Poetry in motion

IMG_0903, originally uploaded by Pranay Rao.

One of the most technically brilliant scenes that I remember is from this movie called blade - trinity, where count dracula walks in slow motion while the crowd around him seems to be moving at full speed. The scenes been replayed in a zillion movies yet it sticks in my head because of the sheer poetry in motion. there's something about the timing. It's that moment in life when you stand still and the world whizzes by. It's retrospection time.

I'm right now in Bangalore down with a tummy infection again. I think it's time I visit a proper gastroentologist. I've been keeping busy. Looking at sales, trying to read some books which I picked up at the strand book fair.

This Sunday was most different, beginning with meditation, moving on to a nice french lunch at Bat & Ball which reminded me of Satsanga in Pondicherry and then scategories with friends read Manish, Andy, Tanmay and Angad and dinner at Manish's. Bangalore is turning into more of a things to do place. At least I am surrounded with people who are enthusiastic to do something.

Anyway all the beautiful markets which are part of my market have yet to be visited by me. I really have to get my act together and start travelling more. Anyway travelling will have to wait a couple of days. till I recover at least.

My good friend during all this travelling has been the Kamath's restaurant. Unfortunately experimented at Kollegal, which caused my tummy problem. The Kamath's restaurants are these complete vegetarian places where you are served excellent veg food. The food reminds me of the fare my granny (Amma) conjured up for Gokulashtmi. You have a choice of Puris and/or Jowar Rotis with an assortment of curries, each uniquely tasty. The curries are really not designed to go well with the rotis. The flavour comes out excellently with rice, which is quite the staple here.

I have hardly had an opportunity to use my camera during my tours yet, mainly because they have been hectic one day affairs. Once fitter I plan to do a good long tour of the entire branch territory, trying to understand each part. There's only so much you can understand through hearasay. Part of learning is experiencing.

BTW blade - trinity is quite the OK movie, so don't go and watch it because of this post. But there are contless such movies which have a special part which people will always remember. Take Chamma Chamma from China Gate. The movie sank like a stone but the song lives forever through Moulin Rouge. And even the greatest movies have their sore points. I hope you have seen Seher, this wonderful movie about the UP underworld with Arshad Warsi and Pankaj Kapoor. There is this irritating little trick in this very real movie. Every time Mahima Chowdhury (looking nice for a change) comes onto the scene, there's a fan blowing on her face, which I tell you is quite out of place.

Anyway life has moved onto a completely different job in a completely different city with very different things to manage. For a moment I too need to pause and watch as the city passes by, just like in the picture I clicked in Ernakulam.

Till next time,

Luv,

Pranay

Finding my roots and holding on to it.

IMG_0893, originally uploaded by Pranay Rao.

As a kid I always remembered the last day of my vacations in Kerala when my grandfather after delaying/re-scheduling our tickets back home would finally condescend to allow us to go back home. Then he would stand at the platform with tears in his eyes watching us go away. It broke my heart each time.

In the 8 years post his death I've just gone to our house in Pathnapuram once. I also had to pay my last respects to my uncle, whose funeral I did not attend last year. Something I will regret forever. Anyway the house looks the same, though the surroundings have changed. The paddy fields across the road have vanished. They have been filled in so that they can be sold as non agricultural land, much more valuable but not half as beautiful. Consequently the stream near the paddy fields has been walled in. The stream for most part of the year used to be the paddy farmers best friend and occassionally a bad spell of monsoon would cause floods which would destroy the same paddy fields which it had watered all year round.

A recent article quoted to me said that Indian and Chinese people are resillient thanks to the paddy they grow. Standing in knee deep water, ensuring that the paddy stays seperated is tough work. The modern labourer of Kerala doesn't like to do this work any longer.

Every Kerala house generally has a small little outhouse. In the days of old, rubber sheets used to be created here. Behind it was this wild piece of land where my grandfather would grow everything from jackfruit, tapiocca, bananas to cashewnut and grapefruit. My granny has cleared up this space and now rubber saplings have been planted interspersed with teak and mahogany trees. The saplings will take another 4 years to mature says granny before she can begin tapping them for rubber milk.

