Experiences in India

The 10 Most Irritating Indian Habits!!

2012-10-02T17:31:00.000+01:00

Returning back to India after 10 years had its own hazards. Both my wife and I were always upbeat that we will we will be able to survive. And the past few months – we have received sympathy & “keep-it-up” calls from our friends back there – there – yes the countries where we have lived in the past and which had become home by now. And it’s funny that when we shifted out 10 years back, the culture, the food, the languages, including the people outside India – all seemed alien. But, now back home, the same old endearing habits were no longer second nature.

So, here are the top 10 most irritating habits of my fellow Indian countrymen:

1. Driving on the wrong side of life? The first thing you spot is the sheer madness of traffic and vehicles going in every direction. Yeah, Indians are very simple – they follow the crow’s direction – basically, just drive in the direction where they want to go. Whether it’s the right way or the wrong way, that is immaterial. Over the past few months, I have seen everything – people driving wrong way on the roads (well that’s normal to resident Indians), people crossing red lights(well, that’s also normal), people blocking left most lanes and preventing the cars behind from turning left, drivers reversing on the highway, tractors coming out villages on the highway from the wrong side, state transport buses going on the wrong side at full speed(makes you wonder if you are driving in the right direction??), traffic cops driving the wrong side(might be chasing somebody), people in the left most lane finally taking a u-turn towards the right after the light turns green(forgot something at home!!), young kids standing belt-less on the front seat(for a closer view?), drivers in opposite lane taking that extra lane blocking 3 lanes, while drivers in your lane are left with a single lane to drive through. The next irritating one on the list – people breaking road dividers to create short-cuts and some of them even take the stones away. And the list goes on. I am reminded of an incident that my friend Harish narrated to me in the UK. The UK is full of foxes, both in the city and rural sides. He once saw a fox in London suburbs late in the evening. The fox went up to the end of the road near a T-junction, stepped on the zebra crossing, looked left and right and then crossed the road. It may sound unrealistic, but it is a true story. As someone said – “The discipline or the indiscipline of a country is evident on its roads”. Most Indian drivers think driving is a right, but actually it is a privilege – it should be taken away, if one is not responsible.

2.       Queue-up: that word doesn’t exist in India – here’s why: I am standing in a queue at the concierge in the Sheraton hotel. First comes a Delhi belle, “Bhaia, you have a scissor” – “No madam”. I continue to request for a taxi and am giving my details. Walks in another dude with a Canon DSLR hanging around his neck “Arey bhaia, yahan per …”. As the guy at concierge desk started to reply, I turn around, look at the guy’s wife and indicated – “Am I invisible?”. Why can’t you well-dressed folks wait for your turn? And this repeats at the Spencer queue, the Jet airways queue. And my sales director is embarrassed to travel with me these days, as I am quite vocal in expressing my feelings to my fellow passengers who cut the queue to get into the plane first. I ask them a common sense question – “Is the plane going to leave earlier just because you are in a hurry?”

3.       Personal space – “Excuse me, you are stepping on me”: Try standing in a queue at the airport, at PVR, at McDonald’s, at Haldiram, at the driving license office... You stand in the PVR queue to get inside and people start pushing you. You wonder, if they are going to get inside any faster by pushing. People stand soooo close to you, body against body, bumper against bumper, literally breathing down your neck. Yes, welcome to “sweat, pushing & shoving country”. And that’s not the end of it.

During the movie break, when you stand in the popcorn queue, it repeats again. First comes somebody’s hand next your waist, then comes one foot a bit ahead to yours from the side angle of 120 degrees and finally your back starts feeling wet and you realize that it’s not your sweat, but it’s your neighbour’s behind you. I am not going to mention the lack of deos in India (the deo marketers in India should have been in porn industry – “you spray a deo and girls come on to you like a magnet – is just not working. When can deo marketers simply say honestly – you Indians need it as it’s a hygiene thing!!!” No wonder, Indians don’t wear them). Ok, so you are happy that this is going to last as soon as you pay up, but suddenly comes the hand waving Rs 500 and now that is it. You stretch your arms so as to block the guy behind you and not knowing if the guy at the counter will serve you first or the guy behind waving the currency note. So, you are forced to take out your money. You are almost there, and busy keeping the guy behind you really behind you, when some babe comes from the side and says – “Bhaia, my movie is starting soon, can you take my order and serve at my seat”. Your arm is in, her arm is in also. You wait holding your breath, who is going to get served first.

4.       “I care a damn, as long it's not me”: We were driving on the busy MG road in Gurgaon, when we started hearing an ambulance siren. We were approaching the traffic light and traffic was increasing. My driver, including those around our car didn’t seem to care as they kept going at their pace. I told my driver to slow down and give way to the ambulance. However, the other cars kept going ignoring the siren. I felt bad – my own countrymen – why are they so callous or even heartless? I realized that very few cared to give way to ambulances, fire engines or police vehicles. In Europe the rule is simple – as soon as you hear an ambulance or an emergency siren, drivers slow down and pull to the side of the road and even stop, so as to let the emergency vehicle move ahead quickly. Every second is precious. But, here, I was aghast, when people just turn a blind eye and don’t move at all. I am sure that you must be thinking – “where is the space to move, dude?” But, that is the case everywhere. It’s the attitude and actions that count. It can be anyone, including a close relative. So, don’t block it, give way. Check this - http://bit.ly/Prlcav

5.       “Hur customer zaroori nahin hai, yaar”(not every customer is precious) – Hiring labour and blue collars to get your work done in India, well, Gold help you!!! You need to get some work done at home, outside, in the car etc. You agree the time, the rate and work start date. Probably, you also pay some advance in some situations. Then, you are chasing to get it started. Finally, you shout, plead – “Hey dude what happened? Are you still interested?” Yes, plumbers, electricians, delivery boys, painters, shower cubicle fitters…no the list doesn’t end there. It starts from there and it continues to– CA’s, real estate brokers, interior decorators etc. Before we moved into our apartment, we had a small hitch. The work was unfinished and the interior decorator was gung ho that it will be finished. We signed the agreement and that’s when it all started - the endless chase - the shower cubicle is unfinished, the fans are not installed, the kitchen cupboard is loose, the house keys are missing…And the reasons not to finish were pretty interesting - my plumber fractured his hand, I was admitted to hospital, got a flat tyre, labour is on holiday etc. So, we rolled up our sleeves, considered the money gone and decided to finish rest of the things ourselves. Thank the western diy(do it yourself) values.

6. "I own a 30 lakh car, but I can’t afford a Rs 30 parking ticket”: Almost all the roads in NCR (national capital region of Delhi, Gurgaon) have 8-10 lanes. But, still the Indian roads are choked. The reason – Indians don’t want to spend that odd 20-30 bucks for parking in the malls or in a proper place. You turn your head around and the cars vary from Honda SUV’s, BMW’s, even Audi’s and Toyotas, with each one of them costing anywhere from Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 80 lakhs. And people park on roads in all peculiar fashion – sometimes right in the front of the “Tow away zone. Do not park here”. So aren’t people scared to get their car towed away. No, according to car owners – mostly the towed away vehicles are 2-wheelers or lighter cars. The big SUV’s or the heavier ones – no, no.

So, why is it difficult to spend that 20 odd bucks, when you can easily buy a car 200,000 times more? I asked a few people shamefully – “why don’t you park in the mall basement?” The first one said “it's faster to get away after shopping.” The second driver was humorous “Now that the car owner has me(the driver), why will he pay for parking?”. The third was stingy “I come to the shop every week. Why pay 30 bucks every time for parking?”. The fourth one was rude “Any problem?”. Next was the real insight – “All my life we have parked our cars here on the road. So why now park in a parking?” And finally the last reply was “Boss, things are expensive these days, why splurge money on parkings?” Outside India, next to mall entrances and on high streets, there are premium parking places available, where you can park for double or triple prices(compared to proper mall parkings) for max 30 mins to 1 hour. NCR traffic / municipality folks – any wake-up call? Bureaucrats, Ministers go on foreign jaunts, appreciate the traffic and discipline there. But is it too difficult to implement similar discipline here in India?

7.       Getting out of the lift – A nation in a hurry: Over the years, some basic etiquette had become second nature. This included letting people get out of the lift before getting in or just holding on to the door as a sign of courtesy for people coming behind you instead of banging it in their face. The scene in front of the lifts in the multi-rise offices is amusing – people pushing in before the lift gets empty. Or people planning to go up but instead taking the lift towards the basement. Why? Because by the time the lift would come to ground floor, it would be full. Call it local customs or a nation in hurry.

8.       Are we the laziest people on planet earth? – “probably, yes!!!”. Check out the stats – for a family of 3, my friend employs 4 – driver, maid, cook and cleaner. He may not be Richie Rich, but Indian systems are like this (another topic for a later blog). Another one – have you noticed how Indians start fuming when they can’t locate the driver near the porch. Yes, the feet will hurt, if Indians have to walk 10 meters towards the car. If madam had her way, probably the car would come up in the lift and take her straight into the car. Or this one is my favourite – the autos guys that block the entrance lane of the buildings rather than forming a queue on the road-side. Why? So, they don’t need to wait for long. Another one – my car driver brakes suddenly, because the car in front stopped suddenly – we notice that someone needed to get out of the car in the middle of the road. Convenience at every step has spoilt this country. I am reminded of a banking experience in Dallas, when my cousin instead of parking his car, went straight to a drive-through banking lane –and I was surprised. What he did next was eye-popping – he had to deposit a cheque – lowering his car window, he raised himself and then he spoke into a microphone in a pipe. Through a long pipe, a capsule-like box came to him next to his window. He put the cheque inside the capsule and sent it back. In a few minutes, he received an acknowledgement slip via the same capsule. Well, that was “depositing a cheque” experience in US. Give India a few more years, and I am sure, we will beat every other nation on the laziness index.

9.       Here it works like this only – the “jugaad” is at play. Yeah, anytime you raise the right question, the right reasoning, the right logic, pats comes back the reply –“In India, it works like this only”. My first experience of this was hiring a taxi. Used to a bit cleaner cars, I asked the driver why isn’t the car cleaned up. He first denied any dirt. Then he admitted, “Sir, the car came this morning only and we didn’t get the time to clean it up”. Next on the jugaad list - the banners that all big companies in India put on public properties and deface the already the ugly-looking city, the electricity wires hanging loose from the poles, the telephone cables done up in the most bizarre way, the barbed wires on the road dividers(they haven’t been successful in keeping the cows, or the pigs or the dogs away??), the broken roads in the monsoons(the biggest scam in India – the same spot on the road gets broken 3-4 times in year and the contractors are laughing their way to the bank), the open gutters or the most irritating one is the road divider gets broken by the bikers who frequently take that route as a short-cut and the list goes on. Why can’t we make that extra effort and manage it better for once and all? Why do we need to do half-baked things? Perhaps the answer lies in – we Indians love to talk and talk. And you know what, after talking, there’s hardly any time left for action and execution. So, the “jugaad”, the short-cuts are here to stay.

