How Starbucks Saved My Life...

I read a number of books in the last couple of weeks. One among those was 'How Starbucks Saved My Life' by Michael Gates Gill and it did strike a different perspective on life, though very mildly. A life that has suddenly switched from one of prestige, power, money, glam and glitz to that of an ordinary common man, a barista at Starbucks.

It is the sweet bitter story in the first few chapters which transforms into a bitter sweet tale in the later half of the book. It's the story of Michael Gates Gill who was born in a highly reputed family and was son to Brendan Gill, well-known writer for the New Yorker. Gill's early life was all that one could aspire for, education at Yale University, job at the prestigious J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, acquaintance with Ernest Hemmingway and other crème de la crème in the field of literature, etc. You name it; he had it, all the symbols of modern day success and badges of material accomplishments by the time he was fifty.

One fine day J. Walter Thompson un-ceremonially dismisses him, thanking Gill for his service for more than two and a half decades. A high profile executive is now unemployed and that too at a time when he discovers that he is a new father with a woman he had an affair with and needs to take care of a little girl. The affair brings an end to his twenty-year marriage and he is isolated from his former wife and his children. Life comes to a sudden halt as Gill is also diagnosed with a small tumor in his head. Depression and cover of darkness dominates Gill's life.

With no money, no health insurance, and no prospects, one day Gill spends his time in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury "a latte" brooding about his misfortune and how to take care of his little baby girl. Something magical happens and a young African-American woman asks the suit clad Gill if he is looking a job. Gill accepts the offer without a second thought and later learns that the godsend, 28 year old young woman, Crystal, is a Starbucks manager.

Once on job floor, Gill undergoes a major shift in life from commanding an army of advertising specialists to scrubbing toilets, making coffee, handling the cash counter and doing other day-to-day activities at Starbucks working with a team of young African-Americans. Gill, the only old white guy in the team begins to see life from a different perspective, appreciates the harsh realities of survival, and also rectifies his ingrained prejudices related to many aspects. Respect and kindness become his crutches, when his entire armor of entitlement had been stripped away. Gill learns from his co-workers who are half his age in their mid twenties, that 'gratitude' and 'will to fight' doesn't follow any equation having color, class, race, religion, age, skin pigmentation, language, or gender as variables.

Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked Gill's world wide open. That's the pulp of the storyline and so the name 'How Starbucks Saved My Life'.

The book was a Ok Ok read though and I finished it in two sittings. At times I found that stories and the tales that Gill, the former corporate shark spews at regular intervals in the book were a bit kitschy. The author has spent page after page explaining how the utopian corporate culture of Starbucks transformed his life, the repeated theme of working with African-Americans, etc. While reading the book, I found these opinions were over done, often giving the impression that it was a Starbucks promotional pap impersonating as a memoir.

I am a bit thrifty and give it a 6/10 on my reading scale. Try it if you wish to.

The New York Times published an interesting interview-article with the author in which one can learn some surprising things that weren’t mentioned in the book.

More about Starbucks here.

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Connexions...

Now everyone knows that, with the kind of revolution and global tie-ups happening in the telecom domain in India today, more Indians than citizens of any other nation would be signing up for mobile telephone services each month. This to me is a symbolic milestone in India’s rapid catch-up with other growing economies in the world.

I am not going to touch that bit, but what interests me more are the kind of changes in our social life that the mobile revolution has introduced. Let's keep the economic, business and technological related changes for some other day to discuss.

Long long time back, during the era of tring tring telephony, people had to wait for two and half hours or more to make a call. It would have been a privilege to have conversed over the phone then. More so owning one of those magic boxes at home would have been a matter of pride. I think in this direction because from whatever I have read, I learn that in those bygone days, to dial a number and stumble onto someone else's conversation was a common affair. Consider yourself more fortunate, if at all the call made the correct connection in your first attempt.

A call from Rangoon to Dehradun to one's lady love, would have been marked in bold letters as an achievement in one's curriculum vitae. Yes, I mean it because it had to surpass two major road blocks. One for sure is the connection getting through and other being to be an avant-garde to call and speak to your dulcinea. With an air of conservative, loog kya socchengye and closed-mindedness prevailing in the society, how would the newly married couples or lovebirds have interacted over the phone. May be our grandfathers and grandmothers can reply to this. Shhh....



India probably had the worst telephone penetration rates in the world till the time we entered the era of liberalization around 1991. The most common anecdote, to cite the government's impassiveness to improve India's communications infrastructure is to quote the words of C.M. Stephen who was the Communications Minister under the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. In reply to a question of regular telephone infrastructure breakdown in India, he told that telephones were a luxury, not a right, and that any Indian who was not satisfied with his/her telephone service could return his phone. From that day till today a lot has changed, and in my view the Government's role in this revolution has always been there but not as much as the private sector telecom companies, who have drafted the new story of connectivity.

