not that I do not have my frustrations. The bigger an organization gets the higher levels of bureaucracy comes in. Escalation becomes the key to getting any job done. There are processes and formats to follow. A manufacturer in some shady workshop churns out products at half your cost as your legal requirements ensure that consumer safety is not compromised.

The nightmarish case studies about organizational behaviour comes alive almost everyday. I guess it’s in human nature to pass the buck. In an interesting example in The Tipping Point, Gladwell had described that we are much more prone to help others if we know we are the only ones who can help. If there are more than one of us, we tend to pass the buck, hoping someone else will take the responsibility. The pattern changes if you are the boss though. Then the fight happens as to who can be the fastest in getting the information on the table. And then there’s the ‘cc’ culture. You begin to ‘cc’ everyone on the mail, starting from the sales team to the scientist in the R&D lab, from an insignificant cog like me to the CEO of the organization. It’s so irritating. And finally there’s the ‘why’ gang. If I ever become a professor, I will fail anyone who does not ask ‘why’ in my class. But thank God, I am a docile creation of his. If I had an anger quotient even 10% of Dharam Paji or Sunny Paji, I would have been in dire trouble for sitting on people who ask ‘why’ as the first attempt at sliming out of a request. It’s not that I am against why. I ask why every 2 minutes. It’s just that I don’t ask why when people ask me to pass on a napkin at the lunch table.

If you have been reading my blog, you’d have perhaps noticed that I never mention what I do for a living except for passing references. This blog is a universe away from my day to day work and I intend to keep it that way. Every day my life is full of excel sheets, presentations, videos of consumer interviews and such ‘uninteresting’ stuff. Now even in my spare time, I have to write about the same issues, the remaining sanity in my head will bid adieu. But since this is an anniversary post, I must say something. Well, in very unromantic terms I am a salesman. I sell everything from soaps to soups. Now how does it matter if I work for SNDU (Sabun, Nakhun and Datun Unlimited) or for some better known FMCG or Consumer Durables Firm? However, if I were to write a romantic ballad on my work, I would perhaps say my entire work is dedicated to understanding one person – you.

I guess I stand somewhere between the two extremes.

One year back when I had made this decision to join the firm I am with presently, I was amongst the minority in my business school in terms of my choice of career. But then, egged on by friends who stood by me, making the right decisions of following one’s heart never seemed difficult. Well, it wasn’t a cakewalk either and it felt bad when friends ended up on the opposite side of the fencing match. To be frank, few of us who were closest to each other are most relieved even after one year that we are not experiencing a face off in the market, at least for now. And if one day, I have to fight some of my best friends in the market, I know we will all do it and fight tooth and nail, but fight like honourable men and women. Yeah, I am proud of the batch I graduated with. The Marketing fanatics of IIMB 2007 have been one of the best lots of people I have ever met in my life.

Last one year has taken away a lot of things. I do not speak as often to people who matter to me. I do not seem to find time to just sit and do nothing. On a Sunday like today, I’d rather wake up late than go cold calling to people’s homes. My once enviable music collection has now stagnated with a year old expiry date. I miss the intellectual, theoretical debates late into the night in Athicas which often turned theatrical if you were too sleepy. I miss staying in a house or at least a hostel. Sometimes guest houses and hotels seem to be upsetting. (In a completely unconnected aside, my latest caretaker was the caretaker in the house of my ex-CEO. Though he is a thorough professional, I am sure he considers it a demotion to come to our guest house.)

Somewhere down the line, I realized that I was living weekend to weekend. But then soon I understood that you are what you make yourself to be. It was a conscious decision to never touch the internet on weekends after I left Bihar. And I have tried to stay true to that. Monday mornings are a nightmare but then you gain some you lose some. For example, instead of going and listening to Ranbindrasangeet today morning in Mumbai (which I missed due to miscommunication), I celebrated this post working on a presentation, watching India win and to top it all of, finally watch Prabhuji’s son debut in Bollywood as Jimmy.

And so come inflation or not continue to buy soaps and soups and I might just be able to survive for another year. Thinking beyond that is too long term :)

A Month of Worklife

And in a very romantic way this is what can be said...

From a nation of shopkeepers we are transforming into a nation of consumers and I stand at the crossroads as a silent and excited witness to the change that’s sweeping across my country. From the classrooms of IIM Bangalore to the dusty roads of the Hindi Heartland, I see my country changing every day. I walk the streets, feeling the throbbing pulse of a billion strong nation. I see the aspiration in the eyes of the young student who comes in to experience the lifestyle of his hero; I sense the excitement in the heart of the young lady who wants to look as beautiful as the stars; I witness the housewife coming in to make her home a better place and each one of them making the choices that will puzzle the most intelligent of consumer behaviour researchers.

Every day as I hit the markets, unparallel in their complexity, I live the Great Indian Dream