10.   “Not me”: This one is contributed from my son. Indians are fond of eating all kinds of foods and often this result in explosive stomachs. So my son asked me “Dad, outside India, when someone farts, they move on by saying “Excuse me” or “Sorry”. But in India, why do people say “Not me!!” I had no answer. Well, one of those being Indian quirks.

I hope that by critiquing my own countrymen, I will raise some awareness and help making India a better place.

Thank you Mr. Gates for updating the UK geography syllabus!!

2010-05-17T22:06:00.037+01:00

When we moved to UK couple of years back, both my wife and I had our apprehensions about settling in, the openness with which foreigners would be welcomed and of course how our kids would settle in, considering the new schools, friends, new city, support network, facilities etc.. And to counter the prejudices and biases created by BBC that has been sending undercover reporters for years especially to India, China & other countries.

BBC, CNN and France’s national channel all broadcast undercover stories about whats all wrong in these markets – from poverty, corruption, lack of medical services, child labour, sweat shops, prostitution, etc etc. I don’t understand - what deeper level of satisfaction they get – perhaps making their local people feel better about their governments. After 48 hours of continuous international media coverage, the ratings go up, and so does their ability to garner better money from advertisers. The stories of nameless people are lost in translation.

Now China has an interesting way to handle criticism that Western media broadcasts about it globally including in China - it just blanks out the live program being tele-casted. When I lived in China, I would be watching news on BBC or CNN and the mere mention of word 'China' would blank out your TV screen. And this would happen repeatedly, till the Chinese would figure out if the news was positive or negative about China. I was told that journalists from outside China were allowed to go to only pre-approved places and they had to share details about their projects and were not free to record or video-shoot anything. I respect the Chinese for this - they take certain pride in their culture, country and its people. Of course, not every person living in China is well-off, but the Chinese want to project a certain image about China and want to preserve it, while they evolve themselves to be world-beaters in practically everything, including winning the most Golds at the Olympics and sending the next man to the moon. Brazil once refused permission to Michael Jackson to shoot a video with favelas in the background. Reason - millions of fans around world will see the shanty towns or ‘slums’ and this would impact the tourism industry. Well done Brazil and China!!

The Indian story starts on a wrong foot ...
Now India on the contrary has a very open culture, which has its own advantages. We welcome people to come to our country, experience all they can. Of course you also get shady journalists who come and record the underbelly of the country and then not only broadcast it to the rest of the world thereby seriously jeopardizing India's image but also sabotaging the millions of $$'s that the Indian Government and companies invest in creating a positive image.

The extent to which such lop-sided Indian image has been created and carried forward in UK is evident by the fact that on an 'India Day' celebrated in schools(which is commendable - UK is really great in celebrating the diversity), kids as young as 6 years old are taught about lives of the people living in Indian villages. Is there anything wrong with that? No. But what matters is the content. Kids are taught about religions of India, culture and then about the village life. There are nearly 5000 cities & towns and nearly 600,000 villages in India. Not all of them live in abject poverty. But when kids are taught about just the village life in India, kids don't remember that the teachers are sharing about the lives of some of the poorest lot in India. They just walk away thinking - this is how the average Indians live and survive. So, what was covered in such a learning activity? - washing clothes near a river bank, carrying water on your head in a pot from one place to the other, making mud bricks (cow dung cakes - does that ring a bell?) for making walls, cooking food, ....etc. Kids do like outdoor activities (dirt is good, yes), but are these the right learning activities. Unique - yes, but learning about India - No!!!

Even though I go back to India every year with my family, my son who was learning about the different cultures and geographies in his school project finally asked me "Dad - How come Gran ma has a washing machine? Where is the river where clothes are being washed?"

Tracing Khalipathar...the India myth continues in higher classes!!!
So, this year, my son was studying in geography about continents & oceans, Europe, UK, Dolce Acqua region in Italy, India and Khalipathar et al. Khalipathar - never heard about it!!! No problem - Google will find it. Hmmm... Google threw up only 200 results. Google maps - nothing. I visited the interactive map of India - nothing. So, where did Khalipathar exist?

Till I found a project done by Action Aid - http://bit.ly/dyc21P which showed on a map where Khalipathar was and had a video and 12 slides. So this was it!!! A project done by an aid agency had become a chapter in geography class for school kids in UK. The type of questions set by educators further irked me - the weather in Khalipathar, what do they grow(its a drought-prone area), other work done besides farming(brick kiln factories), what do homes look like(mud & straw), what do children do(work & some schooling), wear, play etc. The answers that teachers expect based on the Action Aid site were totally irrelevant from a learning perspective for kids. This is akin to saying - if India's education board would talk about the UK in history books, they would talk about the the "Jalianwala Bagh" massacre where 1000's of innocent kids, unarmed women and men were killed mercilessly by a British general. Would that be fair?

Action Aid's work is great - they work with the poorest in Khalipathar to buy land, seeds, dig wells, open a residential center-cum-school for kids etc etc. Action Aid's project is a case study in "The Rights of the Child" / "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". But is that fit for a geography lesson?

So, when Mr. Bill Gates, during his India trip, announced that he is going to adopt an Indian village called "Guleria", I was really happy not only for the kids in Guleria, but also for the kids living in UK. Yeah, keep reading :)))

Mr. Gates promised during his visit to improve the socio-economic condition of the village.

Could Guleria be the new Khalipathar?? YES!!
Give it a few years and Mr. Gates and his team will transform it into an ideal Indian village. Hence, teaching about Indian villages will not only become easy due to the wide teaching material available but also provide a balanced viewpoint about Indian society.

5 reasons why UK educators should replace Khalipathar with Guleria
1st - Guleria will soon be easy to find on search engines - bing, google, yahoo. Making it easier for parents/kids/teachers to read about it. Khalipathar by comparison is mentioned on very few sites.
2nd - Guleria will be available on maps databases thereby making it easier for teachers/parents/kids to find it on the map of India. Khalipathar on the contrary is available only on a map created by the aid agency.
3rd - Teachers, parents and kids can find more pictures, videos for Guleria compared to limited ones available for Khalipathar
see - Economic Times pictures http://bit.ly/a6iqNr
There is a video already available wherein Mr Gates is talking about it -

4th - Life will hopefully improve faster with Mr. Gates involvement and hence Guleria may become one of the first PC/IT-driven villages in India. Kids could sit in virtual class-rooms thanks to mobile operators coverage, while doctors could do remote examination and farmers could sell their limited crops at best prices over the phones. That would offer a more insightful view about village life in India. Not to mention the right image about India to kids in UK.
5th - Finally, over the coming years more people would visit Guleria and write about it, thereby keeping its image fresh and relevant.

And here are 5 questions that parents can coach their kids for exams?
1st - How eco-friendly is Guleria's housing and transport vs. the one used in your local village(most family people live small villages and towns in UK outside London & Manchester cities)?
2nd - How fast is the speed of broadband in Guleria vs. the one available in your UK village?
3rd - What is your search score on Google - Guleria vs. your local village?
4th - Who visited your school in the last 3-6 months - Bill Gates, your local Minister, media etc?
5th - Describe the flora and fauna in Guleria vs. your village.

And finally 5 activities that teachers can ask kids to do on an 'India Day'
1st - Draw a solar panel circuit that runs electricity and different appliances in house
2nd - Show how a farmer in India buys and sells his crop using a mobile payment system
3rd - Which natural insulators and conductors can be used to keep houses cool in summer and warm in winter
4th - How can you make butter from milk - that would be fun for kids to learn!!
5th - Think how can you keep mangoes and colas cool without having a fridge.

C'mon UK's Department of Education - you can do better!!! Don't do a "slumming it" after "Slumdog Millionaire". Be genuine, be relevant, be inspiring to the kids in UK - they deserve better!!!

And thank you Mr. Gates for providing the stimulus material for the UK Grade 4 Geography syllabus!! And giving every kid in the UK a chance to learn about the world in an unbiased way!!!

Day 13, 14, 15 - Investments, bankers, agents – their real intentions, service levels, costs and returns

2010-01-10T22:53:00.020+00:00

Every time, we go back to India, one of the usual discussion topics with friends & family is about the ever-increasing cost of living and how we should save and invest for the kids’ future needs and our retirement. The good thing about being an NRI (non-resident Indians) is that you are pampered and treated with utmost respect, addressed as “Sir/madam” by officials who think you are carrying around bagful of dollars to invest or buy things. Phew – only if they will come and see how NRI’s work in so many diverse professions and places(from Heathrow to canary wharf) and live in houses doing virtually all the dog stuff themselves (from cleaning our own cars, mopping, vacuuming, washing, ironing, cooking, doing dishes, getting rid of garbage and the rest…in the interest of dignity – I will stop).

So thanks to consistently crappy service provided by ICICI for over a decade now, I thought it was high time to go for something better. Coming out of ICICI, I saw HSBC next doors. On walking inside, I was greeted by a customer executive. On telling him that I was a NRI and wanted to open a bank account, I was quickly suggested – “Why don’t you try our premium service called ‘Premier banking’?”. I don’t know why he referred me to premier service (Just because I live in London doesn’t mean that I earn the same as London investment bankers who earn anywhere between 2-3 mn pounds in bonus alone. Case of mistaken identity?? In schools, we were taught ‘silence is golden’ – so I decided to remain mum). I was asked to go to first floor. Near the stairs, I was stopped by a sardarji, who asked me in Punjabi “Where do you need to go?” As he asked me an in enquiring tone, he was also sizing me up – I was wearing black shorts, a striped t-shirt, sandals and sweating like a pig, thanks to the ICICI’s ineffective a.c.’s (that’s another thing that doesn’t work there). I quickly put on my sun-glasses and I asked him in English “Are there any escalators to first floor?” Suddenly his tone changed and he said – “This way sir”.

Now I don’t know why HSBC (they call themselves “the World’s Local Bank”), decided to have their premier banking service on first floor. Maybe the World’s Local Bank knew that Punjabis love eating and are fairly fattish, sorry I mean “healthy” – so maybe the World’s Local Bank worked on this knowledge and tried to make their customers exercise a bit by climbing stairs!!! Keep your customers healthy and keep the cash coming – now that’s not at all bad local insight. Some years back HSBC came out with an ad displaying their local knowledge – how Indians use washing machines to make lassi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I42fxNIjMsI ). Pretty clever – I bet, they never showed it in India!!!

I was greeted by a lady who asked me to take a seat. On looking around, I saw that almost all relationship managers of the World’s Local Bank were females (I remembered that in my previous companies, we had lot of girls in customer care. Our logic was simple – our service was sometimes inconsistent (= read crappy) and the customer care girls were quite effective in cooling down those few irate customers with sweet talk – nothing sexist about it). While I was waiting on a leather sofa, I picked up an ET (aka the Economic Times - here’s a secret – if you want to create an impression, pick up a financial paper or magazine and open the investment pages – read some intelligent headlines - this will quickly help convey that not only are you well read but also someone who understands the fine art of investing). In five minutes, I was sitting across a Ms. Chandigarh, a beautiful relationship manager who asked me about my banking needs and then suggested that I open a premier account with the World's Local Bank. Coffee was served and I was quickly explained the benefits of Premier Banking. I had an exit strategy in my mind – just in case I didn’t like the World’s Local Bank, I will tell them that I needed a joint account and I will come back with my wife. But since I was enjoying the coffee and Britannia Good Day biscuits, I thought that it wasn’t a bad idea to have an account with the World’s Local Bank. Two days later, I was sitting there again with my wife and all the paperwork for opening an account.