The driveway is still strewn with pebbles taken from a river bed nearby. They now lead to an empty garage. The beautiful mark 2 ambassador sold off years back. The cost of maintaining it and the difficulty in finding a driver means my granny is dependent on local cabs who she calls up. She anyway keeps moving between Ppuram and her flat in Kochi and our home in Mumbai. Kochi provides security (the flat is in my uncle's hospital) and convenience but she can hardly stay away from her estate. Each brick in the wall, she says was selected by her personally. Leaving her home is not an option.

The grand old house is no longer the biggest in Pathnapuram. The position has been long taken away by huge palatial bungalow's made with 'gulf' money. Some look beautiful, resplendent in Kerala architecture. Some are gaudy eyesores. Guess the gulf money can't bridge the gulf in class :).

This small little vacation with maa, dad, nephew, sis and bro - in - law has been most wonderful. Has seriously made me consider a move to Mumbai. Chintu and Kau have been driving the same point into my head from some time. Driving down from flags to home after a plate of Alfredo corn Nachos listening to songs at full blast felt great. It was more than a drive post dinner. It was a drive down memory lane.

A lot of emotions, a lot of experiences in this trip. Just a day to go and I have the same feeling in my tummy which I felt while watching my grandpa at the platform.

Happiness with a tinge of sadness,

Pranay Rao

See bra see bra

I am finally on a vacation (14 months since the last 1) in conservative Kerala, so it was quite a shock to hear a couple of children point out and shout 'See bra, See bra'. It was only when I (purely to satisfy my inquisitiveness) looked in the direction they were pointing to see a homely striped creature called Zebra standing in his enclosure at Trivandrum Zoo.

Kerala has just got a whole new facelift with modern malls and shopping centres dotting the landscape. The men still wear the Mundu/lungi and the women typical sarees but the Kitex lungi is now available at a neat modern trade outlet.

In fact the lungi is not half as obscene as it is made to seem. Of course there is the ocassional draft of wind which could give it a grotesque marilyn monroe effect but mostly it can be worn most classily or so I think because I won't be caught dead in one. I am just standing up for my mallu brethren.

Key facts that I have discovered during this trip:

• I am bloody eligible not withstanding recent comments from narrow minded colleagues, etc. The fact that I am an engineer (nobody bats an eyelid at the IIM part) and a computer engineer at that makes me hot property.
• I am the only person that my nephew listens to which has given me special status in our travelling group of my mom, dad, sister and bro in law. The little kid positively adores me and vice versa.
• Rice can be eaten (in various forms) 3 times a day.
• My Syrian christian relatives never heard about vegetarians. The closest thing to a vegetarian they have heard of is the family elephants they used to have. Considering my size I am worried they might just serve me rice balls and bananas.
• Waking up at 7 am is a piece of cake especially when you know that it leads to a healthy breakfast and not a sweaty gym.
• Being surrounded by keralites (SEC A for sure) is amazing for my ego. Most of them make me feel like (a slightly healthier) Salman Khan.
• Skin colour is not skin deep. Fairness here is almost a virtue. Must be one freaking huge market for fair and lovely.
• I really truly needed this break from work. It's liberating. This is what the African women felt when they burnt the (see)bra. Hee Hee. Couldn't help that one.

My trip till now has been pretty amazing with visits to Kochi and Trivandrum and playing with my nephew. It hasn't rained a drop since we've been here, which is kinda odd for Kerala. The weather is warm. Warm enough for my nephew to want to spend his day in the stream outside the house and yet not hot enough to need an a/c.

Till the next time I get a steady net connection.

Curled up with 'The god of small things'.

Luv,

Pranay

Medicines in India

A bad tummy has kept me home for 2 days and living on electral and tablets. I live at Hastings which is considered an upmarket area in Kolkata so I headed out to the local doctor. The local doctor has this small dispensary next to a medical store here. I was waiting in line with about 10 - 12 women and a couple of army guys. The dispensary was dark and small with a doctor who seemed to know what he was talking about.

