To Die or not to die

Death is not a choice... well atleast for a lot of us (suicide is up for discussion on another day).

This morning's headline reads "Kasab hanged to death in Pune's Yerwada jail". A well planned and executed trial. No one was informed about it, but for a handful of people around him, which is good in a way, considering the amount of ruckus we Indians love to create each time there is an eye popping headline. Had they announced it earlier, there would have been a number of Human rights' officials filing a case in the court against it. So, to avoid all confusion, don't tell anyone about it till it's done, dusted with and buried under, literally.

Now, are we right in killing another human being, just because he killed many others? No.

Should we be as ruthless as he was to all those on that fateful night? No.

If we kill him and take our revenge, then aren't we committing the same mistake he committed? Yes.

By killing him are we putting an end to all terroristic activities in the country or in the world? No.

If we don’t kill him, should we keep protecting him for as long as he lives? No.

Spend millions of  rupees on trying to protect one person? No.

Shall we let him go free? No. (even if we do, someone somewhere is out there looking to kill him, the minute he is out of jail)

Is this a catch-22 situation? Hell Yeah!!!!

A lot of people have said justice has been delayed but done. I beg to differ. Justice can never be done, in this case. We’re never going to get back those people who he killed on that night or his friends killed. I still have the crying image of Baby Moshe, in my mind, who was miraculously rescued from the terrorists. His parents are never coming back.

The decision to hang Kasab will only have to be treated as a form of solace for the victims and their families. There is no closure and there will be no closure to such cases. It will only offer a sort of consolation for the people and their families who have suffered. He was simply a pawn, the weakest link or whatever you may want to call him. The decision to kill him, I believe was only taken to satisfy all the believers who believe that justice will be done by killing him.

Imagine Kasab’s life on the other hand. A boy, brain washed into thinking terrorism is a way of life, till he gets caught, then realizes his deeds, but it’s too late to even regret. He is one of so many who were given a misinterpretation of the Quran and in a strange way I feel sorry for him. His poverty, his life in his country, his situation, all worked to the advantage of the terror outfit. What would his family do now? He obviously, on his own, in a sane frame of mind, would have never thought of becoming a terrorist and attacking so many people in this manner. A 25 year old, who could have had a normal life, choose instead a path, which he thought was the “right” one and ended up losing his life in a cruel manner. All we can hope for right now is no such incidents should happen in the future and never should we come across a similar situation again. Situations may differ and lead to different solutions, but the logic remains the same- killing is killing no matter who does it and how.

Rediscovery

Just when I thought my blog would have died by now... rediscovered it.

Close to 5 years!!! that's how long my blog has been sleeping for.

In the last 5 years,

the world faced recession

I got married

I shifted base to Mumbai

Osama died

Appa & Amma figured out how peaceful life is without me around at home

all of the above exactly in that order :)

anyways... now that I'm back, think it's time I start what I wanted to do for a long time... blog blog & blog more since you have the freedom to say what you want and no one to restrict you.

And.... the journey begins...

Ingredient Marketing...