Apart from the regular services that I get while I am within the city perimeters, my connectivity is not lost while I am out of town too. When I travel within the different states in India, as soon as I cross the borders of a particular state and enter another one, I immediately get a message on my mobile, 'XYZ Services Welcomes You to 'A' State'. Here 'XYZ' is a service provider and 'A' refers to the state that I have just entered to. Most of the time, our mobile phones connects to its service provider's regular network. Now when my mobile phone is located somewhere not covered by my local carrier's network, I can still avail the facilities by the using services of another provider or a sister arm of the same service provider for connectivity. This is my understanding of what is called 'roaming' on mobile in India. Today this comes at an affordable rate of Rs 1.50 per STD call and Rs 1.00 for local calls.

Mostly, we Indians are a conscientious lot when it comes to spending money on mobile phone talk time. We know which calls can be cut short and which calls can be extended and we do that masterly in our daily lives. Over in India, Ph.D student Carolyn Wei of the University of Washington's department of technical communication has researched the important role mobile phones play in India's Tech city, Bangalore. Not surprisingly, she found that mobile phones play a crucial role in relationships among young people there.

The research was conducted last summer in the fast-growing city of 6.1 million that is experiencing forces of globalization and modernization. Many educated Indian people have moved to Bangalore to work for foreign corporations. The 20 participants in the study were aged from 18 to 30 years, and were fairly typical of young people who have moved to Bangalore for jobs, Wei said. They were financially stable, most had lived in Bangalore for less than two years and most spoke both English and Hindi but none of the local languages. More than half the study participants worked the graveyard shift because they provided technical support for people working during the daytime in North America.

"The people I studied were in this 24/7 environment and they were always on the go," Wei said. Many were involved in long-distance relationships with someone working or studying in another city. The phone provided couples with a "perpetual virtual connection." For people working long hours and commuting in Bangalore's heavy traffic, the mobile phone was even crucial for maintaining relationships with people in the same city.

Now if analyze it, deep down, it's a win-win for both the service providers and the customers. These days, the operating costs are low because the sheer volume of traffic generated by the ever increasing customer base has persuaded many companies to bring down call rates. The end result, invariably everyone, more so the mobile office worker, hopping different cities for business meetings/assignments would like to use a mobile phone for the convenience, add to it the emotional connection, it brings to day-to-day life.



Grandparents from one part of India, (say Delhi) call their grand children based in Bangalore and they carry on their conversations as if they are sitting in the next room. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, sons and daughters living away from parents, brothers and sisters living in different cities, for that matter you think of any human relation, and it's a fair bet that the ubiquitous mobile phone network play some part in the exchange of words. To me the 24/7 mobile phone connectivity today can be appropriated as a means of extending traditional sociality between friends, relatives and family members.



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BlogWorld & New Media Expo - Blogs Go Mainstream...

A couple of months back, I was at the Bangalore BarCamp, [a Bloggers collective version] which was nothing but a series of talks and discussions on an extensive list of topics, of course in a un-conference format. The blogging world is catching up fast, with the explosion of Internet facilities. And very soon the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event dedicated to the furtherance of the dynamics of blogging and new media, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo is coming.

This Blog Summit is a conference series that focuses on the applications of blogging in various spheres of life, social media and a wide array of topics. Apart from all these, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo would feature more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from prominent gurus on the new age online technology and internet-savvy business.

Now anyone who already has the blog virus in his/her blood can join the party. Anyone who is currently blogging, podcasting, producing other forms of new media content, entering the new media industry, or just want to learn about the know-hows of the blogosphere, can be a part of this comprehensive blogging convention, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo.

Blogcritics and Desicritics are participants in this event. Eric Olsen, the Founder and Publisher of Blogcritics.org and who later mentored Aaman in the Desicritics initiative is one of the key speakers at this forum.

A peek into Eric Olsen's career graph in writing, editing, and media exposes his expertise in this arena for close to 20 years now. He has written volumes on a vast array of topics including politics, current events, world affairs, popular culture, music, music industry, digital technology, opinion and commentary, etc., for periodicals, books, TV, radio, and the Internet. As an editor and author, he supervised the compilation and publication of Networking In the Music Industry (Rockpress, 1993) and Encyclopedia of Record Producers (Billboard Books, 1999). In 2002, Olsen founded online magazine Blogcritics.org, the sinister cabal of superior bloggers.

I am a member of the Desicritics family and softly coupled to Blogcritics. It's definitely a moment of pride and appreciation for all the Blogcritic'ians and also Desicritic'ians to have Eric Olsen address such a groundbreaking conference on blogging.

Apart from the discussions on blogging, the conference would also touch other appendages, that regular bloggers use such as widgets, advertising networks, news readers, aggregators, etc to enhance the substance and the presentation of their sites. The event would also feature an open house discussion on the galore of products and services configured to make blogging easy and user-friendly. Apart from these some interesting discussion sessions on topics such as improving the look and aesthetic features of blogs, tips to increase readership, and how to make money from blogs, etc.

The inaugural event will take place on the 8th and 9th November'07 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with an exclusive 'Executive & Entrepreneur' conference beginning on the 7th November '07.

Venue : Las Vegas Convention Center
Address : Las Vegas Convention Center
3150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas,
NV 89109, USA.

The event has some cool sponsors(check the webpage on the top), with, the Southwest Airlines being declared as the 'Official Airline of BlogWorld & New Media Expo'.

