Branding the COW 

How salesmen built dreams .

Pre 1947 ITC, then the imperial tobacco company operated in the whole Indian Subcontinent. Even today Pakistan has a BAT subsidary. Infact i think Players (John players) is probably a cigarette brand there.

When the wise men of the indian subcontinent and the not so wise men of UK split India up, many were uprotted. They included the rich and the poor, the hindus and muslims.Some of theese unfortunate souls were also ITC distributors.They were also forced to leave behind their considerable business interests, stocks, and properties behind.

But post partition, this company did something different. There were advertisments put up in both pakistan and india inviting ITC distributors who had lost their businesses to meet up at a common place.A list of distributors vacant in both India and Pakistan was drawn. This list was shown in both pakistan and india.The distributors were many , areas only few.However the people were so overwhelmed by the company's benovelent response, that all arguments were sealed and the territories amicably carved. Their previous trading balances with the company were also transferred to their newer setups in India. Not only that, the company provided initial support in the form of free stocks to get theese people back on their feet.

This incredible gesture was done both in Pakistan and India. While partition no doubt was bad, their association with a company gave theese people chance to rebuild their dreams.

In the movie A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN maddona plays the role of a poor cabaret dancer who is good at baseball. Because of world war 2 , a female baseball league is promoted. But because of issues the league intially doesnot generate enough surpluses.On hearing reports of closing down of the league, She exhorts the marketing manager to sell the league better as for her the league was a ticket to better life.Marketing thus in its own way has a contribution to make towards life.Marketing and its societal defination after all talks about the promise of a better standard of living.

It is this aspect of capitalism which is so amazing. It gives people the ability to dream.Economic activity generation helps in it own way.

Free Riding

i am a customer . a customer is king. so i visit a shop, to be precise a book shop. i check out a magazine. to be precise i read the entire magazine standing in the book shop.then i open another magazine. and i read the entire magazine. then i walk out.

right. i don't know. wrong. even that i don't know.although i enjoyed it, i am sure the shop attendant and the owner must have cursed me. I was mean , very mean today. Maybe i'll buy a magazine from there tommorrow.

Encountering Mundanity

I started writing blogs as a meaningful diversion.After all my life meant more. But then little did i know ...that one could run out of things to write. Writer's block to a poor amateur who is just a couple of posts old.

Lessons learnt, that writing is a tough job and that every job has enough mundanity built up in it.

You could be doing your job every day and hate it. You could be getting up every morning to run , do aerobics the jane fonda way or yoga the age old way and be loving it. So u really don't hate your job because u are doing it every day.You don't hate things for its mundanity. If u are then u are kidding yourself.

Btw...am rt now in vijaywada(Ten lakh humans here), and i also met another salesman freind of mine who is busy peddling watches(nice expensive ones). So this tour has been better than last one in the civilised way. But then, this one has lesser stories to tell.Plan to visit a museum here, to check if there is any good post waiting over there.

Both were Kewl in their own queer ways.Plus i have a week long training program @puri to look fwd to.

Kar lo duniya muthi main

This is in honour of the petrol pump attendant from aden who has changed the way indians communicate. Though I hated their ads, though i hated their fights, though i hated their guts , though i hate it when my post paid bills come, though i it took me two data cables and nearly 1 man day to jig my phone to surf the net, i bought their connection and better still some of their shares.

Now i am able to surf and blog my way to glory from most places(the salesman also visits places where Reliance is still absent) . Dhirubai and a few greedy men have made living in Indian country side slightly more easier.

Incidentally the man who started it (Sam Pitroda) was born to a poor gujarati carpenter family in Titlagarh, western orissa. I visited the place in my august touring cycle.

Gordon Gekko was right. Greed is good. It is the the only institution that built corporate america.

May India encounter a few more men like theese to overhaul our roads, power and water problems.

Till then let me surf and may the world be an oyster in my palm.