Within a few minutes, work was done. While the World’s Local Bank’s relationship manager was generating the new account number, she asked me about my family, kids and our plans to save for the kids. “Why not speak to our Investment Advisor?” We welcomed the idea of free advice! In five minutes, the World’s Local Bank’s Investment Advisor walked in wearing a crisp white shirt, impeccable trousers and a diamond-textured tie. The first question he asked us was “What is your need? What is your horizon? On what activities do you want to spend and when?”

Both me and my wife looked at each other – we asked for an advisor, not a professor. Anyway, while I was thinking that why a finance guy is asking me about needs and wants, my wife understood that I couldn’t answer!!! So she answered – “We want to save for kids’ education, their marriage and of course for our retirement”. Now we men know why wives are good at saving our ass – they know us inside out – yeah – how true!!

The World’s Local Bank’ Investment Professor inched forward a bit, and after adjusting his rectangular glasses said –
“Always starts with your need. If you need your funds after 6-12 months and you want decent returns – keep them in fixed deposits.
If your need is realizing over the next 3-5 years, invest in mutual funds which over that time horizon will give capital appreciation.
If you need funds 10-15 years down the line, invest in ULIP’s (unit linked insurance plan) which come with life insurance”
The case was clear –it was ULIP’s for us. I had just read that the IRDA(the Insurance regulatory authority) was planning to bring down the costs of ULIP’s. So I fired a few questions re. high costs (secretly I was hoping for some discounts ;o)). But the World’s Local Bank’s Investment Professor didn’t take my cue and reassured me of utmost service levels, his personal involvement to justify the high current costs.

Finally, I asked, so how come they always talk about past performance and returns, but can’t assure of future returns. And to show maximum returns, some government agency mandates all Banks to show the value of investment at the age of 99 years, while the average life expectancy for Indians varies between 70-75 yrs!!!

Some finance agency of the government had just announced that the entry load of the mutual funds(MF’s) was going away (To understand more such confusing terms – entry load, exit load, brokerage, custody fees, registration fees, transaction fees, visit
http://www.mutualfundsindia.com/mfbasic.asp ). So, I quizzed The World’s Local Bank’ Investment Professor on MF’s vs. ULIP’s and why wouldn’t he recommend MF’s for long-term. The more I asked, the more engaging the World’s Local Bank’s Investment Professor got. Full marks to him for atleast knowing his content!!

Although my wife has a masters in finance, even her head started spinning with the professorial discussion. I was secretly enjoying the marketing-speak by the World’s Local Bank’s Investment Professor. So, my wife kicked me under the table and I got the hint that we should leave now. Kids home alone 3! And we promised to think about it. Alone at home, we debated to invest in ULIP pension fund, but entry costs were too high – abt 25% of amount goes to the HSBC. While I debated – should we go for mutual funds vs. ULIP’s, I fired off an email to the World’s Local Bank’s Investment Professor, highlighting high upfront costs of ULIP’s vs. MF’s and how it would make HSBC richer rather than me. With strong engineering logic and sites references that I searched via bing (the new search engine from Microsoft – bing.com – try it – its as cool as google.com).

I got a quick offer from the World’s Local Bank’s Investment Professor to have a sit-down session again – we had to decide – his place or mine. Phew, finally I borrowed some more time, as I had some payments to attend to in the short-term.

Two days later, I was reminded that it was my wife’s b’day. Thanks to the World’s Local Bank who indeed had knowledge about my wife’s birth date and were kind enough to send this huge bouquet of flowers early in the morning. Later during the day, my relationship manager from HDFC Bank happened to visit me at the home. Now home visits by Bankers give the impression to the customers that you are important and we are here to seek your continued business. While, we were chit-chatting, Mr HDFC Banker saw the flowers from his competitors. Peer pressure dictated that my wife received another bouquet within 30 mins of Mr HDFC Banker going back. Each bank would be down by nearly Rs 500 each – not bad – I should plan my wife’s birthday in India.

Flashback: So what happened at ICICI that I started looking for another bank?
To all my friends & their relatives working at ICICI – my apologies for taking my emotional burden off!!! I tried keeping it to myself for yearssssssssss, but now no longer.

For the past three days, I had been visiting ICICI to sort couple of things – closing an old account, getting some advice and sorting out an investment account that I hadn’t used but was paying fees for. As I walked in, I clicked on the ticket machine and I was number 36. And it was still number 8!! Ten years back, ICICI service would be personal. Five years back, I could still get special status as a NRI. Today, one needs to be a jugaadi (read know someone to get your work done quickly/short-cuts?) to get any service in ICICI.

As it was taking time, I decided to look for the NRI section. I saw that some ICICI bankers were celebrating something with samosas and tea in the NRI section. They looked at me and I looked at them and then at the samosas. They probably read my mind and one of them asked me to wait outside - sorry no place for customers !!! Ten minutes later, I was greeted by a fat-looking banker (Now Punjabis have a soft corner when it comes to eating. If you don’t have a beer-belly, you don’t come from a family with good eating & drinking habits. So, I will refer to the fat-looking banker as Mr. Health-hai-to-wealth-hai Banker. Hang-on, I need a ‘K’ like the popular Kaun banega crorepati, Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain?, Kyunki saas bhi…. I will call him Kyunki-Health-hai-to-wealth-hai Banker or KHHTWH Banker in short) who claimed to be working in insurance section, but would now be looking after NRI’s. Finally it had dawned on ICICI – I thought - “to offer dedicated personalized banking”. Hooray!!

Mr KHHTWH Banker had been recently transferred from some other city. He looked into my account closing request and said “Not to worry Sir, I’m here for you. Can you please come tomorrow, as I have to go through some internal bureaucracy to get the account activated before closing it. And this will require Rs. 10 fees.”

Next day, my KHHTWH Banker updated me that my dormant/inactive account had been closed down. Good progress in 24 hrs!! Then I asked my KHHTWH Banker abt re-activating an investment account which I hadn’t operated for more than a year. (Now I don’t know why I had opened this account – its called something demat account which allows you to buy shares, stocks etc. Exhibiting your knowledge about shares, stock market ups & downs, gold prices are good social conversation starters!! Read some publications like Financial Times, CNN Money, or watch Bloomberg/CNBC and off you go). I had got this account opened after eight months of back & forth with ICICI. My papers got lost, then several times they were said to be incomplete despite the best brains doing the paperwork during my India trip. While I was following up with the acclaimed NRI Mumbai desk, two departments started fighting with each other with all emails cc’ing me. I was embarrassed!!! I sent papers twice from UK with delivery proofs and ICICI’s Mumbai-based departments manage to lose them in the intra-office mail. I had to finally write to Mr. K. V. Kamath, ICICI’s CEO, who had to get his EVP or some operations head involved to sort out and get things moving. Any way, so now the account was inactive due to non-use, because nobody told me how to operate the account and there’s no leaflet to go through the confusing site. “Not to worry Sir, I’m here for you." said my KHHTWH Banker as he introduced me to his colleague Mr. know-it-all-about-stocks-Banker who was supposed to be the only one in the branch to know the intricacies of operating a stock-trading account. As he was busy, my KHHTWH Banker told me that – “Not to worry Sir, I’ll arrange a tutoring session in 1-2 days”. So, I agreed to come back next day.

Next day, I was sitting in opposite to Mr. know-it-all-about-stocks-Banker. But there were numerous interruptions (Ever tried eating something in India during summer without flies disturbing you? Yes, I had the same feeling!!) Every two minutes, there would be someone approaching Mr. know-it-all-about-stocks-Banker for one thing or other – the first one was a request for a printout as his computer was connected to a printer. A few more lines abt how to login and then another interruption – “Sir, can you scan this paper, there is an emergency” and it emerged that he had a 3-in-1 (the printer, scanner & copier) attached to his PC. He first fired the hell out of him – “Don’t you see I am sitting with a customer?” Embarrassed – I was soon offered water and then tea – I politely refused both (Good I refused both – I will tell you later why). Then I asked some more questions about portfolio, how to buy & sell, something called iclick-to-gain etc. And the more I asked, my Mr. know-it-all-about-stocks-Banker became confused and he finally said “Sir, I don’t use it much, I don’t know much about it.” Atleast he was honest about it. I respect him. While, he was explaining, I was taking copious notes. Sorry, there is no printed material for investors. But, ICICI is quick to charge some five thousand bucks annually as fees!!! Equipped with an A4 sized paper with some scribbled words, arrows pointing to some answers, equations and login site details, I walked away with a feeling “Indian stock market – here I come”, forgetting Gandhiji’s warning “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” ;o).

Job done!! Finally, I brought out my last topic – three years back – three musketeers, sorry three bankers had come over to see me and my wife (I will call them The-Three-Musketeer-Bankers) to share details about pension plans. With lots of words abt planning ahead, enjoy-a-comfortable-life-even-when-you-retire, start-now-before-its-too-late kind-of-talk, sir-you-don’t-worry-we-are-here-to-look-after-your-money, followed by smiles and stories – “Do you know Mr. so & so from UK? He works with company something something and he started pension plan worth so and so.” Another name-was-dropped someone someone from USA. And another one from Australia. Did it assure me and my wife? The grow-your-money-now-for-pension-later-talk seemed like a talk with a therapist– me and my wife finally gave in and started a ULIP pension plan. ICICI charges some hefty 14-15% opening admin charges and then there are charges every year.
Now, the thing abt these pension plans is that you have to further choose the funds in which your money is parked to grow it. Its kind of simple – just imagine you are a farmer and you decide to invest Rs. 100 in farming. You can invest in a safe option and keep your money in a bank in savings account which pays minimal interest. Or decide growing apples vs. tomatoes vs. the exotic kiwis. The return can only be determined once you are in market ready to sell your produce. Similarly, in pension plans, you can park your funds in safe option (security/debt instruments give the least returns, but offer safety) vs. equity (high risk, high return linked to stock market) to balanced funds (mix of equity & bonds). You can choose mix of funds to invest in. With little guidance and not much support from ICICI, I decided to change the mix of my pension fund from the least growth option (set as default) to equity funds(to get returns as advised by the-Three-Musketeer-Bankers) at the end of 2007. And then the stock market crashed. So, for the past years, my pension fund was in negative. And, I no longer trusted ICICI, as The-Three-Musketeer-Bankers neither advised me nor took care of my money – but they kept deducting their charges regularly, promptly!!!

When, I asked Mr KHHTWH Banker – “What can be done – how can my pension plan be out of the red?” Smilingly he said “Not to worry Sir, I’m here for you”.