Some facts to show how fast the blog virus is spreading. So much so that many of the contenders both from the Democrats and Republicans brigade are using blogs as a medium for canvassing voters for the forth coming US elections. A glance at the official blog site of one of the strongest Democrats competitors, Hillary Clinton shows the impact this new media tool has made. Also a couple of weeks back, there was news about an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steve Job, Apple's chief executive and made ad-lib posts at The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to charade Mr. Jobs and his reputation as a swollen-headed and egotistic leader. On being unmasked, Mr. Daniel Lyons, a writer and editor for the technology related articles for Forbes and author of two works of fiction, the most recently one being, 'Dog Days' said.

Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. "I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it."

Mr. Lyons says he recalled trying out the voices of several chief executives before settling on the colorful Apple co-founder. He twice tried to relinquish the blog, but started again after being deluged by fans e-mailing to ask why Fake Steve had disappeared.

Now how can I miss Heather alias Dooce, the queen of blogosphere and a household phrase in Technorati. Heather Armstrong created Dooce.com in February 2001, and a year later she was 'dooced', i.e. fired from her job as a web designer for writing about her co-workers and workplace. Dooce ranks very high on Technorati and is on the top 100 Most popular blogs list and has won Bloggies Award for Best Writing, Most Humorous Weblog, Best Tagline and Best American Weblog. Unlike other top blogs, Dooce is centered around Heather's articulate and humorous pennings on interesting observations in life, pregnancy, babies, depression, jobs, husband, and hilarious interactions with her daughter.

Now some cool facts on blogging.

• 9% of internet users say they have created blogs.
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs.
• Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

[Source: blogworldexpo.com]

Ok, if you see the last point, it's like someone spends to close to one day out of every seven days in the blog world, for reading, writing, commenting, etc all related to blogs.

Do I fit this profile? You guess!

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Advertising Ke Naye Sitare...

Everyday when I am out and am on my way out of my doors, I come across this huge life size billboard, which has the stylish model Deepika Padukone. Deepika's slim waist and shapely legs, and of course bums all endorsing for Levi Strauss Signature brand. This ravisher and hottie has been selected as the face of all advertising and marketing campaigns of the Levi Strauss Signature brand, which is targeted at the youth, for the coming two years.

Also since I am a Levi's 'ka pujari' [not Deepika's, if that's the case, then its like building castles in air] was checking the web for a new pair of jeans. On the main page of the site, I just skim across this new Ad for Levi's 501 jeans.

A guy unfolds a box and picks up a new pair of jeans. As he opens the zip and then pulls the pants on, suddenly all laws of physics are in disarray. The neighborhood in which the house is located, looks as if attacked by a hurricane, or by a dinosaur going haywire and suddenly the dead street resurrects miraculously into the apartment. With his jeans half-worn, the man sees this charismatic stranger standing in a nearby phone booth. The phone booth's exterior is worn to shreds but the two exchange, a definitive look like Dilip Kumar, Vyjayantimala Bali in Ganga Jamuna for nain lad jai re to manva ma kasak hoi bekari. Then its arms in arms the two walk down the paseo coquettishly, with two butts on the screen.


This is just one part of the story, and then there is a gay version to this one too. The Ad is there in the website of Levi's. Wow another virgin area for the marketers to venture into. Cameron, the Levi's Jeans makers Vice President of marketing goes gung ho about this.

"I think what's surprising is how long it's taken us to get there," Cameron said. "Just to put (a commercial) on a gay-targeted channel like Logo that actually reflects the people who are watching it shouldn't be such a radical notion. It really shouldn't be."

The business for the global brands is not plumping and some of the older brands are clearly struggling to remake their marketing and product mix for a more complex world. The era of building brands namely through the conventional mass media advertising is over. The paramount strategy of the world's most successful brand builders these days is not so much about the old plan of ambit and numbers, frequency of viewing by consumers, but rather making rooms to get the existing and new consumers to invite brands into their lives. The mass media is indispensable and in the near future won't disappear as an instrument of marketing. But smart companies picture these scenarios as making bold statements in design, idea and tapping consumers by integrating messages with entertainment so that the two are indistinguishable.

So in the light of this, is this Levi's new blueprint, a way to capture a new segment and generate more sales. In recent days, there has been news of how tattered and frayed jeans from Sri Lanka are in high demand among shoppers in Europe and the United States.

Well that was videsh, but then in aapna desh also, Kal Ho Na Ho, SRK Lux Star Hai.

Superstar SRK had created a flutter, sometime back with his Lux advertisement, which has him in a rose petal bath surrounded by four heroines who have previously modeled for the soap. Some people thought it was a girlie Ad, and questions were conjured about his sexuality. The brand was highlighted as 'metrosexual'.

After that kya khichdi paakee, God knows but who was the winner in the end: both SRK and HLL. SRK would have got his share for endorsing fees and HLL's sales would have improved from its plummeting sales. Moreso it was not a long-term campaign and was aired for a short duration. Then Lux again got back to its former strategy of having the actresses in bathtubs.

There is a new trend now and the marketing chaps want to leverage this. When it comes to media, men say in the age group of 18 to 35, like things fresh are unpredictable, and uncensored. For this group anything formulaic and recapitulated is boring and draggy, aren't even tempting. So why not try new cards.

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Quote of the Day...

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work."
- Peter Drucker

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The Road Ahead for Dr. Shilpa Shetty...