This is the situation in Kolkata, one of the metros of India so you can imagine the situation in smaller towns. The last time I had fallen ill in Kalka, on the way to Shimla I was attended to by a doctor who was not an MBBS. Even then I felt that the medical care facilities in India really need to improve. I don't think it's a lack of Doctors. It's just that they are not available at the right place.

One more problem I noticed was the chemists not selling tablets as per requirements especially for the expensive tablets and tablets I must tell you are very expensive. My tablets cost me all of 250 bucks for 3 days. that would be a large chunk of salary for a lot of people.

As a kid I had a dream of an India complete in every aspect. Haven't done much to change it yet. But if me living in a city doesn't have access to medical facilities, a lot of India would be at the mercy of quacks who are taking advantage of poor hapless people.

One thing we guys can do is probably contribute unused unexpired medicines to medicine banks available at many chemists. I know local chemists in Mumbai had it. What would anyway have been thrown out can help somebody.

Let's do our bit. Remember every drop can catalyse a wave.

The last few pages

P160509_17.52[01], originally uploaded by Pranay Rao.

Another chapter ends in my life. This one's on branding and what better way to end it than winning the Brand equity Quiz at Kolkata traditionally one of the best quizzing cities. Unfortunately couldn't make much of an impression at the finals.

I'm now moving on to Bangalore which means I'm getting closer home to Mumbai. I'm moing to Sales - Grocery 1, Karnataka. Which means handling sales of the food brands.

Definitely interesting stuff this.

Clicked this picture at Princep Ghat today. The kid was busy washing his face in the water oblivious of me clicking him with my phone camera - the LG Viewty.

BTW got loads of gifts at Kolkata - 1 Lakh worth gifts + another 20K worth at the finals including a handsfree, a coffe machine, loads of gift vouchers and a 5 star cruise.

Now to find some1 to join me there :).

Luv,

P.R.

'Give us today our daily bread' or what happened at brand equity 09 and my visit to Mother house

That's a line from the Lord's prayer and also what resulted in one of the most amazing stories of my life. But let's start at the beginning.

Wednesday morning. Two teams from ITC were to go for the brand equity. The two teams wereto be created from a pool of 4 people GK Suresh (my super boss), Satish, Sreerang and me. Sreerang and me have participated in 2 quizes earlier and missed qualification by a point both times. Satish and me had qualified for a super tough quiz where we messed up. Anubhav (who had to go to Mumbai for some work) and Satish had earlier come fourth in one of the Kolkata circuit quizzes.

Anyway Satish and I decided on 2 teams (rotation for luck) - Satish and Sreerang and GK Sir and me. Come 5:30 Sreerang lands up at our office where Satish and I were furiously wrapping up our work. Sreerang and I decided to go ahead and fill the qualification forms as GK Sir and Satish were busy. So we left at 5:45 for a quiz thatwas to start at 6. Kolkata quizzes are famous for starting super late so we strolled into kala mandir at 6:00 to be told by the sponsors that the quiz is starting.

Sreerang and I were then suddenly the only team from ITC. We ran in and sat for the prelims of 30 questions out of which we got around 19 which seemed to be decent. However Godbole and I have this knack of missing finals by a point, so we waited with bated breath for Derek O Brien. The Derek O Brien we had seen on numerous BQCs, Brand Equities announced the bottom 12. Then the top 3 before announcing that the fourth team was a small and upcoming Kolkata company (which had us shaking our head) before announcing ITC. He also commented that we had qualified many times but ITC had never won (at least at Kolkata).

Then started a wonderful quiz (in hindsight). We were the underdogs as the Kol quizzing circuit is full of stalwart teams. On the Dias were StanC, IBM, TCS(who were the defending national champions 2008), Cognizant and M junction.