He disappeared and in a few minutes he got another banker dressed up as a lawyer (so I will call him Mr Smooth-Talking-Banker). After seeing my pension plan papers, Mr Smooth-Talking-Banker first smirked and quizzed me “Why did you invest in this?” Taken aback by his heartless comment, I said “Promise, I didn’t buy this online, it was the-Three-Musketeer-Bankers who had visited me including their regional head”. As I told him the background, Mr Smooth-Talking-banker got closer and gave a twist to the story and said "You should withdraw money from this as soon as possible." I was speechless - "My pension fund was almost halved and he is advising me to get out of it". Then came the pitch “We have a new scheme in which you need to invest certain minimum funds and it will give you a guaranteed x % returns."

Was Mr. Smooth-Talking Banker really trying to help me or trying to reach his monthly targets? I used to admire ICICI’s service a decade back, when they brought professionalism to banking in India. They were one of the first ones to challenge state banks and were able to offer a new level of service. But over years, ICICI has become a giant and they seem to have lost touch with their consumers. Today, it has become a numbers game and doesn’t seem to be about the people who give them business. When a customer becomes a another digit in a company’s database, its time to walk away.

So, after couple of days, I called my KHHTWH Banker(who had been really good) for status update and he was unreachable. Tried again, no luck. After five days, he called me and said he was admitted to hospital due to a water-borne disease. I asked – “Howcome? Was it the water at the bank?” He never confirmed, my poor KHHTWH Banker. Now you know why its not safe to drink water in these public offices.

There were a few other interesting incidents that I had with ICICI earlier – I transferred money via their famous money2india transfer system and the money never reached India. Atleast it came back to Finland where I lived and didn’t land up in Fiji. Oh there’s another one - when I moved to Finland many years back – I didn’t receive my documents from ICICI. Reason – instead of Finland, the ICICI guys in Chennai (that’s where their mailing service was some years back) had sent it to Fiji – small typo mistake – oops! Or the ICICI guy - who lost some of my documents when I applied for a loan. I had to courier them again and I had to pay delayed payment charges.

I hadn’t bothered to keep my mom updated about my "survivor" experiences with ICICI. And I didn't know that she had opened an account with them. Recently, she opened a fixed deposit with them. When the deposit document came to home, she was asked to sign for receipt of a credit card by the delivery guy. My mother told them that it was a mistake as she hadn’t applied for one. The courier guy wouldn’t listen. So, reluctantly, she took the documents and the card. I saw the credit card and it had no name and it was pre-activated, linked to the fixed deposit. I’m sure – the product managers at the Mumbai head quarters would have designed such an offer keeping their customers’ interest in mind – marketers call it "sampling"???

If I were to divide banks into different categories – the first one will be ‘we are here to help you’, the second one would be ‘help yourself (kinda of Do it yourself like the state banks – you always need to know someone at the bank to get any work done, e.g., the neighbour’s friend’s friend or bunty ke papa key uncle wahan kaam karte hain etc etc.)’ and then the last would be definitely – ‘God help you if you bank with us’. I took the liberty to create this serious-meets-fun categorization. Check in which category your bank falls in.

The agents: going thru’ the biggest transformation
Springing up a profession like “agent” springs up different interpretations. We have all gone thru’ our experiences with agents. We saw our parents use such agents for different jobs for different reasons – to pull strings, to fast-track results, to make difficult easy, etc. etc. I describe an “agent” as someone who leverages his hidden network / connections to deliver a product/service (at a fixed or variable price) for a fee which maybe a variable or fixed. E.g., we all know how people get their driving licenses (one can almost write a book on this interesting topic alone), passports, ration cards, voter cards, movie tickets (yes, still!!), jobs, colleges etc.. And then there are the agents who look around and specialize in rentals, houses, travel tickets, government contracts, etc..

So, during this trip also, I called a few real estate agents to find out about new trends, builders and price-levels. Thanks to the US sub-prime crises, the foreign investors had pulled out their money from the Indian real-estate market and even the resident Indians were playing cautious when it came to buying big-ticket houses. Big builders like DLF, Unitech, were no longer able to charge astronomical prices and started focusing on real end users instead of investors. As the customers were no longer queueing up, I saw the biggest transformation in the agents. Years back, they would pre-sell apartments to investors and ask them to sell within a few months and make money. Now, the same agents have started using emails, sms and calls to reach out to customers. They have started maintaining databases and they follow-up. The new agents are younger, literate, English-savvy and have a point of view vs. the previous lot. Most importantly, they have started turning up on time and have their cars to take customers around.

I remember when we were looking to buy an apartment a few years back, an agent called us at a site and didn’t turn up. I called him and pat came the reply “Sir, I am just around the corner, just give me 2 mins”. That 2 mins will extend to 10 mins, then another 10 mins. My wife kicked me and said “I told you to start late. You know how these agents are - always late!!! This is not your office meeting. Its so hot here and I’m getting tired. Get me some coke. And promise me you will buy me the gold ear rings that I told you about!!!”. I was cursing the agent for the wait that was turning expensive minute by minute. The agent came after 35 minutes and he knew whom he had to address. “Madam, I am really sorry, but I was waiting to get the keys, but the guy who was supposed to give me the keys was coming from another office and he couldn’t reach. So I don’t have the keys”. My wife gave me the dirts. Secretly, I was looking forward to the next 5 mins how she will blast off the agent like Buzz Light Year who always had the ambition to fly (remember Toy Story2) but could never do it.

Agent 2 was a bit better. He reached on time (that’s because I reminded him thrice to be on time and we also reached late). Voila – he had the keys, but once inside the apartment – couple of problems – it had one less room and didn’t qualify the vaastu specs.
Agent 3 took us to see an apartment which had not been opened for months. Dusty, smelly, nice location. But would require lot of work on woodwork, flooring etc. Rejected.

Because the customers are changing and more demanding, the agents these days have started focusing on “now” rather than “future”. They make it a point to show the supermarkets, talk about help available in neighbourhood, access roads, schools, golf clubs and malls. The wiser customers are driving this transformation amongst the agents.

I guess, I learnt that you need to be smart enough when it comes to numbers. And of course do your homework and never be shy to talk it out. If you miss the first opportunity, there’s always the next one around the corner.

Follow up post: Day 16, 17, 18, 19 - Kebabs, Doctors & Volvos – the ordinary becoming extraordinaire in India

Day 10, 11, 12: India – fast becoming the land of opportunities: Parking, PVR, Dashavtar

2009-11-09T23:16:00.024+00:00

First of all, my apologies to my friends for not being able to write anything during the past six weeks – I was busy renewing my car insurance – a mundane activity in any other part of the world – but seems a big activity in UK. In India and other parts of the world, you just call a sales rep or a a call center (most probably wil land up in India), just give some simple details and that’s it – you are done. However, the UK insurance companies have mastered the art of conning consumers by creating so many items under which they can extract (read exploit) consumers. So in addition to basic insurance, you can buy add-ons - legal cover, physiotherapy cover, kid’s seat cover, additional driver, excess(what you pay), items left inside car, value of the car, number of seats, car modifications, where car is parked, estimated mileage, etc etc. To top it all, you can buy ‘protect your no-claim discount cover’ – which is an insurance cover to protect your no claim bonus cover!!! (Double protection -- ok hold your thoughts)

Anyway, picking up the threads from where we left.

PVR cinemas – Dog-free aisles, dodgy ratings but still damn good
We decided to go out for a movie that everyone including kids could enjoy. So the choice had to be careful – we needed to ensure it’s something kids will enjoy, is language-clean and offer wholesome entertainment. For the past couple of years, Akshay starrers have been great entertainers, had excellent hummable songs, great story-lines and kids have had a great time. So, we decided to go for Kambakht Ishq. It was playing at the local PVR cinemas. Now PVR has been pioneers in offering an up-market movie experience with clean halls and bringing the ‘clean, corn & cola culture’ in the late 90’s and they have been rapidly expanding since then (I remember that during our college days, we had watched movies in cinemas where the leather seats have been ripped-off (there is a market for everything in India, hmmm – I never knew it), and we would be sitting on wooden blocks with coir seats itching our bums (thanks God, they didn’t put springs in them) and sometimes you could even get company from dogs standing in aisles!!! And during breaks, you could get colas and oil-dripping samosas which were kept in those hot cases to ensure that oil would get rancid to guarantee a sore throat next day!!!). With half an hour into the movie, both I and my wife were getting the blues with overt usage of foul language, sexual overtures, obscenity, and overtly offensive language – just too much for kids. Didn’t Akshay realize that over the last two years, he has built a huge fan-base with kids and families with comedies like Welcome, Namaste London, Singh is King, Chandani Chowk to China etc.. This is akin to Mercedes throwing its loyal fan base aside and start competing with Nano – the new people’s car.

So back home, I decided to find out how come such a movie had got a kids-safe rating. The censor board had given it an Adult rating -
http://kambakkhtishq.info/2009/04/kambakht-ishq%e2%80%99-gets-an-a-rating/
I checked PVR cinemas website and was surprised that they given it a U/A rating (Unrestricted Public Exhibition but with parental guidance for children below 12 years).

I have always held PVR in high regard considering they have been pioneers in creating the best movie viewing experience in India. They have innovated the category with several firsts - right from easing the way one can book tickets easily via phone or online(read queue-free-and-molestation-free), to clean halls with ac’s- that-are-not-shut-down-30-mins-into-the-movie, offering a range of movies via multiplexes, dog-free aisles, kind-to-the-bum-well-cushioned-seats, superb music systems, Gold pass (the equivalent of 1st class air travel with flat beds, duvets and food included) etc. etc. They have gone into movie production and they are evolving to be ‘entertainment kings’ in India with plans to open bowling, ice-skating rinks etc. But the big disappointment was real bad quality food - pre-packed burgers which got micro-heated and below average sausages. You are not allowed to take food inside - well the same happens in UK also - coffee in Vue cinemas can be watery, pop-corns can be cold and typically long queues & slow services during intermission. I remember many years back, the Indian government forbid commercial places to overcharge for bottled water - but then companies got around such rules by creating special bottle packs which were grossly overpriced and not available in general retail. Yes, the same happens at all the airports in the world ;o)!
We demand better from PVR – entertainment should be wholesome – including better food for Indian stomachs and ratings that are genuine – not dodgy. PVR owners - you can do better and set high standards - don't shy away!!