When Intel launched the Intel Inside
campaign in the 1990s, many marketers thought
the chip giant was nuts. Who cared about the
microprocessor inside their PC? Turns out Intel
created a branding sensation and raised
awareness of the importance of ingredient
branding, says professor John Quelch. Today's
best example: The Boeing Dreamliner. Key
concepts include:
• The provider of a final product or service
will compromise its own brand-building to
add the ingredient brand on the package if 4
conditions are met.
• The Boeing "Dreamliner" ingredient brand
is sure it will appear as prominently on 787
fuselages as "Intel Inside" did on PCs.
Editor's Note: Harvard Business School
professor John Quelch writes a blog on
marketing issues, called Marketing Know:
How, for Harvard Business Online. It is
reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.
Why do we pay more for an orange with a
Sunkist sticker? Because inspecting the outside
of the orange doesn't guarantee the quality of
what's inside. We need the assurance of the
Sunkist brand. A variant on this theme is
ingredient branding: putting the brand of an
ingredient on the outside of a product to
increase its appeal.
When is the provider of the final product or
service willing to compromise its own
brand-building to add the ingredient brand on
the package as well as in advertising? There are
4 conditions:
1. The ingredient is highly differentiated,
usually supported by patent protection, and so
adds an aura of quality to the overall product.
Think Gore-tex for water resistant rainwear.
2. The ingredient is central to the functional
performance of the final product. Think
Shimano gear systems on performance bicycles
or Monsanto's Nutrasweet, added to Equal
sweetener.
3. The final products are not well-branded
themselves, either because the category is
relatively new, because customers buy
infrequently or because there is low perceived
differentiation among the options. Think about
all of Dupont's ingredient brands for clothing,
from Rayon through Lycra.
4. The final products are complex,
assembled from components supplied by
multiple firms who may sell the "ingredients"
separately in an aftermarket. Think cars with
Michelin tires, Dolby stereo systems and
Champion spark plugs.
Today, the most impressive—and
unlikely—ingredient brand promises to be the
Boeing 787. On July 8, 2007, Boeing unveiled
the 787 to the public. Over 650 orders have
already been placed by more than 40 airlines
with the first test flight not even scheduled until
May 2008. In addition to being built from
composite materials rather than aluminum and,
therefore, more fuel efficient, the plane's design
includes many in-cabin innovations—including
superior humidity and climate control and lower
cabin pressure that will make air travel more
pleasurable.
For the first time, Boeing has branded a new
product, naming the 787 the Dreamliner. And
All Nippon Airways, the archrival of Japan
Airlines, which placed the first 50 orders is
already touting the plane as a differentiating
"ingredient" in its advertising. Boeing is betting
that passengers will seek out (and pay more for)
tickets on airlines that offer Dreamliner service,
especially when they are taking long-haul
flights where cabin comforts are especially
important. And you can bet that the
"Dreamliner" ingredient brand will appear as
prominently on 787 fuselages as "Intel
Inside"—perhaps the most famous of the
ingredient brand campaigns of the last
decade—appeared on PCs.

Psycho(logically) speaking........

You know sometimes I'm tired of telling ppl how I came to do an MBA and choose media as a career...... & when i do manage to finish my story, all i get is "oh. i see!!!!!!!!"
Anyways, doin a B Sc in Psychology is not a very easy task according to me.....comin from a family of engineers and pure science graduates, no one would have even known theres a course for such a subject.... I had classmates who joined the course onl so that they could pass through the subjects without studyin anythin...... in my opinion, u need to study any damn subject u take, no matter how lame it might be.....
When i began doing psychology, i had a tough time tellin ppl it has been accepted as a science and not arts anymore..... I personally had great ambitions.... like do an MSc in clinical psychology and later do a Phd in it and become a clinical psychologist. But i guess life took a different in my final year. I had no clue about an exam called CAT (Common Aptitude Test), for me it jus remains a 4-legged creature which comes home and drinks all the milk...... I also had no clue why ppl wrote such an exam..... all the entrance i had heard of till then was jus AIEEE, TNPCEE, IIT-JEE, and the like....went for this coaching class..... cos my mom said so..... she said she saw manager material in me, god knows why!!!! all she said one day was i see u as leading somethin with great confidence, it'd be good if u did an MBA... tht was the first time she had said anythin abt my studies.... until then it had always been my choice......
Anyways, went to these CAT classes, wrote mock-CATS after mock CATS and i mus say, i began enjoyin writin these exams, especially, the logical reasonin and the english parts of it.... yet somewhere i knew i wasnt being serious..... had a deep interest in consumer behaviour, which was subject in graduation..... which i'll write more abt in later blogs......
somewhere deep down me, i knew i wasnt givin it my best shot and i still kept my options open abt wantin to an MSc..... then i figured tht my parents had paid an amount tht was more than my 3 yrs college fee put together jus for my coachin class....... then applications to colleges consumed another lumpsome amount....
Though i still have no clue why they gave me an admission, cos i actually said tht if another college was to offer me admission, i would reject this offer......the day i became actually serious abt MBA was my first day in class, MBA.... i was surrounded by these ppl who knew their stuff..... who knew wat accounts, operations, systems, finance and marketin was....... i was clueless..... i had the only idea os HR cos i thought as a psychology major, thts wat am supposed to be doin....... but no!!!!!! soon i realised tht marketing was where my interest was and more specifically advertising....... towards my second year i became much more serious abt my classes....... took things more seriously and was extremely particular abt wat i did.....