We started off well (to every1s surprise). Leading the first and 2nd rounds before TCS caught up at the third round and passed us by the fifth round. TCS and us were on the top 2 for the last round where teams are given 8 questions. The rule is that teams can be in the buzzer round (10 for right, - 10 for wrong) as long as they have a chance to catch up with the top 2 teams. The first question saw m junction exit. TCS were at 60 and we were at 55. Cognizant, StanC and IBM were tied 3rd on 40. TCS beat us to the buzzer for the next question which was Agra's favourite sweet. Ans: Petha after which IBM gave a wrong answer which was a -10 and they exited. Then came 2 questions which no one answered (we obviously wanted to stay in the top 2) and Cognizant and StanC exited which left TCS and us at the top 2 with 3 questions to go.
Question 6: Which is the first word of SWOT if arranged alphabetically. TCS hit the buzzer before us and were ready to kill ourselves when they said Strength and we couldn't believe our ears.
Score TCS 60 ITC 55.
Next question: Which product is named in the Lord's prayer. The answer 'Bread' in the line 'Give us today our daily bread'. We hit the buzzer and suddenly the quiz changed.
Score ITC 65 TCS 60
The last question. Who is known as the originator of management? TCS hit the buzzer and answered 'Booze A Hamilton'. We believed the answer was McKinsey.
Then Derek called the chief guest onto stage and there was the whole 10 minutes of drama when he asked us our answers and revealed the right answer:



Mckinsey.

Score: ITC 65 TCS 50.

Suddenly we had won the Brand equity Kolkata round and all thanks to the Lord's prayer.

Thank you god.

BTW this would be my last few weeks in Kolkata so I finally decided to visit Mother Teresa's grave. I asked someone at my church where was Mother Teresa's grave and he personally took me outside and pointed in the direction of AJC bose road. I asked him for a landmark and he smiled and said 'Everyone knows mother house'.

I took his advice and flagged down a cab and told him mother house and the cabbie knew. He parked the car besides this little lane. I got down and one slightly disformed young lady just pointed towards an alley where a man in a lungi and banian pointed to a small gate. The time was 11:50 and the visiting hours were till 12. I was directed towards Mother's small little room, sparse and simple. There is something about the place that feels different. You have to go there to experience it. I then walked to this little museum which speaks about this great ladies life which is amazing. Read Navin Chawla's biography of her. We (a couple of foreign tourists) and I went to her grave where all the sisters came in to pray. Trully a wondeful feeling. Do go there if you are in Kolkata. It's humbling.

Luv,

Pranay

The Egg Bhurji

The Egg Bhurji (scrambled eggs for the angrez) is the most unerrated meal in the world. It's like Boman Irani in a good movie. Everyone likes him but no one credits him with the success of the film. The egg Bhurji is simplicity personified. It's two eggs mangled out of shape with some chopped onions, tomatoes and chillies for flavour. Sometimes there's a little milk added for flavour and volume and there's always a pinch of salt. In fact it's the sheer simplicity of making it that actually goes against it in the hierarchy of food.

The Bhurji and I have spent many wonderful moments together. Early childhood when my mother falling sick meant my dad cooked (actually undercooked) this wonderful dish which always had my mother getting well just so that her children would be spared from the torture or later when I learnt the intricacies of cooking a good egg dish and a wonderful bowl of maggi noodles just so that I could be spared from my sister's (attempts at) cooking. It's been a year since I cooked a Bhurji or anything for that matter butI eat it once a fortnight at least.

One of my most memorable Bhurji eating incidents is the biking trip to Wayanad on a rainy dark night which culminated in this wonderful meal and of course my stay in HP where most -2 deg Cel mornings were made better by this humble little meal.

I will always treasure the experience of this humble dish eaten with a few slices of bread or a Maska Pav (remember Cafe Mondegar when we were kids) on a nice wintry morning just before a football match with a nice cutting Chai.

Sometimes the best things in life are simple, simply wonderful.

Luv,
Pranay

P.S.: Bet this post got your mouth watering :).

The hand that rocks the ladle

I live in an ITC chummery. Getting here and staying here has been a battle in itself. The chummery comes with it's own help who go by the name Kailash and his side kick Bharat. The only problem is Kailash thinks he owns the house and we are his hired help :). The little man has rules about meals in that we must order it hours in advance. Woe betide the man who lands up for a meal unprepared cause the little man shakes his head in grief and expresses his inability to cook any food.

