Sunday, January 03, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
The colours of my faith
My faith is of colour green, but it is the green of the grass and leaves
My faith is of colour saffron, but it is the saffron tinge that the early morning sunlight has
My faith is of colour black, but it is the black that a starry night in the jungle has
My faith is of colour brown, but it is the brown that the tilled earth has.
My faith if of colour white, but it is the whiteness that snowfall brings to a land, sombre and elegant.
My faith is of all these colours, and I will stand by them, fighting against trespasses that you and your kind make, in the name of false gods and their false colours.
My faith is of colour saffron, but it is the saffron tinge that the early morning sunlight has
My faith is of colour black, but it is the black that a starry night in the jungle has
My faith is of colour brown, but it is the brown that the tilled earth has.
My faith if of colour white, but it is the whiteness that snowfall brings to a land, sombre and elegant.
My faith is of all these colours, and I will stand by them, fighting against trespasses that you and your kind make, in the name of false gods and their false colours.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
DNA does a Campa Cola on the Times Of India
55000 Punekars got a mild surprise on Thursday early morning, when on opening the door they found, instead of the Black New Roman font of the Times Of India, the red and blue serif font of DNA greeting them from their doorstep.
In my undergradute days as a business administration student, I remember hearing the case of how Coke uprooted Campa Cola in India in the late 80s. I tried confirming the anecdote, but couldn’t. Nevertheless, with the disclaimer that this is a completely unconfirmed story, I am narrating it, because what happened this last Thursday is directly related, even parallel to this story.
Campa Cola, a drink owned by the Pure Drinks group, owned almost complete market and mind share in India in the 80s. In the late 80s and early 90s, with the onset of liberalisation, it was possible for the first time, for giants like coke to tap the huge Indian markets.
Campa Cola's absolute mindshare and brand equity, combined with its strong retail network, made it impossible for Coke to make any possible dent in the market. Add to this situation the low penetration of TV back then, and the battle for India seemed already lost for Coke.
Nevertheless, Coke decided to setup its bottling plants, acquire its own distribution network and start its own marketing campaign. Then when all was ready, and the first bottle of coke was ready to come across the counter, in a one night blitzkrieg, Coke had all of Campa Cola's bottles collected and crushed from the retailers, by bribing them.
Overnight, Campa Cola lost the majority of its distribution capacity and by the time it could get its act together and have several million bottles made, Coke had already made its way to the Indian lips and minds. Campa cola was wiped out from the Indian soft drink market completely.
This is rather dramatic to be completely true, I agree. But, its veracity anyways doesn’t matter. That was a good 20 years back and that was cold drinks. What we saw on January 17th, was a rather brazen attempt by a newspaper company to bribe newspaper distributors into not distributing a certain paper, in the hope of capturing eyeballs and mindshare owned by a large competitor.
This worries me quite a bit. If I disliked coke, or if I hated their marketing warfare, or I loved Campa Cola, I would simply stop drinking coca cola.
But I can’t stop reading the news. And I can’t stop others from reading it either. I liked what I read of the DNA, but its ethics worry me. And a newspaper with dubious ethics is like a wolf in sheepskin. If today it can make compromises to obtain readership, tomorrow it might make compromises to retain or manipulate its readers opinions.
This also makes me think, why an evidently well-compiled newspaper might have to struggle so hard to capture our readerships. The Times of India, that has held sway over the subcontinent for almost a century now, has definite rooms for improvement. Surely we readers should be keen on considering alternatives which might be better or at least different.
Or is it possible that we as a society are so apathetic to our news, or so difficult to accept change, that we won’t exercise a choice until it is thrust down our throats? Is it possible that a new or different voice amidst us, goes unheard and unconsidered, merit notwithstanding, until it’s loud enough to drown all others?
This is the question we must ask and answer ourselves - and then deal with those answers.
In my undergradute days as a business administration student, I remember hearing the case of how Coke uprooted Campa Cola in India in the late 80s. I tried confirming the anecdote, but couldn’t. Nevertheless, with the disclaimer that this is a completely unconfirmed story, I am narrating it, because what happened this last Thursday is directly related, even parallel to this story.
Campa Cola, a drink owned by the Pure Drinks group, owned almost complete market and mind share in India in the 80s. In the late 80s and early 90s, with the onset of liberalisation, it was possible for the first time, for giants like coke to tap the huge Indian markets.
Campa Cola's absolute mindshare and brand equity, combined with its strong retail network, made it impossible for Coke to make any possible dent in the market. Add to this situation the low penetration of TV back then, and the battle for India seemed already lost for Coke.
Nevertheless, Coke decided to setup its bottling plants, acquire its own distribution network and start its own marketing campaign. Then when all was ready, and the first bottle of coke was ready to come across the counter, in a one night blitzkrieg, Coke had all of Campa Cola's bottles collected and crushed from the retailers, by bribing them.
Overnight, Campa Cola lost the majority of its distribution capacity and by the time it could get its act together and have several million bottles made, Coke had already made its way to the Indian lips and minds. Campa cola was wiped out from the Indian soft drink market completely.
This is rather dramatic to be completely true, I agree. But, its veracity anyways doesn’t matter. That was a good 20 years back and that was cold drinks. What we saw on January 17th, was a rather brazen attempt by a newspaper company to bribe newspaper distributors into not distributing a certain paper, in the hope of capturing eyeballs and mindshare owned by a large competitor.