Parking in India – messed-up, but hopefully not a missed opportunity
This is the most hilarious aspect of being Indian – either we think so much that we leave little time for execution or we think very little and the rest of the time goes in debating what went wrong. Parking is often the case of the 3rd category – neither thought of, nor executed!!! Now, while entering the multi-plex, I had gone to pick up tickets and my sister had gone for parking. After the movie, we went to the basement parking and it was an experience in itself. The PVR cinema is in Centra Mall developed by Uppal Group. And all the basics of a decent parking are missing here – you have to park a car behind other cars, there is hardly any space for reversing and turning, one has to frequently go back & forth and leave the car in neutral so the poor parking guy would physically push cars to allow people to park and move their cars. Dressed up in a red T-shirt and punjabi-style black baggy-trousers, he had this white cap which gave him an air of authority like a traffic police man or a cricket coach – doing his mental calculation, he pushed 3 cars before we could move our car back. I’m sure if you will take his IQ test, it would be pretty above 150 or atleast better than architect who designed the mall. The other thing about us Indians is that we have no patience(read courtesy!! No wonder rules are made to be broken in India) – even after seeing that someone is trying to get the car out from this mess, someone will butt-in his car and stall the whole chain. Finally, we were merrily driving our way out, but I missed exiting due to the poorly marked exit signs and went into basement again (remember Bhool Bhulaiya…). That’s not funny. So, we were in queue again and we saw our parking guy again who was managing his Chinese checkers game. Phew, another 20 mins! It’s an irony that the mall is at the same place where Pasco motors had a huge car dealership. The mall developers claim on their site to be “synonymous with architectural brilliance and innovation with an essence of quality”. Sure, only if they would care to come and park!

With those of us entering or exiting any public transport hub (airports, train or bus stations), this apathy towards parking is at ample display. No wonder, the traffic tow-away vans keep circling in such areas!!

With hundreds of offices, malls and apartment complexes coming up in India, this is a sure big opportunity on the horizon.

The Indian animation industry –a bright star trying to be a sun
Back at home, the next day, kids were watching the Indian animation movie – Dashavtar.
The movie (see http://www.dashavatar.com/ ) is about Lord Vishnu, the preserver of life, who manifests himself in many forms through the eras to wipe out evil and establish the rule of righteousness. Celebrating the recurring triumph of good over evil – via ten different avatars! I think overall it’s a commendable feat to get animations done in India. The outsourcing industry and our software techies have made it possible. What I liked about the movie was how its creators have managed to create a high quality animated movie even by Indian standards. What I expected was a bit more contemporary execution in terms of language, the wardrobe etc. Directed by Bhavik Thakore, my biggest question was – who is the target audience for this film? The film uses animation as a medium to attract kids, but then I couldn’t understand why is the language so hard to understand, why are sequences so old in execution, why is ammunition still old-style bow & arrow instead of the latest armoury, why is wardrobe so non-creative and why the songs lack enthusiasm. And if indeed the movie is designed for kids, what is a song like Mohini doing in the movie (remind me of the Bipasha’s famous Bidi jalayke… song from Omkara). Did the producer and crew try to put in something for everyone – like a bhajan for the grannies, a raunchy number for youth, animation-approach for the kids and heavy-duty language understood by adults only.

This is where similar animation movies are erring, e.g., why can’t language be contemporized like khadaon (flip-flops?), mata bhiksa dede (trick or treat?) etc.

Compare this to the Pixar’s Up movie (yeah, some of you will start saying that’s unfair comparison, but that’s life buddy). Back in UK, I took my kids out for the movie ( http://adisney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/up/)
The story is abt Carl, an 80-something balloon salesman and his full-of-fun journey to South America. Flashback - as a kid, he met a girl while exploring a neighbourhood house as a spaceship and then later, goes on to marry him (Bollywood enough, ehh!!!). And there onwards, both he and the little girl Ellie dreamt of flying to South America. Post-marriage and till the passing away of his wife, the story was quite serious and I was wondering if in a hurry, I entered the wrong hall. I looked around and saw two guys sitting next to me and bells started ringing!!! I didn’t know what scene could come next? Looking to my left, I saw moms with kids, granny with kids, teenagers etc And a wave of relief swept across me

But then suddenly the story turned interesting with arrival of Russell, a Jap boy scout who wants to win his final badge and it has to be for “Assisting the elderly”. Things become difficult for Carl and he decides to fly away in his house with a thousand balloons, steering it towards South America. And Up he flies away. (And this where the similarity ends with Bollywood films).

There he meets, Dug, the dog, Charles, the baddie and Kevin, the tropical bird. The story had characters which appealed to adults and kids, the story itself had its moments of adult and kiddie stuff, there was the serious stuff and there were hilarious situations all throughout. The wardrobe was authentic, looked from today’s world, the language was trendy – so audience could identify with. By having characters in situations that were believable or fun or even imaginary, viewers empathized with the characters and following the story was easy. The music was definitely hummable. Overall, the Director Pete Docter and his crew have done an excellent job.

Having myself done a lot of TV commercials and other campaigns with directors and agencies from around the world, I know that we were always deeply involved in the creatives, in wardrobes & casting selection, in the story-board, in choosing the characters that would work across continents. Even working on different shoots and music for different markets (I remember how we came to find out how different women held their babies in Asia vs. Africa vs. China, to what extent we can show skin in campaigns in Middle East, we discovered how we could have same talent that worked in both Middle East and South America). And finally pre and post-research. Everything was done keeping in mind a core and commercial audience. Indian animation movies can improve drastically, provided some basic rules are followed. Of course creativity has no bounds.

These days, everyone can do better with so many opportunities around. Whats needed is a bit more human approach to progression, thinking what customers really want and trying to aim higher every time.

Follow up post (coming soon – can’t promise ;o)): Day 13, 14, 15 - Investments, bankers, agents – their real intentions, service levels, costs and returns

Day 7, 8, 9: Pamper yourself – there’s only one life : Sports gear, Indian houses, school-mates, zoo, ColorPlus

2009-09-05T10:17:00.032+01:00

Life is getting better in India. The difference two decades can make is amazing. I remember that in 80’s, there were couple of channels that used to come – Doordarshan and some regional channel. The top 10 song program Chitrahaar, cartoon series, the Sunday movie, couples of Indian soaps and of course Krishi Darshan – and that’s it. You could rent VHS movies. If there was a party at home, you could buy Campa-cola or Thums Up and samosas, with pakoras made-at-home. You could make the lemony nimbu pani at home or the rose drink – rooh afza or the multi-flavoured Rasnas. Today there’s so much stocked up at home in our fridges - juices, coke, flavoured milk, yoghurts, and ice-cream desserts. The size of fridges increased from 165 litres (remember Godrej, Kelvinator - the coolest one & Voltas) to 300 l+ during 90's(whirlpool, electrolux, BPL, Videocon etc.) and now many houses are going for double door ones(Samsung, LG etc.). There are now nearly 200+ channels that come up well-organized in different program categories (sports, news, kids, movies, culture, music etc.) available from multiple companies. This time I realized that with digital set-top boxes, the quality of programs seen on TV had improved – no more snowy screens and distortions.
In 80’s, we didn’t had a phone at our place till my dad got a promotion – a wire-line phone was a sign of status or actually a phone cable coming into the house indicated status. Since we didn’t had a phone, the neighbour’s phone was given to relatives – called 'PP' number (I still don’t know why it was called 'PP' number – it should have been 'NP' – 'Neighbour’s Phone' rather than 'PP' – 'Personal Phone' – I think 'PP' could stand for 'Padosi’s Phone'!!!!!!). Now, even job-searching college graduates give their mobile numbers to prospective employers.

Growing up in those times...and today
Earlier as kids, after coming back from school, we would do our home-work and then go out to play in the evenings in the neighbourhood. There used to be plenty of time at hand, as hardly anything would come on TV. And remember, in those days, there was no remote control – so every time you wanted to change channels (anyway, there weren’t that many), some one had to get up, walk across and change it physically. And there weren’t fights to watch between parents and kids due to limited programs. There was no need to have digital boxes to record and see shows later. Internet was non-existent. Today, broadband is a reality, people can video chat with their relatives abroad. Kids are doing assignments after searching for info on internet. Indian teachers are tutoring American kids in their free time via online sites. My mom has a mobile phone now and she frequently calls me. I remember - a few years back, I was showing my mother-in-law how to use a mobile phone and she asked me about the absence of the dial-tone (of-course we also asked the same many years back). Life is so much better now.

Life is really good (to borrow LG’s slogan). I found my mom calling the neighbourhood shops to get things delivered at home. The new thing – even the street veggie hawkers have started taking orders over mobiles the previous evening and deliver fresh vegetables the next day, in the process becoming efficient. This is where both the karyana shops (the street grocery shops) and hawkers are beating the likes of Spencers, Reliance Fresh & others. While the new super-market chains have been able to retail in the same market, it has been difficult for them to recognize their neighbourhood buyers, personally attend to their needs, offer relevant advice, discounts and service levels and of-course develop one-to-one relationship. Internet has removed so many intermediaries. For our telephone, water, electricity bills, one had to go to different bill payment centres in the city and queue up for sometimes even an hour for payments. Or if your dad worked in a government office, the “peon” will be doing the rounds for bill payments. Then came the smart shop-keepers who would submit bills on your behalf but will charge a service fee. These days, you can pay bills on-line. Booking tickets for a new movie was a pain. Either you go there the previous evening or at least 2 hrs before the show starts, queue up, get ready to be molested by the guy in front and back and by the time you are ready to watch the movie, you would smell like someone who hasn’t showered for the last 7 days!!! Now you can just call and get an sms confirmation. You just have to pick up tickets 45 mins before :).

The new, improved & better Indian houses
Even the Indian houses or the newer apartments have ushered in a new era of comfort living in bigger cities. They are spacious, airy and come with round-the-clock water, electricity and security. There are parks in apartment complexes, gyms, rock-climbing walls, tennis courts, sand-pits, play areas, clubs, pools etc. With good planning from professional architects, these new apartments offer separate servant rooms, terraces, dedicated space for a.c.’s and bedrooms with attached bathrooms (Britishers call them en-suite baths – well don’t ask me abt their sizes!!! The UK houses with en-suite baths can easily increase the prices of the houses by 5-10% either in value or rentals. So, coming back to the size of these en-suite baths – just imagine if you are standing with only half arm stretched …..that’s it stop, stop – that’s where the shower cubicles will end. And if you are not careful, while walking out, you can easily bump against the loo or the wash basin. Thank god they don’t have Indian commodes in UK – you could easily fall into one of them in the en-suite baths). You can have dream kitchens done up with hobs, chimneys, modular cabinets and matching tiles. As kids we would play guessing games – what is stocked in which box in the kitchen, no more. People are beginning to enjoy their lives. The home improvement industry is a big opportunity in Indian market – no one is going after it in a big way.

Experience is everything for the new generation
Tired of watching Pogo channel and playing his Nintendo DS Lite, my son was missing his outdoor sports, so we decided to go and buy some sports equipment. Now this is the difference between my generation and my son’s generation. When kids his age go and play a sports – the sports itself, the paraphernalia and the experience all go together. We explored basket-balls and foot-balls at Adidas, Nike and Reebok outlets (well that’s me – I like to check out options or “survey” and then buy, my son would buy from the 1st shop) . We picked a basketball from the Reebok shop and a football from Adidas shop. Since my son was not carrying his gear, he wanted soccer sportswear. And since he was carrying his regular shoes, he wanted shoes with studs, to have better grip on grounds. Phew!! Today the experience of playing any sports is akin to feeling like a top player, playing as if it’s a tournament, dressed-up in full gear to play to a packed stadium and performance-pressure as if its being telecasted live by ESPN!!! Poor we in 80’s, we just had Bata canvas shoes and a local football.