Today morning, I flip the newspaper and I see this. What ???? Ms. Shilpa Shetty turns Dr. Shilpa Shetty.

Ok Ok, a little bit of flash back, it was in 1993, I was still in my junior school and those days having a cable connection at home was a privilege. It was during a visit to a friend's house when my friend's mother was out for work that we got the video cassette of the movie 'Baazigar' from a nearby video parlor and saw the movie.

That was the first time, I saw the svelte and lissome Shilpa Shetty. The trademark of her persona apart from her patli kaamar was her giggle. From Seema Chopra, a young college girl in 'Baazigar', who falls for Vicky Malhotra because he is a studious chap and helps her with lots of notes and stuff to a 32-year-old star lionising her entry to a super-achievers list.

Babe, your journey has been stupendous.

The Leeds Metropolitan University was so awe struck by the lady that, it has conferred a doctorate degree on Shilpa Shetty. By doing so, the University says it has

"fulfilled its wish to honor prominent Indian personalities who contributed to India’s emergence as a fast developing cinema-proud nation during its 60th year of freedom struggle".

But this very statement is just a flippant rhetoric. I accept the very fact that Shetty is the youngest among those who have been chosen for the honor, the earlier ones being Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi and Yash Chopra. But other than that what has been her contribution to Indian cinema. She is like any other star with a career spanning just 14 or 15 years with a string of flops and few doing good at box-office.

Any person can make this out, her latest road to fame is none other than winning a TV show in UK that was marred by some racial controversy. I also appreciate the way the lady handled the scenario and the media then, but to accolade that candid handling of the event with coveted academic honor has left me a little bemused.

There are many people from India and from around the globe who have been or are feted with honorary academic degrees but these people hold that stature, that aureole and put in simple words are deserving candidates. The last President of India, Abdul Kalam, the poster boy of Indian software industry, Narayan Murthy to name a few have truckloads of credentials to merit such honorary awards. Also just a couple of months back, the man who introduced the internet age for the common man and made Windows, the window to the new world, Bill Gates was rewarded a degree by his alma-mater, Harvard Univ, 30 years after he left its portals. So if someone goes on to compare these towering personalities with Shilpa Shetty, its just like comparing apples and eggs.

Everyone knows that Bollywood as a film industry is twice the size of Hollywood and has a global following of millions, with a successful production being watched by anything up to 3.2 billion people worldwide. So its plain and simple business to romance with this goose laying golden eggs.

Councillor Mark Harris, leader of Leeds City Council, said: "This is fantastic news for Leeds and for the whole region.
"The IIFA awards are a huge international event which attracts Bollywood stars who have more fans than many major Hollywood actors.
"Winning the right to stage the IIFA awards is a major coup and will showcase our beautiful region to a whole new audience of film producers, fans and international media.
"Leeds is proud to be part of this high-profile event and we will be extending a warm Yorkshire welcome to everyone who attends."

Or is it just another supplement to the 'India Now' spectacle that London Mayor Ken Livingstone has launched with so much fanfare. Well whatever may be the case, the best beneficiary is the heroine of the plot, Shilpa Shetty, sorry sorry Dr. Shilpa Shetty. When she was questioned how she plans to take the relationship with the University, she honestly said, "It’s going to be a life-long relationship. I have tried my best to do my best. At the moment I am basking in the glory".

Now, what is that 'best to do my best' is a little blurry and groggy to me. Is it films shot only in Britain, or is it no films, supporting some social international group, and the list continues...Let me wait and see maybe the best is yet to come.

Till then I agree with you, Shilpa Shetty, that kitaben and books are not the only road to an academic honour, tu sahi bole re....

kitaben bahut si padhi hongi tumne
magar koi chehra bhi tumne padha hai
padha hai meri jaan nazar se padha hai
bata mere chehre pe kya kya likha hai

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It Happened In India.

Kishore Biyani, the poster boy of Indian Retail industry is considered a maverick. An unconventional and unorthodox player when it comes to his playground, in charting and executing a retailing model without aping the West. 'It Happened in India' is KB's autobiography with assistance from Dipayan Baishya. I enjoyed reading the homespun narrative of a gutsy businessman who started his initial days of struggle as a trader of stonewash fabric, founding makeshift fabric stalls outside hotels and hosting textile expos, all these before completely revolutionizing the retail landscape in India. KB also addresses accusations against him of driving the competition out of kirana’s earlier pockets of business and affecting their livelihood in a negative way.

One of the interesting features of the book are the point-blank and frank testimonials from family members, associates, business partners and consultants who thought KB's ideas were sometimes silly, sometimes forward-looking and sometimes just-straight-from-the-heart. The book is written in an easy flowing and conversational mode with an aim to appeal to the widest possible audience and not just for those in business and management. The topic of the book though business centric is written in a storytelling format, the author conveying the message perspicuously and in prose that has great verve and vivacity. It speaks of the roadblocks and initial upsets, the achievements and accomplishments, the trials and tribulations of India’s most flourishing retail company. The journey that started with 'Pantaloon' [derives it's name from the Urdu word for trousers patloon] in the early 1990's, today has established its presence across the entire consumption space covering six verticals: Retail, Capital, Brands, Media, Space and Logistics.