This worries me quite a bit. If I disliked coke, or if I hated their marketing warfare, or I loved Campa Cola, I would simply stop drinking coca cola.
But I can’t stop reading the news. And I can’t stop others from reading it either. I liked what I read of the DNA, but its ethics worry me. And a newspaper with dubious ethics is like a wolf in sheepskin. If today it can make compromises to obtain readership, tomorrow it might make compromises to retain or manipulate its readers opinions.
This also makes me think, why an evidently well-compiled newspaper might have to struggle so hard to capture our readerships. The Times of India, that has held sway over the subcontinent for almost a century now, has definite rooms for improvement. Surely we readers should be keen on considering alternatives which might be better or at least different.
Or is it possible that we as a society are so apathetic to our news, or so difficult to accept change, that we won’t exercise a choice until it is thrust down our throats? Is it possible that a new or different voice amidst us, goes unheard and unconsidered, merit notwithstanding, until it’s loud enough to drown all others?
This is the question we must ask and answer ourselves - and then deal with those answers.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Deewar pey lagna out hai!!!
There’s nothing that can replace the sheer joy of playing cricket on a Sunday afternoon, under the hot summer sun. Perfecting the off spin, focusing on the square cut at the next delivery, stooping behind the stumps and beating your keeper gloves together, running behind a ball to save a four, arguing over a no ball. The purposeless sincerity, nail biting climaxes in a match of 40 runs, heated arguments over a wide ball, all of that made so much sense, and mattered so much to us as we grew up.
Cricket was not such a big money game yet. The dominant color was still white and terms like draw of stumps, follow on, tea break made a lot of sense. The vacant plot next to our mohalla, was host to several dozen cricket matches, on different pitches all over it. The more serious and bigger players would be playing on the actual mud pitch. Once they had marked out their area, other smaller teams and kid gangs would move in, making overlapping circles all over the place.
To the untrained eyes of a bystander it would appear very confusing. A fielder running right in the middle of a batting pitch, a batsman asking his bowler to hold on, then picking up another ball at his feet and throwing it at another fielder from another team, two teams fighting over who gets to use a spot as pitch. All of this, plus the usual cheering, shouting and periodic knocking sounds as different bats met the ball in mid-air and flung them to their destinations.
Then there were those location-specific rules. If you were playing on the outside edge of the ground, where the cars and bikes were parked, then a full shot to hit a six, meant you were out. This was to prevent the more aggressive batsmen from going for a six on each ball and running the risk of breaking rearview mirrors and windshields.
There were a whole bunch of these rules which came into effect as time, location and players required. One-tip-one-hand, was a rule that would come into effect when playing in very narrow yards, where no one would ever play a high shot. So, catching a player out was almost impossible. All would then agree that if a ball bounced once and was caught by the fielder by one hand, that would be deemed a catch out. Hence the name 'one-tip-one-hand'.
Those were crazy, uncomplicated, fun days. Entire afternoons would be spent playing mindless cricket, with the true spirit of competition mixed with joyous abandon, since we all knew that at the end of the day there was nothing at stake. Winning didn’t really matter as much as giving the game your best.
Days that today’s mobile totting, Dish TV and Internet generation would never know and never miss. The TV ate the kids, the construction industry ate the grounds, big money ate cricket, and now, only the fat old sun in the blue sky remains, waiting to hear one more time...deewar pey lagna out hai!
Cricket was not such a big money game yet. The dominant color was still white and terms like draw of stumps, follow on, tea break made a lot of sense. The vacant plot next to our mohalla, was host to several dozen cricket matches, on different pitches all over it. The more serious and bigger players would be playing on the actual mud pitch. Once they had marked out their area, other smaller teams and kid gangs would move in, making overlapping circles all over the place.
To the untrained eyes of a bystander it would appear very confusing. A fielder running right in the middle of a batting pitch, a batsman asking his bowler to hold on, then picking up another ball at his feet and throwing it at another fielder from another team, two teams fighting over who gets to use a spot as pitch. All of this, plus the usual cheering, shouting and periodic knocking sounds as different bats met the ball in mid-air and flung them to their destinations.
Then there were those location-specific rules. If you were playing on the outside edge of the ground, where the cars and bikes were parked, then a full shot to hit a six, meant you were out. This was to prevent the more aggressive batsmen from going for a six on each ball and running the risk of breaking rearview mirrors and windshields.
There were a whole bunch of these rules which came into effect as time, location and players required. One-tip-one-hand, was a rule that would come into effect when playing in very narrow yards, where no one would ever play a high shot. So, catching a player out was almost impossible. All would then agree that if a ball bounced once and was caught by the fielder by one hand, that would be deemed a catch out. Hence the name 'one-tip-one-hand'.
Those were crazy, uncomplicated, fun days. Entire afternoons would be spent playing mindless cricket, with the true spirit of competition mixed with joyous abandon, since we all knew that at the end of the day there was nothing at stake. Winning didn’t really matter as much as giving the game your best.
Days that today’s mobile totting, Dish TV and Internet generation would never know and never miss. The TV ate the kids, the construction industry ate the grounds, big money ate cricket, and now, only the fat old sun in the blue sky remains, waiting to hear one more time...deewar pey lagna out hai!
Monday, December 03, 2007
American Diwali
Olives, pringles and snickers instead of laddu, mewa and pedey -
Only in Delhi can you see an entire Target/Wallmart packed in a diwali tokri (traditionally gift given to close relatives). Delhi seems to have perfected the overlay of western influence on Indian festivals and culture.