One thing i realised in my shift within these fields is tht........ everyone does this at some point of time or the other...... in a way its good to taste different waters, so tht u know which water suits u the best... i have frnds with clear cut thoughts and decisions on wat they wanna do from the beginnin..hats of them, but its also important to step onto different mats, before u find the right one, tht helps u wipe off the dust.....if i were to start experimenting with my career, i would probably be taking a risky step and a few years down the line, am probably takin a dangerous and unforbidden step........ but then again whos perfect??? lets see wat i think of this blog tomorrow if i ever take a turn in my career again ;)

"Lonely im so lonely,

I have nobody,

To call my own"

Sitting here alone at home on a sat evening not knowing wat to do can be very frustrating..... but then again i convince myself by sayin tht its jus one of those saturdays when u dont feel like doin much.... Loneliness can be the single thing tht kills most ppl..... we've all heard abt ppl say tht they have absolutely no one to talk to even though there r around 20 ppl around them all the time..... why???????? cos no one wants to hear them out. There are also ppl who like doin things alone, they like their space, like spending time with themselves and being alone...... like me!!! so is being alone, being lonely....... no definitely not...... being alone, likin to do things alone is normal, but being lonely is like a fish thrown into a new sea, completely lost.... loneliness is also one tht leads to depression....... ppl who are depressed tend to spend time with themselves and prefer being away from company.....

Being alone is a choice... loneliness kills that!!!

The cucumber seller of Chennai

"At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor"

On a hot July day, my colleague Moses and I were trying to locate our car on Chennai’s Nungambakkam High Road in front of Nalli Silks when I saw a roadside cart laden with cucumbers. The seller was vacantly gazing at passersby. Clad in a white shirt and a dhoti worn in the traditional Chennai style, he had long hair and an unkempt beard. I did not know Tamil, and asked Moses to find out the price. One rupee apiece, came the reply. We wanted one piece each. The cucumber seller began deftly slicing them to put salt and the delectable red chilly powder on the neat halves. As we bit into the cucumber, I asked Moses to tell him that his pricing was too low, and that he should raise it. Moses conveyed this. The seller shook his head, and replied that "customer satisfaction" is more important than extra profit. The words ‘customer satisfaction’ were in English. I gulped my patronising comment. At this time, Moses excused himself to find our car. After a few moments, the seller asked me in English where I was from. From Bangalore, I replied. What follows here is our conversation. His statements are highlighted.

Isn’t the Karnataka budget due to be presented tomorrow? Yes, that is true. Living in Karnataka, it was easy for me to concur on this.

I wonder how the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will ever solve the watersharing problem. Man cannot solve this problem. It has to be God. After all, it is an issue of how much rain is going to fall! I nodded. I was not sure if I had a view at all.

See the way the monsoon is progressing. It does not look good. The progress of the rains is leaving a ‘V’ of a dry patch as the clouds move north. Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and the states up north will have problems. Politicians are the ones who use such problems to create a divide among people. They always do it. They use water, religion, anything they can, to create a divide. Look at the way Amarinder Singh of Punjab is taking a stand. I looked at him, in part admiration and part disbelief.

You’re from Bangalore. Things are going well for you folks. But I don’t understand how people with shady business interests can become representatives of public opinion there. It was part complaint and part observation.

At this point, a fellow peddler arrived — helped himself to some of the cucumber, and the two had a quick conversation on some issue I did not understand. After the other person left, I asked him if selling cucumber was his full-time vocation. He told me that right now it was. Earlier, he sold lottery tickets, the trading of which has since been banned. As a result he had to switch his business to selling cucumbers on the wheeled cart. No complaints and no issues. Meaning to engage him further, I asked him his religion. This drew an instant look of disappointment from him: "Sir, I am an Indian. That is my religion. In my eyes, all people are equal, and it does not matter to me at all." The clarity of his response and his conviction took me completely by surprise. His net worth was probably equal to his day’s turnover. The newspaper and magazines he reads, to keep abreast of things, wipe off the disposable income he generates. Bare feet on this busy, dusty road, he sold a low-value, perishable product from a rickety cart. At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor. We are not complete if we are not connected. It is only when we are connected that things make sense. Only when things make sense, we can form an opinion. Standing there, I wondered how many in the corporate world know who the chief minister of Punjab is, and about the progress of the monsoon! How many have an informed view on river water politics and budget proceedings of another state. Soon, Moses appeared with our car. It was time for me to go. I shook hands with the nameless cucumber seller of Chennai.