Remembering school-times
I had managed to find one of my old school class-mates via internet – bless Facebook and the social networking sites. When I called, he was so thrilled to hear from me. After all we hadn’t met for almost two decades. I learnt that he was heading operations for a big liquor manufacturing company and I was really happy to see that he was doing really well for himself, considering he was one of the naughtiest kids in the class – with him I learnt how to scale neighbour’s walls or restricted gardens to get mangoes, apples, roses etc. – trust me it was fun!!! Life had changed from when we last met – we were school-going kids then and now we both had two school-going kids. In his older son, I saw his reflection. We decided to take a walk and buy some samosas. He showed me one of those liquor shops in the market, where the stuff manufactured by his company was selling – some big international brands. I would have never imagined him to be working in liquor industry. I found out that another of my school-mates who used to be a back-bencher had opened up a school!!! Life is full of opportunities.

Seeing him reminded me of some old incidents – usually Indian moms will not let their kids play out in the afternoons during the peak of the summers – “stay indoors and then go out for play in evenings when it gets a bit cooler”. So, on one of those hot afternoons, when my mom slept, I sneaked out (usually she would hear the sound of door opening & I would have to retrace my steps indoors, but this time she didn’t) and with my friend, we collected our neighbourhood friends and started playing cricket. For some strange reason, I was fielding at silly point (one of the closest spots to the batsman) and then suddenly the next thing I remembered was blood coming out of my lips. Apparently, the guy batting hit the ball so fast that I had no time to react – and the ball hit my face and cut my lower lip. First I thought, I had broken a tooth, but it seemed like a case of bad cut. Now the dilemma – if I rushed back home, I would get a lecture from my mom – "didn’t-I-tell-you-…" kinds. So, we rushed to my friend’s place and his mom helped me clean the wound and put some sugar on the lip to help stop bleeding. Like the Tom of ‘Tom & Jerry’ show, I quietly sneaked back into my home and feigned sleeping.

Later during the evening, we were invited for another tea party at our neighbour’s place. Another round of lovely kachoris, jalebis,.. Now Indians love-for-eating has benefited the whole value chain - the food industry (restaurants, the corner jalebi shops etc.), our love for not-moving-our-butts has benefited “delivered hot-&-fresh” delivery industry creating jobs and our love for over-eating keeps the digestive-industry brands (Hajmola, paans, etc) going. I later found that Dabur’s Hajmola is a market leader in the digestive category in India, with 25 million Hajmolas consumed every day – that’s roughly every eighth Indian house-hold consuming it every day. No wonder, the fitness industry will see good growths in India for years to come!!!

Shopping in India
Next day, I decided to go out and buy my office gear. It was good time to buy, as 'the big summer sale' was on, with all brand offering nearly 40% off or more. Many years back, Indians would buy Arrow, Louis Philippe shirts marketed as ‘leading foreign brands now available in India with international quality’. We would buy them, until you will see results after washing. They would as thick as a mattress, so if you had an outdoor job, you will end up sweating like a pig! And God forbid if you had to iron these shirts by yourself (if your dhobi was on holiday), I can bet you won’t be able to. During my US visits and even in UK, I found that they have been eclipsed by newer brands.

So, over years, I found better Indian brands like ColorPlus, Indian Terrain and CD shirts (Chirag Din) offer top quality clothes – which don’t shrink, don’t fade and most important of all are easy to iron. And then of course buying from India has its own advantages – you must be thinking it’s affordable. Ha ha…..No, these days it’s no longer the case!!! The only service I enjoy is – free length alteration for trousers and you can pick up within 30 mins – it reminds me of the experience we had in Helsinki – my wife went and selected a Diesel jeans – however it was a bit long. She asked if she could have it cut to the proper length and pat came the reply – it will cost 5 Euros per leg. Per leg – yes she repeated twice – as if some people get only single leg altered. Yeah, unlike in India, where trousers, jeans come with free length and the retailers will be able to alter the length based on customer’s needs, in the West, jeans will come with two dimensions – waist and length.

Well, I decided to buy trousers in different office colours, but I was a bit annoyed – these trousers according to the ColorPlus company showroom are never on sale. I picked up a few formal and casual shirts from ColorPlus and Indian Terrain. Now, in India it’s really important to try and buy. There’s no concept of return! Or maximum, a few good ones will offer exchange – refund – just forget about. It reminded me of the crazy shopping I saw in New York during one of my trips – I was out shopping looking for a pair of shoes for myself and some clothes – so I went to a few stores and I saw people buying tonnes of clothes, toys, anything that was on sale. I asked one of the buyers about why people were buying so much, was it the last day of sale (as if there is no tomorrow?) and she mentioned that people didn’t want to try it out and they could return the items within 14-28 days as long as tags are on. So, most buyers left stores with 10-12 items on an average. Anyway, in Chandigarh, I bought couple of shorts, but they turned out one size smaller. When I went for exchanging the size, I could get one in the same design, but the other one was not available in bigger size, so I ended up getting another one which was couple of hundreds cheaper. I didn’t get any refund for the difference money, but at least, I managed to get the right size.

Experiencing the zoo with Nimbooz
Now, we had been trying to take our daughter to the zoo for some years now (she hasn't seen one, although almost all the cartoons she sees are based on animal characters), but somehow never got the opportunity. So, we decided that we will take her to a zoo during the vacation in India. Since it had been unbearably hot for some days, we decided that one of those cooler days, we will go to the zoo. The next day was had a cloudy sky, so we quickly made a picnic hamper and off we went to Chattbir zoo near Chandigarh. The journey was pretty comfortable and we took lot of Nimbooz – the new lemony Indian drink introduced by PepsiCo. I don’t know if PepsiCo knows, but they have a winner at hand – it tastes amazing. At the entrance, we decided to take our car inside, as the zoo was spread over a few acres. The guy at the window didn’t had exact change, so he decided to give me five rupees more – which set me thinking – this would never happen any where else – this zoo belongs to Government of India and every penny should be saved to plough back into the zoo upkeep (maybe he was happy that people are still coming to the zoo. Anyway I decided to spend inside the zoo to generate some revenue). We started with the monkeys – the less we say abt them, the better it is, especially when it comes to behaving in front of the public – they have no sense of decency, even if kids are standing in front of them(I will not describe and will leave it your imagination). We saw this furry one which had a huge fur over its upper half body and we were wondering if it had lost its way from Antarctica to India - it was sweating like a pig. Next we went and saw some hippos that were snorkeling, as the temperatures had soared again and the clouds were gone. Almost all the animals and birds had huge space for living and moving around – the elephants we saw were eating non-stop, the white deers were jumping, the really huge and impressive tigers were getting disturbed by the noise coming from the excited crowd and one of them decided to hide behind a tree for the afternoon siesta, the white peacocks and the shiny zebras etc. We had to take a mini bus for entering the lion safari. We saw the aging lions trying to beat the heat by sitting listlessly around a water pond. Seeing the stationary lions, our bus guy got excited and opened the door for a clearer view – which was quickly shut close, as lots of parents in the bus gave him choicest abuses. Now buying from a zoo shop is always what kids love – the kids were really disappointed with the shop – some real low quality stuff – still I managed to stimulate the zoo economy by buying a soft toy.

Now we have been to zoos and safaris around the world (Helsinki, Beijing, Copenhagen, Singapore, Tallinn etc.) and the formula is simple – keep animals healthy, get loads of traffic, do lot of fun activities inside the zoo with kids, have good quality restaurants at frequent breaks, get photographers for clicking memories and have an excellent souvenir shop with lots of games, animal toys, puzzles, activity books, fridge magnets etc.. You can also get corporate sponsorships for creating special sections. Except for the heat, the trip was excellent. I hope that some relevant kid or food brands will take the lead in creating exciting experiences inside the zoo and maintaining some of these zoos instead of putting up outdoor hoardings.

It’s really good to see that life is getting better in India with more of everything available now. And Indians are spending to have a better quality of living and more importantly “living for the NOW” and making the most of NOW.

Coming next - Day 10, 11, 12: India – fast becoming the land of opportunities: Parking, PVR, Dashavtar

Day 5, 6 - The changing Indian society: Centerfresh, i-pill, Rakhi Sawant Ka Swayamwar, Sach ka samna, liquor outlets

2009-08-19T23:44:00.020+01:00

Today, it is really hot – you know the uncomfortable types! With soaring temperatures, one of the most uncomfortable places to be in can be the Indian kitchens – yes cooking food. So, my wife had done a pact with my mom, when we are around, we will hire a temporary cook (as a nation we are crazy, I would say fanatic abt eating fresh & hot food). This time, she relented - this allowed us to get a variety of dishes cooked, at different times and left my wife guilt-free (its holiday for everyone, so guys - it’s unfair for her to cook, considering we Indians eat all 3 meals fresh!!!!). Plus, this gave us the flexibility to order food or dine out – there are so many options for home food delivery now – Indian, Yo! China, Sagar-ratana, Hot-millions (yes they gave us burgers in India in 80’s – so they are the originals, McDonalds comes second), Domino’s etc. Now I must admit that restaurants are a distaster in UK, especially Indian restaurants or as matter of fact any restaurant!!! Food is “awful”, “tasteless” and at times “limp” – right from Pizza Hut to regular local restaurants. The good ones are so few & so scattered, even super-market ready-to-eat foods are much better. Usually the culture is to drink & then eat – so I think after multiple drinks, it’s difficult for diners to distinguish between good & bad – in the process, so many average kitchens have spawned across UK. Even on some of the most remotest places on planet earth – you can find good food.

Getting ready for a get-together at my cousin’s place
It was a weekend and we were invited to my cousin’s place for a get-together. With kids in families, my wife and my sister went out to buy gifts – we were meeting them after a year, so it made sense to buy clothes locally, as getting the right sizes is best managed locally. Now for years, whenever we would go to India, almost one bag would be full of gifts – ranging from chocolates, clothes, food, electronics, lotions & potions, cosmetics, artifacts – you name it, we have gifted it!!! Now with two kids around, making an extra bag full of gifts is a really tiring exercise, as it needs some serious shopping even before the trip starts. And two things have happened over years – most of the items are now available locally in India and people are mature enough and comfortable, even if you buy and gift locally.