This book is the success story of an iconoclast and irreverent Indian entrepreneur for whom commerce is never the raison d’ etre of Indian bazaars, they are rather more of a social mélange. KB points out that the consumers in today's burgeoning India can be classified into three groups: India One, India Two and India Three. These groups can be understood as the consuming class, the serving class and the struggling class respectively. The India One (14% of India’s population) class uses modern retail formats like Big Bazaar but even with this small percentage the retail sector is fascinating. It has grown because Indians are earning more, spending more, consuming more and thereby creating more jobs across other industries.

A flip through the book exposes the philosophy underlying, India's first hypermarket, Big Bazaar. Unlike the hypermarkets in the west, which are typically big-box format, with long, narrow aisles suitable for individuals shopping alone with carts, the Big Bazaars are created with multiple clusters. This compact and clustered format encourages 'butt and brush' effect and 'an organized chaos' as Indians like bumping into people, chat, gossip and eat while they shop. It would come as a surprise to many that the Big Bazaar is a totally desi concept, and the format is inspired by and modeled after the Sarvana Stores on the Ranganthan Street in Chennai.

The book also uncovers a very interesting facet, the colorful entrepreneur in KB. KB made forays into Bollywood with two movies to promote the ‘Pantaloons’ store brand. One of the movies was Na Tum Jano Na Hum but both the movies flopped at the box-office. For a brief period he was the marketing agent for foreign cricketers in India as if retail wasn't just enough for him. Ideas, imagination, memetics and creativity are the key drivers of his business and in the book he explains the emergence of a new era, the Creative Economy.

To cite an example KB has now roped in the Rockwell Group as architecture partners to design the next generation malls, the new landmarks of Indian cities. Rockwell Group, among many of its finest designs world wide, is best known for the design of the Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards are held. Apart from this KB is also involved with the functioning of Idiom, an independent design and consultancy firm based in Bangalore whose quality of work is comparable to the San Francisco based design powerhouse, IDEO.

Does organized chaos and disorderliness play a role in business? How can designers’ devise business strategy and why the fancy MBA-types won’t fit into his organization, [Suit boot pahen ke baith jayenge par product nahi bikega as KB writes in the book]? Why should Indian companies not ape the overseas retail model at all? Will the advent of the frictionless, boundary less economy comprising the global multi-nations dampen his desi way of doing business? KB answers to many such questions and more in the book.

Few nuggets of information, to fortify my point that KB follows a paaka desi style of doing business.

1. In wired world of today, branding, advertising and marketing plays a more pivotal role that it used to be in earlier days. Most of the advertising and marketing professionals are educated in convent schools in large metros and are attuned to western ideas, speak and think in English. But KB wanted to communicate and spread his Big Bazaar message through one-liners in the local languages. He pulled in Gopi Kukde [famous for his Pan Pasand one-liner, 'shadi aur tumse kabhi nahin'], a relatively unknown advertising professional to coin famous and catchy one-liners such as 'chane ke bhaw kaaju’ [cashew nuts at the price of chickpeas], etc.

2. On occasion of Diwali '2005, the chief of Human Resources Department, Plantaloon floated the idea of offering gift vouchers, bags, T-shirts, etc as incentives to the store staff. KB instead of following the general trend advised his manager to get the employees' houses painted and the clutter removed. The idea was to offer something really authentic, desi and what better than the social occasion of Diwali.

Enough, enough, there are lots more fascinating episodes, such as KB’s signature Time Pass Theory, the man who runs business for some of the biggest apparel brands in India, still wears the same set of trousers for years and many such middle class ethos: respect, strong relationship, humility and simplicity that still forms an integral part of his lifestyle. So pick your copy and enjoy reading it.

IT HAPPENED IN INDIA
Kishore Biyani with Dipayan Baishya
Rupa & Co
Pages: 269

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Keeping One’s Cool: "Nimbu Pani"

Last week, I had been to the hinterland in South India where during summer temperature reach as high as 45 degrees. There was a function in the early hours of the day, but as the noon approached, everything succumbed before the blazing rage of the summer god and there were hardly any people on the streets. Since the place was a small mid-town, I never found many people going around in A/C cars but found few on two wheelers like scooters, bikes and few on tractors with most of their heads wrapped in a sheet of white cloth or towel, used as a cap. The outdoor activities, as I realized during these sweltering hours are more out of compulsion rather than enthusiasm.


I just walked down the street and found a group of people under the shade of a small tree, withered by the strong sunstroke. It's high summer and as is expected, everyone wanted some thirst quenching drink for coolness and turn up the heat mixing up a few refreshing drinks. This being a simple place, I never meant the refreshing drinks to be Mojito, Daiquiri, Lorina, Pina Colada, Pschitt [there is an interesting story on this] and few others with alluring hues, exotic names and certain light deliciousness, which I have tried before. Here as the mercury soared, the people had gathered to satiate their dehydrated souls with humble, homemade "Nimbu Pani". The way it was made was simple as is followed in most Indian homes with a small variation as one crosses different parts of India.