Actually, I wanted to touch his feet.

- SUBROTO BAGCHI

orkut... a breath of fresh networking to many

Someone told me....... if orkut was a country, it'd be the 3rd most populated in the world, only next to China and India. I found a lot of my long lost buddies on orkut..... now thts a common statement u hear...... why did orkut become so powerful???? It was not the first of its kind...... hi5 was already there..... orkut was and is the most user friendly networking site one can come across..... its gr8 in many ways..... in fact i personally find it much better than chattin....... the minute i log onto Gtalk by "mistake" i get a dozen "hiiiiiiiisssssss" so to speak..... even before i change my status to exxxxxxxxxtremely busy.......... whereas in orkut, all i do is find frnds to who i hv somethin to say or i hvnt said anythin in a while and jus scrap them...... once he/she replies i reply back..works a lot easier....... u dont need a frnd to be online to chat with them.... a convenient form of chattin is wat it is.

So why is it then tht people find orkut more of a bane these days..... the other day there was a show on CNN-IBN, with people analysin the pros and cons... but why i ask??? People complain of others snoopin into their profiles, lookin into their albums, readin their scraps, etc..... i once saw a guy's profile and clicked to see his scrapbook...... he had scrapped himself "stop readin others' scraps" and in his album, "stop lookin at others' pics"... then why the hell r u on orkut, dammit!!!! when u get urself a nice lookin profile, with pics and stuff u know wat to expect....... its not a closed forum, there has never been an attempt to make it a closed forum and there never will be as well...... its a freakin open forum, where people r free to do wat they want......

sometimes i get bugged with requests from these random people who claim they "want to make friendship with me", rings a bell does it??? all i do is politely delete or decline their request.... delete their scraps from my scrapbook...... thts the best u can do.... if u dont want people to look at u or to know who u r then dont become a member........ its as simple as tht.....

another thing i find extremely weird is tht people dont put their own pics...... the other day some girl i knew form school had an aishwarya rai pic... all tht she had scrapped was hi.... i had no clue who the hell she was, i then went through her album, which was filled with baby pics and other actors pics........ now people pls introduce urself or the simplest thing i resort to is the delete or decline button........

The CNN-IBN show also said about how kids these days get spoilt by these websites and how they get into unnecessary trouble, through orkut, youtube etc.. where ur life is "pretty much exposed" (thts exactly wat they used) to the outside world...... now lemme get this straight... u mean to say tht "kids" these days get spoilt.....

a. they're not kids if they know how to get themselves an attractive profile on orkut.... attractive enough to call for other people to view their profiles.....

b. do u say tht people never got spoilt in those days, the days before internet and technology???

today its an orkut, youtube, or a porn site..... in those days it was a movie theatre, a few sweet words here and there and a zillion promises which go down the drain once u've know the person......

Again is love all tht we're lookin at here...... there r so many communities on orkut which give u some really good info..... but the problem is tht especially if ur a girl..... the minute u scrap someone and ask them a doubt, they assume u would become frnds with them, so tht they can flaunt ur scrap and say, oh a girl is my frnd....... wat cheapos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theres this sayin, even in darkness theres light, similarly, even in orkut, theres both good and bad, a bit of yin and yang..... the telephone, bus stands and office of a few years back have been replaced by the mobile phones and orkuts of today....... thts jus abt it...... its jus the medium which is different, the people and their mentality is still the same...... the one who wants go the bad way and learn things will always do so irrespective of whether they have a sophisticated medium like orkut or not...... orkut is merely one which brings things about a person to light, in front of others........ u hv to choose wat u want people to know abt u and wat u dont want them to know...... its jus a matter or choices and preferences... get them in the right place!!!!!!