The evening arrived quickly and the ladies started getting ready – across cultures – this is a time-consuming activity – well-spent, if you consider the final output! Outside India, we will reach a party on time – if you reach late, the party goes on and you risk empty stomach as food gets served & removed by the watch; something happens in India – you tend to get late. Now I have my uncle who is like one of those army generals – everything should happen on time – including eating dinner at sharp 7 pm(I hope he doesn’t reads this blog ;o)) – and we reached by 8:30 pm. But honestly, with two kids, getting everybody out of the house can be quite time-consuming. So far, we haven’t missed a flight – hope not! Thank God, there was food and even fresh starters made again (excellent aloo tikkis, kebabs with Indian mint & imli sauce – when I complimented abt the excellent aloo tikkis, I was told they were ready-to-eat from Spencer’s super-market – wow, while chutneys were made at home!). No body dared sit next to my uncle – the situation was hot there and we were feeling like “I’m a chicken, get me out of here” – dangerously humorous, but everyone maintained a straight face. And then started PC’s (pleasant conversations), followed by discussions and some hot topics – my uncle is well-read and an excellent conversationalist – you guessed it right - he was a professor – so if you don’t change the topic every 5-10 mins – you risk getting lectured on the same topic for 45 mins – the duration of his lecture.

Liquor shopping – what a contrast – then & now
After sometime, I moved out to enjoy a Kingfisher with my cousin. Over the last few years, Indian parents have opened up – kids can drink at home with their parents. Even moms are open to try wines and champagnes on occasions! We realized that after 2 Kingfishers, there were no more. My cousin suggested that we go and get some more. I was surprised to see an excellent shop with practically all kinds of alcohols available, just abt 3 kms away from his house. This wasn’t like the typical 90’s shops - shady, a grilled window through which a hairy sales promoter would be selling some local wine or bear, dressed up in a vest and stripy long underwear just because it was hot inside & no fans. I must admit that the liberalization started by our PM Manmohan Singh in 90’s had its unexpected windfall for the liquor sector. I remember many years back, when I was visiting India along with my office colleagues from Europe and staying in a five star hotel in Delhi. We wanted to have drinks but wanted to restrict the cost to be within our daily allowance, so some quick maths and we reached a conclusion that we had to got out and buy a couple of bottles and consume it in the hotel room rather than visiting the pricey hotel bar. My search took me to this most unimpressive, shady, wooden structured, difficult to find alcohol outlet in CP (Connaught place) – the guy was sitting smoking a bidi (Australians call them herbal Indian cigarettes – if I had my way, I will call them organic, hand-rolled, carefully packed, straight from farm to packaging, Forest alliance certified farms etc. etc. – not that I’m promoting smoking. Bidis are so iconic outside India, a jute bag with their picture sells for as much as 15 British pounds, almost Rs. 1200 in UK) with his out-stretched hand asking for money first and going inside to get bottles restricted to Indian varieties only – without even asking what brand we wanted – we just had to tell – bear, whisky etc.. It was a seller world’s. Now India is a paradise for consumers – ala buyer’s market.

With another two Kingfisher rounds, we were ready for dinner. But as good dads, we helped our wives to feed the kids. The food was really well-made – daal makhni, matar-paneer, mutton curry(all home-made) and fresh rotis(Indian men are spoilt by their moms for serving hot rotis straight from tawa pan to mouth, of course reality hits you after marriage and if you are outside India, you buy off-the-shelf chappatis and end up microwaving them – that's hot redefined). Hey, hey, my wife does cook excellent food, including hot rotis….just in case you are having any thoughts!!!!!!

The new ads – reflections of our society?
Back home, since it was a weekend, we were shuffling channels and two ads caught my eye or rather my eyes caught my wife’s eyes – it was an i-pill ad and a condom ad. The media managers in both companies had bought all the possible media available across all channels (probably because they can be aired only after 9 or 10 pm, so both ads kept repeating themselves). One promoted safer sex (or rather safer promiscuity) and the other promoted emergency safeguard - as their site says “act within 72 hrs of unprotected XXX to prevent unplanned pregnancy”.

The sleazy condom ad from Manforce featured the ‘pehle nazar’ song with a beautiful model & guy trying to attract each other with provocative gestures throughout a series of raunchy scenes. While traditionally, Indian condom ads have had settings in marriage context, this one was clearly reflecting the pre-martial realities that companies want to encash. Poor Atif’s song – what a racy fall!!!

My research later showed that there was a distinct change or re-positioning of i-pill from something available for married women (see ads – shave, honeymoon, breakfast - http://www.ipillcipla.com/resources.htm?i-pillcipla ) to younger girls (see ads – phone call, longest day). Yes marketing is a science and I’m sure there would have been focus groups and statistics to guide the new target audience selection. I don’t think this is a case of broadening the consumer segment base. It's a reflection of the changing Indian society. Now I realize that Karan Johar was ahead of the trend with his ‘kabhi alvida na kehna’ movie. Watch out what's coming next from his stable.

Another one worth mentioning is the humorous and self-mocking Centerfresh ad, which shows different people involved in meaningless discussions during their work time. So Centerfresh in this ad - makes a case for Indians to talk less, work more and keep their mouth shut by having a gum (C’mon India - baatein kam, kaam jyada. Centerfresh chewing gum. Jubaan par rakhe lagaam) – it's a sheer tribute to being an Indian – it epitomizes our love for talking, debating, considering another angle, what about this…the endless discussions. I loved it. Somebody had the courage to show the mirror - we Indians spend so much time on endless, meaningless, futile debates that we leave little time for doing the actual work. No wonder our projects run so late, with cost over-runs and human impact. (Enjoy the series - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlCfl5K6U80
+ spoofs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1aF0B10wpM&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVAeVSAlEhg)

The Indian society – gearing-up for a change?
And finally, I must talk about the two reality shows – 'Rakhi ka Swayamvar' and ‘Sach ka samna’. While Rakhi’s show is modeled on The Bachelorette series, the Sach is similar to Moment of Truth. I think that the Indian audience had grown tired of candy-sweet slapstick comedies (I can never understand who can watch them?) and the soaked-heavily-in-traditions-and-taboos K serials. That's why reality shows like Indian Idols and Nach Baliye provided a welcome, real-life change and did so well. They allowed real people or celebrities to compete, entertained them in the process and kept viewers guessing till the last moment. The sleazy Big Brother came and so did the full-of-action Khatron ke Khiladi with Akshay. So, Indian audiences were slowly maturing to the next level of reality – enter these two new serials full of voyeurism, uncomfortable questions, shocking admissions and difficult decisions. (In UK, the reality format has been applied to multiple concepts – in real estate with series like ‘Location, location, location’, ‘Property - snakes & ladders’, police – BritCops, Paris Hilton's British Best Friend, immigration & travel shows like Border patrol & Airport, aspiring entrepreneurs in Dragon’s Den, Gordon Ramsay’s Hells Kitchen, ‘Blood, Sweat and Takeaways’ which takes kids to work in unfamiliar South east Asian countries and style guru Gok Wan’s How to look good naked!!!!)

I just loved the Rakhi show. She is bold, futuristic, risk-taking, says-what-she-feels-like yet grounded in reality and traditions. We were all glued to the TV – probably it was the vicarious pleasure or seeing how a girl from a humble background and a one song-wonder would manage to hold on to her own through almost 15 rounds of eliminating one guy after the other. While, it was evident that she was thinking abt Manmohan Tiwari (probably it was the comfort factor of similar values, conservative-outlook and small town) and his elimination was the most traumatic for her, we all were wishing if she would marry the Canadian NRI Elesh. I found out later that Rakhi has done some 20 movies and music videos including item songs. In some way, Rakhi epitomizes the changing aspirations of everyone in India to do better in life (no longer we are happy with status quo, we want to move up the success ladder with materialistic and emotional aspirations), with success coming with sheer hard work, a bit of luck and indomitable spirit.

The other show Sach ka samna - you know who has produced this show – remember the original quiz king – yes Siddhartha Basu!! This one is equally scandalous, considering the questions asked regarding illicit relationships, do you fancy another woman, would you rather have your parents stay with your siblings, fighting for a child custody (boy vs. girl) etc. etc – bringing in open the hidden secrets. Wow, these are some really bold questions – which will generate lot of dinner-talk, even frank questioning between family members and friends. Those who are brave enough to answer on the show feel cathartic after revealing intimate thoughts and those who are watching have hundreds of questions racing through their minds – what if? I hope people stay calm and don’t get carried away.

I hope you will agree that there is lot of change around us – some driven by the environment and some by us. With India growing so rapidly, we will need to move in new directions with some new ideas, a bit faster with open minds, sometimes taking bold steps and also evolving our value-system. Jai Ho!!!!

Coming up next(soon) ~ Day 7, 8, 9: Pamper yourself – there’s only one life – sports gear, Indian houses, school-mates, zoo, ColorPlus

Day 3, 4 - Position your brand correctly & ensure quality: Go Air, McDonald's, Hertz, Cafe Coffee day, Chandigarh

2009-08-15T13:59:00.001+01:00

To Indians living in India, kids going out for playing with neighborhood kids in the evenings is a very normal thing – we don’t even blink an eye. Until of course, if you live in certain western countries. Kids rarely play together in the neighborhood and if you want them to, you have to arrange a “play date”, which maybe a month away. Funny! So, both my wife & I were happy, when our kids went to out for an impromptu play with their cousin. And when they came back, they were already very hungry. So we didn’t need to chase them with food plates in hand – they were plain hungry. Now, here I must compliment western parents who really know how to make their kids eat – it’s effortless. Make them sit on the dining table, serve them dry food like sausages or cold sandwiches, yoghurt, carrots or milk & cereal and they will finish it off. Compared to Indian food – daal, rice, vegetables, curry, chapatti, dahi – too much wet food, involves mixing, dipping, chasing and ultimately burping! By chasing – I mean parents literally running after their kids to make them finish the food, with added support from TV to distract them. Of course there is hope, as everyone says - this “running around” lasts till our kids turn 10 :))).

Booking a cab
Our flight next day to Chandigarh was from the domestic airport, so I had to arrange for a taxi for the airport drop. Now, I bet, everyone will agree with me that booking a taxi in India can be quite a mundane task. But, the taxi journey can be one hell of an experience. Normally, I will book a taxi after taking references from my colleagues working in India office or from relatives. You call one of these taxi guys who typically have a fleet of 5-10 cars, agree pick-up and drop points, time and the price. Usually the price is Rs. 400 for 4hrs/40 kms and Rs. 750 for 8hr/80 kms package for a base level car like Tata Indica. For a 7-seater SUV, the charges will almost double or even more. The catch – the distance is measured from garage to garage. So, if the taxi company office is 5 kms away, 10 kms are already gone from your quota. There a few things you need to do – ask them to send a clean car, call them 30 mins before the actual travel time, call-up before to check driver name, car number and mobile. And then start calling the driver 1 hour before. In most cases, the driver will reach late – yes you guessed it right – it's the Indian traffic or simply the Indian habit of coming late!