Anyway Mr. Kailash is one smart business manager cause we pay him a fixed sum per meal so if we do forget to tell him what to cook (he is a great cook), we are suprised by certain leafy vegetables and wierd looking forms of gourd which only he seems to know about. I infact have this sneaky suspicion that he makes them out of the plants around our building compound. We just shake our head when any of these things arrive and generally get him to make an egg Bhurji, which of course is an extra charge.

Last week, Kailash gave me a super duper smile and even good food unannounced, which was truly suspicious and then came the reason. Some bright person introduced the concept of a guestbook at the chummery with (hold your breath), a feedback column. If this were scrubs/Ally McBeal I would've probably rocked my head back and broken into maniacal laughter. However this is the man who cooks my food and you never know what could slip into your meal. Thumb rule: Never mess with the hand that rocks the ladle :).

Having gained my leverage, I have delayed my feedback giving for all of 3 weeks enjoying superior service and plan to push this advantage for as long as possible :D.

To better food
Hee Hee Haa Haa Haaa

- Pranay

Branding in the country of The holy Cow

The holy Cow, originally uploaded by Pranay Rao.

Branding, the word has it's origination in the branding of cattle by American cowboys. They used to use hot iron to brand their cattle and obviously there was differentiation amongst ranch cattle which was where the first brand choice was made, The branding concept was taken forward to beef which was branded and then ofcourse to denim.

Branding in India is probably the biggest challenge faced by any marketeer anywhere. You have regions which behave as independent countries. You have guys like Nirma which suddenly gives the Unilevers of the world a run for their money.

I work for ITC, probably the only tobacco company in the free world who has taken on Marlboro successfully through branding. A company which launches a brand a month,through their Food and Personal Care businesses and yet it's tough as hell to crack the Indian consumer.

All the SWOT charts, Ansoff matrices and Maslow's hierarchy charts can't help make sense of the Indian consumer. Trust me, I've spent a year in consumer insight, the Indian consumer is one tough guy to understand. I've managed what is the world's largest consumer survey and at the end of it still not totally sure.

The genesis of this post was a combination of working day and night on cracking a plan and watching outsourced. I've been working day and night on this damn thing and still don't think I've got it right. I also recently travelled to Vizag and was surprised (read shocked) to see a night life which could rival Kol and definitely way better music than Kol. And let me tell you midtown India is definitely freer than the metros and yes brand conscious. Rural India which was where I've done my sales stint has shown me stores stocking premium products which hardly sell in a Mumbai. India can take your beliefs and turn them topsy turvy. Nothing is understood here.

BTW I just realised this morning that I've been in ITC for 2 years and 9 months. I've done 11 months of sales, 13 months of research and 9 months of branding. That's as much varied exposure as you can get in marketing and there's still so much to learn.

Still making sense of Marketing in India

Luv,

Pranay

The Battle amidst the winds

He pulls hard with the wind at his back,
It's a war he can't afford to lose.
His skillful hands manipulate the string,
the destiny of the battle he will choose.

He wipes the sweat off his brow,
and licks the bruise on his index finger.
The bruise burns as the fresh cut heals,
The taste of blood on his tongue lingers.

It's a taste not alien to him,
It's the taste of victory against the odds,
He squints as the sun enters his line of sight,
as he looks towards the abode of the gods.

The wind god he knows has been kind to him,
For the breeze lifts just as he has got the upper hand.
He pulls hard, concentration writ large on his face,
He tugs hard and his kite dives down towards the land.

The moment pauses as the final move has been made,
His little frame tenses up as the target enters his sight.
The string slices through in an arc towards the ground,
The enemy is pulled back and then goes limp in mid-flight.

He breaks out in a smile of little pearls,
as the little child in him comes to the fore.
His fist punches the air as he looks to the sky,
Another victory to add to his invincible lore.

- Pranay Rao