Preparation here is for one glass, as I saw it there.
1. Cut the lemon in halves center wise, remove the seeds and squeeze out the juice. Again those of you feel its not hygienic, please note that a wooden crusher was used to extract the juice. No use of hands at all.
2. To this juice was added a tablespoon of syrup. This is called "Nanari" extracted from the herbal roots, crushed and preserved. [I got this information, conversing with the shop owner with my limited knowledge of Telugu language toasted with bits and pieces of Hindi and English.]
3. Now add water, which may be ice-cold water or soda water as per the orderer’s selection.
4. Sugar or salt is added as per the orderer’s choice, or it may be a combination of both.
5. Stir the contents and it is served chilled.

Note that the addition of "Nanari" syrup was not mandatory and again it depends on the orderer’s preference. Also depending on choice, pepper and an assorted powder is mixed for added tang.

End result is simply awesome. Other than providing a lip smacking luscious taste, the economics part of it, also beats the heat wave of price rise in Indian cities hands down. The rates are something that one will agape with wonder compared to those in big Indian cities. The simple ice-water lemonade was priced at Rs.3 per glass and the soda watered one was priced at Rs.4 per glass.

The makeshift shop is a self-sustained entity. If you notice, the picture, there is cylinder on the left hand side. This is a cylinder of carbon dioxide, wired meticulously to the internal conversion unit on the bottom side of the stall and is used to prepare carbonated water, also known as soda water. There are four filling taps, the two on the either extremes with a black tapering mouth supply soda water and the central ones supply normal ice-cold water. New age colas have dominated the markets and TV screens with our favorite superstars advocating what they certainly don’t practice. But in this small town, I found that even though the shop owner had a good stock of Limca, Thumps Up, Sprite, etc very few consumers [sample space of 20 people, whom I say] ordered for those aerated drinks. Was it the high rates or their general distinct preference for local drink, that dictated their decision, I am really not aware of this.

But one point is clear.

The supermarket culture is steadily becoming a predominant part of our life, especially in the cities. People rush to stores and get cartful of aerated drinks for summer these days, with most of the brands offering 20% extra for the same existing price, 'Buy-1-Get-1-Free' bottle sales and aisles devoted to cool drinks of imports grade.

"If I serve nimbu-pani at my child's birthday party, children ask, ‘Where's the Pepsi, Aunty?' It's as if they don't recognise homemade nimbu-pani any more. And certainly not at a party!"

Does this mean that, our good old simple "Nimbu Pani" is dying a slow death ?

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Food For Thought



Like with a lot of workplace incompetence, even the loser gets crowned... Isn't it true ?

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A Visit to the Holy Beacon - ISKCON, Bangalore

The introduction of intra-city air-conditioned Volvo buses across various routes in Bangalore covering all vantage points is one the first effort of its kind in the country. This has been running for close to one year or so in the city but I never got an opportunity to use this facility. The coverage of a long distance to reach ISKCON temple, which is located in Rajajinagar, a locality pretty far off from my residential complex offered me this chance, few days back.

I was impressed by the bus facility and these are exactly similar to the ones that I have used in Europe. Even the conductor uses an electronic ticketing gadget, a welcome change from the regular hand signed, tickets placed in the pockets of a tattered leather bag. The only disappointing and unsatisfying feature to my notice was the cost of the ticket, which is pretty high for the regular commuters [i.e. vendors, construction site workers, maids, even humble students as the monthly/daily passes are not valid in these buses.]. The bus was effectively vacant for most part of the journey and by the time we reached the destination it was just my friend and myself. Does this really serve the purpose, as the public transport, be it simple regular buses or the A/C buses should logically cater to regular commuters. But on the contrary these A/C buses just cater to a certain segment of the society, those who can afford. This can serve as an example of the tunnel effect, which was discussed elaborately by Amartya Sen, in the recently concluded NASSCOM meet at Mumbai.


Digression again, back to the topic then, so let me get back to my ISKCON impressions. It was a unique experience for me. A noteworthy place to visit in Bangalore. The ISKCON [International Society for Krishna Consciousness] temple dedicated to Lord Krishna is situated on the top of a small hillock.

We had to climb several steps to reach the sanctorum but that was not very difficult. First of all, we went up few steps to reach a place where we deposited our footwear and camera [no photography is allowed inside the temple] in the safe custody of the temple authorities. As per Hindu traditions and customs, any form of footwear has to be strictly removed before one enters the temple premises. The temple is like an small amusement park in terms of the maintenance and the peripheral physical infrastruture, and I sincerely apologize if that sounds sacrilegious. Before climbing the marble stairs to the entrance, the visitors and devotees are called for to wash their feet at a washing station. After that starts a human chain meandering through metal railings, similar to those that one would find at an amusement park or while entering through the gates of any open-air concert with a metal detector gate for security check and inspection.

Even if it was a normal day sans any fesitivities, still there was a pretty big crowd. Another interesting thing to notice, are the numerous placards warning of pickpockets. The massive crowd of visitors had no problem pushing up close against us, whether it was intentional or un-intentional, I am not aware of that. But it was not the body-to-body kind of close that you find in a typical crowded bus in India. All the while, a bell tolled somewhere ahead in the line and a recording droned on:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare....