So, this time I decided to book a car from Hertz. Smart me! Now Hertz has tie-up with CarzOnRent in India. On calling Hertz, I hear an English-speaking executive, who patiently asked all the details and finally asked what type of car I wanted – as they offered abt 7 levels of car types – impressive!!! I booked a mid-sized car as we had lot of luggage. But, I had to give my credit card details – which left me uncomfortable – who gives credit card details to taxi companies? Anyway, the company was quite professional – I received an email confirmation. Two hours before the pick-up time, I received an sms with car details and the driver’s mobile number. And the driver was there with the car ON TIME – except that the car wasn’t the one I had booked!!!!!! It was a van which didn’t start off for the first 3 minutes as it was running on CNG. I tried calling the Hertz guys, but it was too late – we couldn’t wait for another car, or we would miss our flight. And on top of that, Delhi received it heaviest downpour, as we were going to the airport. Imagine heavy rains, dark clouds, and a van that would choke every time the driver changed gears, no seat belts, slippery roads and visibility reduced to abt 50 m. Now Delhiites especially have no concept of driving – there is no concept of minimum distance between 2 cars, over-taking from every direction is allowed and everyone drives on the lane line instead of driving within a lane (the only theory I can hypothesize for such behaviour is – the drivers consider a driving lane to be like a cricket crease, where if they need to bat(=drive), just like a batsman taking guard and asking the umpire for "middle stump" and then scratching a mark on the ground and then normally placing the bat down on that mark to bat, maybe Delhi drivers drive on a lane line thinking its the middle stump line!!!!).

Every time the driver would get near the car in front, I will tell him to slow down and be careful. When he showed irritation, my wife intervened saying that we are worried because of two young kids in car. Probably the emotional angle got through his head compared to the rationale request I was making. We Indians are suckers for emotions – that's why 90%+ of all Bollywood movies despite having the same story still find audience, as emotions are displayed in 1000+ different ways ;o).
We reached the airport in time – thanks to the new flyovers Delhi government had built. Five years back, we had got stuck on the same road for 2 hours and missed our train.

The newly refurbished - Delhi's domestic airport
We were flying Go Air through the new domestic terminal 1D. I must admit that the airport terminal had been improved drastically given what we had earlier in India 10 years back! The airport had restaurants, cafes, play areas, phone charging stations and the newly set-up smoking room. The only funny thing I found was – after security check-in, the gate numbers for flight departures are not displayed on screens. You have to walk to the info center to find out. Or wait for announcements. Maybe they do for security reasons. Even at London’s Heathrow, gates are shown only 30-45 mins before departure, but they are shown.

While, I was walking towards the security, my wife decided to get herself a latte from Cafe Coffee Day. Normally, big brands offer hygienically-prepared, high quality products available everywhere. But my wife was repulsed to see a cockroach running over the cake she wanted. Nahhh…even the staff noticed it. Now, every young company goes through expansion phases, but keeping consistency of quality and experience is really important, especially in food brands! My research later showed that CCD is India’s largest and has about 900 outlets across 100+ cities and is part of a 200 mn $ group.

Thank God, there was McDonald’s after security check-in. Unlike the West, where McDonald’s has the fast-food image & the negative connotations associated with the category(they managed to reverse the impact of Super Size Me & the growing obesity debate by some clever photography – showing green lettuces in burgers, showing smalled-sizes of coke glasses & fries in meal options and also genuinely changing the menu to include salads, juices, milk, fruits etc.), in India it still has the freshly made, warm, safe, value for money and clean image. Compared to our traditional fast-food – samosas, bread pakoras, aloo bondas, chaat, pani puris which were traditionally made by road-side hawkers and hence didn’t had clean, fresh & safe image. Of course, these days you can get Indian fast food in good restaurants like Haldirams!!! While my son was enjoying his burger, my daughter was loving the play area!

We were quite impressed with Go Air – brand new planes, on time, absolutely clean, courteous & confident staff. Go Air is owned by the Wadia Group that has iconic brands like Britannia and Bombay Dyeing. Fares were kept low by not offering any food on the 45 mins flight to Chandigarh, no kiddie toys stuff, no newspaper etc. But that's ok. Its one thing to offer value-for-money product, but you don’t need to commoditize your brand by associating with discounted products from other categories. I’m talking here discounted products being promoted inside the plane.

Funnily, while the claimed discounted products(upto 65%) like watches, wallets, Italian sunglasses, mp3 players were available in the plane(although I didn't ask for them), the website promoted is still under construction. None of Wadia’s business has low-cost cheap image, so I wonder why they are doing it now, when they have all excellent ingredients for a superior offer. Even Preity Zinta had her picture on our boarding card welcoming us ;o)!! Honestly great experience, disappointing positioning. Wadias should reconsider the positioning & of course the broken airport buses that transfer you from terminal building to the plane.

Chandigarh - an evolving brand story
My sister and my uncle had come to take us home. Great to be at home! Lot of comfort food cooked by my mom. Its great to be in one’s home town, especially as a brand - Chandigarh offers quite a lesson to brand marketers – evolving consistently with its image of progressiveness, clean, fresh and welcoming. Despite a 3-fold increase in population, it has managed to offer amenities like fresh and sweet water, power, clean air, upgraded infrastructure (side roads for cycles, rickshaws, parking, hospitals, education centers), builder homes for working professionals etc. But I must admit, parking & roads have got trafficky over years! My own research later showed that Chandigarh ranks first in India in the Human Development Index, quality of life and e-readiness. There are several new initiatives underway to redefine Chandigarh keeping in line with its future growth – international airport, an education city with future-proof courses, multimedia film city, amusement park on the lines of the Disney, entrepreneur development center, medical city, energy park and milk production and integrated market terminal. That's IMPRESSIVE!!!!

Still jet-lagged, next day, we woke up only by afternoon. Thank God, Chandigarh gets fresh water 3 times a day and with plenty of storage water, starting the day was no problem. I visited the local market later and practically, nothing had changed – the same shops with some minor cosmetic changes.

Later during the day, I had some “bonding time” with my daughter, reading her story books. Now reading books is so much part of the family time outside India that I heard that even President Obama had to call it an early night with PM Brown, to read story-books to his kids. And thats because stories can be real fun, amusing and they can encourage creativity in kids. There are several good story books across age groups, my all time favourites are - Dora the explorer, Gruffalo series by Julia Donaldson, Spot (the dog) series, Lion King, The Tiger who came to tea, Tappity-tap! what was that? etc. Creating kids story & activity books is a big opportunity for Indian authors – it needs a bit of a creativity, an Indian context, but keeping it contemporary so Indian kids can identify with them (I will write abt what I mean by contemporary writings in one of my later blogs).

I'm sure that brand and business managers will agree with me that it takes lot of time, energy & sweat to build preference amongst consumers and companies shouldn’t sacrifice the core proposition or values in the process of expanding their franchise quickly to achieve short-term gains. At the same time, they should continue to evolve their product offers to keep them contemporary and reflecting the changing consumers’ needs & desires.

Follow up post (coming soon): Day 5, 6 – The changing Indian society: Centerfresh, i-pill, Rakhi Sawant Ka Swayamwar, Sach ka samna, liquor outlets

Experiences in changing India: sweet, smashing, surprising and sour

2009-08-11T13:44:00.000+01:00

Every time, I come back to India - the vibrancy, the dynamism and the constant chaos never ceases to amaze me! Of course, I have been born and brought up in India - so am very familiar with India, but witnessing the ongoing changes in India after every few months props up new insights and talk-points!

Each day of my 4 week holiday in India was filled with new findings that sparked new perspectives and generated interesting debates with my family and friends. So, I thought why not share these experiences some of which were funny, some were amazing, some disappointing and for some I make a case for improvements!

Day 1, 2: Great service harbours loyalty - BA and Trident Hotel
I had booked BA for my family trip, although I had the option to take the cheaper Jet or Virgin flights, but I stuck my guns with BA. I justified to my wife that lets go with the familiarity and comfort of flying BA, but deep down, I knew, it was the desire to regain my Gold level status by clocking enough miles! (who says men can't be vain) But closer to the day, I was cursing myself for risking flying through the infamous terminal 5 and the scary 18 kms long baggage conveyer belts which had gained the reputation for losing bags. The presence of plenty of staff and smooth check-in did help assuage any fears. And my loyalty with BA executive club paid off - we got upgraded - yahoooo! Especially, when you are traveling with kids, every little helps! India - being a whisky market - I bought couple of Johnnie walkers for my father-in-law.

Kids were kept busy in the flight with plenty of movies, cartoons and games. The only part which was disappointing was the food - BA really needs to improve here. While the staff did offer couple of options, but you can't really replace one bad option with another bad one! That’s where my wife's wisdom paid off - we had packed some home food.

The arrival at Delhi
Its funny, the 3rd runway is operational at Delhi's international airport to cater to the increasing air traffic, but the docking gates are still numbered - the new T3 buildings will be operational by 2010. With most international flights landing late in night, our plane had to wait for almost half an hour because a Singapore airline plane was delayed. After the immigration, the wait & tension for bags was growing. And voila - the bags came through :).

My research later showed that international flights continued to be delayed, especially at night, ever since the Delhi High Court restricted the use of the third runway after 10 p.m., as a step to reduce sound pollution. Interestingly, a NGO filed a public interest litigation contending that the noise level was much in excess of limits permissible for residential areas.

Nearly 700 flights land and take-off at the Delhi airport every day. Heathrow, by comparison, has abt 1300 flights (source: Times database). Now I can understand why there were so many protests when it came to building new runways at Heathrow!

The ever-welcoming Trident hotel
It took us abt 20 mins to reach the Trident hotel (http://www.tridenthotels.com/gurgaon/index.asp), where as usual, they do the check-in inside the room. And we were upgraded to a suite. The room (or 2 rooms) was really spacious and came with a water-front view. We ordered food which came fairly quick. With two hungry kids in tow, the piping hot & fresh food was finished quickly with our eyes glued to the latest Bollywood songs on TV. Already 2 am, it was time to sleep, but my exploratory daughter (Dora the explorer!!!) pointed to the mangoes kept in the room. Good that she pointed to them - between the two of us, we finished 4 of them - really sweet and juicy!

We checked-out next day to stay with my wife’s cousin. Trident normally includes one-way pick-up or a drop - I don't know why. Over years, I have learnt to negotiate, so I shared the fact with the lady at the check-out desk how Radisson Hotel offers two-way drops. Competition forced her consult her senior and they agreed for a free drop! I was left with a pleasing feeling. Now, my wife had carefully taken out the all gifts for her cousin and neatly put them in a separate big bag. However, when you have two kids running around, you tend to become absent-minded. After reaching my wife's cousin home, she realized that she had forgotten the gift bag in the hotel lobby - Oh no! I thought there goes the saving. We called the hotel and after some pushing, the really nice duty manager agreed to have the bag dropped - that’s almost two drops - FREE. It reminded me of the same customer delight we experienced with them 3 years back - we reached the hotel in the middle of the night and my wife requested them to arrange for Johnson's baby soap and shampoo. And you won't believe it - not only did they arrange for both items, but they also came with a baby tub! We requested them later to arrange McDonald's burgers and they happily did, the list goes on & on....

So, service matters, consistency in service delivery matters, consumer delight works and if brands can continue to build relationships with their consumers, they can instill loyalty and encourage them to talk about their positive experiences.

Follow up post (coming soon): Day 3, 4 - Position your brand correctly & ensure quality: Go Air, McDonald's, Cafe Coffee day, Chandigarh