There were people of all shades, all age groups and in different moods and there are few foreigners in the crowd too as we climbed through 108 marble steps. So the queue wasn't really for anything in particular and it wound its way through a series of shrines. If I remember it correctly, first there was Lord Narasimha's temple and then Lord Venkateswara's temple which finally ended in an open courtyard from where the entire city's skyline looked splendiferous. The main temple, is large and impressive and few pillars/structures are bedecked with gold. This is the Krishna temple and has a huge hall where devotees and visitors, sit in peace after offering their prayers.


While Ju was sitting here, I walked to an information counter and started gathering information on Akshaya Patra Project about which I had heard and read lots in newspaper and magazine. Akshaya Patra Project is the mid-day meal scheme, where school children in government-run schools are given free lunches in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Orissa. The reason and rational behind this program is that food could lure children to attend school. Only when a child’s stomach is satisfied, s/he would show some postive inclination for studies in schools in rural or semi-urban areas.

"Akshaya Patra" means the container that never gets empty. It is the container Lord Krishna gave to Draupadi, before the Pandavas started their journey into the forest. The Lord wanted his cousins to eat well and never struggle for food, which finds a parallel in ISKCON's scheme. The entire program is managed by some really smart, experienced and educated people who hail from some of the top engineering schools in India like IIT Chennai, REC Warangal, REC Nagpur, IISc Bangalore, etc. Few among them have even worked in business houses both in India and the US, before dedicating themselves to this altruistic activity. I did a simple calculation to realise that an amount close to 30-32 Lakhs Rupees is spent each day for this Akshaya Patra Project across the various centers in India. Assume that each meal costs around Rs. 6 and there are close to 5,00,000+ children fed daily by this selfless initiative and so this amounts to figure stated above. On enquiry, I learnt that the funding for this comes from software/tech companies, philanthropists, business houses, voluntary donations, and also from the various centers of ISKCON spread across the globe.

This main temple winds its way through a bookstore before culminating in a food stall. There are a number of counters where you can buy books, trinkets, religious icons, posters, postcards, sweets, fruits, savory food, jewelry, incense sticks, dresses, saris, t-shirts, etc. There is also an amphitheatre, equipped with the latest state of the art by BOSE and DOLBY Digital, but unfortunately there were no shows the day, we were there because of some repair and maintainence work. The food stall is a center of attraction and offers a wide variety of mouth watery eatables such as jalebis, samosas, dhokla, chaat, dahi vaada, etc. At few vantage points there are donation counters where one can donate money (credit and debit cards are accepted, although this sign was posted above a drop-box).


The food court goes over a pedestrain footbridge back to the parking lot where a man with a stack of dried banyan leaves shaped like bowls hands each one a leaf, and another man serves spoonful of hot yellow sticky rice pudding called prasadam into it. It's an offering, and one should eat it with good spirit and appreciation sitting on the limestone benches that borders a pool of placid water there. Birds chirping chee chee and a cacophony of sounds provide the natural music at this sunset hour.

Was it fear of God, spirituality, or just an invitation to see a new place that drew me to this place, ISKCON. Whatever may be the reason, it gave me an inexplicable confidence that one can pass thorough the vicissitudesof human life in this world without any fear and falterings. I recked little of time during this gratifying experience. I don’t know how I can satifactorily explain the mystery of serenity and divine within-ness of this place, with its independence of any temporal sense. By this time it was twilight, and somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I was aware that in the world below, nights come with suprising quickness of traffic jams, yet I felt no concern about that matter.

I stood there and took some pictures from outside the temple premises. Then within a few minutes Ju and I returned to the humdrum of daily life.

We got stuck in a traffic imbroglio and it was life back on normal turf again.

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Brand It Like Dabbawalla.

Last week, I saw one company, which was certified a global certification in process improvement approach that is based on a process model. A process model is a structured collection of practices that describe the characteristics of effective processes, the practices included are those proven by experience to be effective. There were lot of celebrations and 'yes-we-are-there' feeling was billowing in the environ. Yesterday late night while I was going through my regular RSS feeds, read one news that made me think, the difference in approach and practicality of its application.

"The Mumbai dabbawallas have been a world-famous case study. How they operate with virtually no logistics is what amazes the whole world. In our management textbooks, we can only teach students certain theories and how those can be applied. But these people can show how logistics problems are solved in reality. This will not only be a learning experience for our students but also for the students from Nabraska University," said professor Probir K Gupta, dean of VGSOM.

Members of the Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association (MTBSA) gave a lecture at the Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM) IIT, Kharagpur, on logistics and supply chain management on Mar’12th. The audience included students and teachers of the engineering and management sections of IIT Kharagpur, along with 30 students and 7 faculty members from University of Nabraska Omaha, US.

This is not the first time that the dabbawallas of Mumbai have offered a lecture, they have done so in almost all the top business schools in India, including the IIM’s.

Now, a simple guess what do global giants like General Electric and Motorola have in common with a humble tiffin delivery network comprising 3500+ dabbawallas, who deliver 1.5 lakh lunch boxes to citizens in Mumbai each day? The dabbawallas have the Six Sigma rating or an efficiency rating of 99.999999, which means one error in one million transactions. Forbes Global, the famous American business weekly, has given this rating to them. They apply in a simple and pragmatic way the principles of logistics, operational efficiency and supply chain management.

But have we ever reconginsed them and acknowledged the innovation that these largely illiterate dabbawallas have done. I guess they have been in news on and off and their case studies have been discussed at large at the top MBA schools in India and in other parts of the world. Beyond that nothing much, why?

The reason is simple. These dabbawallas never attended business schools, corporate board meetings, exchanged business jargons but the way they run the show is like Nadia Comaneci’s Perfect 10. They are management gurus with a difference lacking the chamak dhamak and polish of corporate culture. They work with their heads and speak from their hearts. They do not speak English and what if many of them are illiterate and wear white kurtas and Gandhi topis and not the business attire of suit-boot babu style. Each dabbawala, like any businessman, has his share of investment, two bicycles (approximately Rs 4,000), a wooden crate for the tiffins (Rs 500), at least one white cotton kurta-pyjama (Rs 600), and Rs 20 for the trademark Gandhi topi. Let’s do a simple calculation assume that 4000 (cycles) + 500(wooden crate) = Rs. 4500, this remains constant for say 12 months (note this is an over stepped up estimation, the usage of cycles and the crate is for a much more longer duration) and the 600 (kurta-pyjama) + 20 (topi) = Rs 620 spent say every 3 months. The Dabbawallas still offer their services at dirt-cheap price (Rs. 300/month), to satiate the hunger of their customers with a clockwork precision. The organization treats each of its members as a shareholder and pays anywhere between Rs. 5000 to Rs. 6000 per month.

Think about survival in a city like Mumbai, with this mehgainyee with Rs.6000 a month, this amount is not for a single person but for a family comprising on an average say 4 members.

Still they deliver and deliver shaan se and dil se.

Shaan se because :
They have no trade unions and till date there has hardly been any strike posed by the group members on grounds of mis-understanding or disparity of views and understanding.

Dil se because :
Even in this age of mobile and internet, suppose a house-wife wants to pass of some important document that needs to reach the husband, a small pocket in the dabba’s bag becomes the via media for the transfer, of course the delivery man is the dabbawalla. The dil ka connection runs so deep that even Nokia roped in these people for its latest branding exercise.

Their secret lies in a coding system devised over the years. Each dabba is marked in indelible ink with an alphanumeric code of about 10 characters, like. In terms of price and the reliability of delivery, dabbawallas remain unbeatable. See here, how one of the Mumbaite is so pissed off by the accuracy that, he wants some amount of in-efficiency to creep in, so that he can have food made by someone else other than his dharmpatni who anyhow prepares food for his breakfast and dinner.

Oh kismat, oh badnaseebi, what hast thou done to me? Shouldn't they come down to Sigma 4 or even 3 levels and make mistakes more often so that at least once or twice a month everyone gets a dabba cooked by someone else's spouse?

With their six sigma standards, they make only one mistake in 60,00,000 deliveries. Their website states that they make 1,75,000 deliveries a day. Excluding Saturdays and Sundays there are about 250 working days in a year.

By giving this one example, all that I am trying to convey is that the innovative potential of the people does not plummet to zero, when the people are illiterate or semi-literate. This group of people has achieved something stupendous, the simplest way that even business tycoons like Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airways fame can’t ignore their business model.

"It is always good to experience the local flavour of the city with local people rather than sitting in a hotel. It is fascinating to enjoy the feel of the city with such a simple group of people," he [Branson] added.

Dabbawallas achieved another milestone when Shobha Bondre wrote a book on them titled "Mumbaicha Annadata", which was released by Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. Prince Charles was so mesmerized by the operation style that he had sent invitations to few of them for his wedding. In reply, Raghunath Medge and Sopan Mare couriered their gifts to Camilla behen and Charles bhau.

Like in any business, with growth comes the question of expansion. The dabbawallas had also thought of this but then declined the plan for obvious reasons.

"Mumbai's geography makes it unique," Medge points out. "It is a longish city where residences are in the north and offices in the south, so it makes our work simple. We tried a similar service in Delhi a few years ago and it didn't work out; Delhi being a circular city, the logistics were difficult."

Next time you feel Hungry kya? What would you like, pizza from the local Domino's (30 minute delivery) or a fresh, hot meal from home? Ask any Mumbaite and you have the answer. With the rise in fast food joints and meals available everywhere, the number of people who eat their lunch from dabbas has plateaued but still this team goes on and on and on the life continues...

A few days back I was having a chat with a colleague of mine, over the mechanism that drives the knowledge industry and the dabbawallas with the epicenter of discussion being processes and quality control. She went ahead and re-affirmed her stance that the knowledge industry is altogether different and here we play with tons of data/information etc. My reply was "So What?" . Just as a knowledge industry worker/programmer deals with data, the dabbawalla deals with dabba, note that "d" is the common letter, just with a different implication and signifance in a different scenario.

For a knowledge industry worker/programmer his/her playground is the data that s/he has and s/he dribbles with it to meet the end results. So is a dabbawalla, the dabba is his world and he dribbles it through Andheri, Borivli, Mulund, Church Gate, etc and makes it reach his customer.

Was I correct or in-correct, even I don’t know? Post replies with your views, email on my profile.

All have heard or read about the dabbawallas, but do you know the tiffinwallas, another great story to reckon.

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