Vikram Singh Parmar

Bugs in movies

2009-05-10T11:09:00.001+05:30

Everyone needs a smile!

2009-05-07T08:54:00.002+05:30

A funny letter with shocking news :)

2009-04-22T11:52:00.000+05:30

Now here is a shocking as well as funny letter. This is the art of delivering shocking news.A girl writes a letter to her mother.

Dear Mom,

I know I haven't written for three months, but I have been very busy and I've been having a very exciting time. Actually, I'm just back from the hospital, where I had spent a fortnight about two months ago. It was nothing, really - just a concussion on the back of my head, a broken leg and a ! hairline fracture, that I got while jumping out of the second floor of my hostel when it caught fire. In fact, I can now stand all by myself without crutches, and can almost see everything perfectly, except for a slight blur.

But don't worry. The doctor says there is a good chance of me walking on my own again. Actually,it could have been worse, if not for that nice chai-walla who saw me lying there in a dead faint and rushed me to hospital.He was very helpful, really, and came to see me everyday in the hospital. Now that I am out of hospital, I had nowhere to go, as the hostel is still under construction. So when he suggested that I move in with him in his hut,I thought it was very kind of him, and agreed. We are very much in love now,and I am sure that you and Dad will surely like him and accept him in the family. I am sure the minor matter that he is fourteen years older than me and that he is of a different caste and religion, will not matter at all to broad-minded parents like you...

He may be illiterate and poor, but he has a heart of gold - really, Mom, you should see how he cares for both of us - me and his wife, that is. She is quite sweet too, and so are her three children; so there is absolutely no problem. You must be wondering how you and Dad got informed so late. Don't get angry, Mom. We just didn't have the time. You see, we decided to get married only recently since we thought it would be unfair to let our baby into the world without a proper surname..

Yes, Mom, you are going to be a grandmother! Congratulations! I am sure you and Dad are delighted, and will come to visit us in his village in Mizoram after we shift there next week. OK Mom. All this did not really happen. There was no fire, no fracture, no bigamous chai-walla and no illegitimate pregnancy. But I did flunk in my Mathematics exam, and I wanted you to view this problem in the right perspective.

Your Darling Daughter

men vs women

2009-03-27T02:18:00.002+05:30

What is the difference between men and women?

1. A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

2. Men wake up as good-looking as when they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

3. A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he wants. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't want.

4. A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.

5. There are two times when a man doesn't understand a woman- before and after marriage.

6. A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

7. To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

8. Any married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!

9. A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

10. Women look at a wedding as the beginning of romance, while men look at a wedding as the ending of romance.

It's called MINDSET

2009-03-23T13:56:00.000+05:30

Impact of Job Change

2009-03-20T23:20:00.000+05:30

Impact of Job Change

A taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath, and stopped centimeters from a shop window.

For a second everything went quiet in the cab, and then the driver said: "Look mate, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!". The passenger apologized and said, "I didn't realize that a little tap would scare you so much."

The driver replied, "Sorry, it's not really your fault. Today is my First day as a cab driver - I've been driving a van carrying dead Bodies for the last 25 years

Rare Wonders of Mother Nature

2009-03-05T02:39:00.000+05:30

Watch the rare wonders of nature…….

The classical natural wonders are huge and hard to miss - vast canyons, giant mountains and the like. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena, however, are also least easy to spot.. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world.

1) Sailing Stones

The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.

2) Columnar Basalt

When a thick lava flow cools it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above) though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.

3) Blue Holes

Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

4) Red Tides

Red tides are also known as algal blooms - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals. In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal.. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.

5) Ice Circles

While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups at different sizes as shown above.

6) Mammatus Clouds

True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.

7) Fire Rainbows

A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena.

The Sweetest Proposal

2009-03-05T02:00:00.001+05:30

Well,how about this way of proposing to a girl? When I saw your name next to mine, In our wedding card, I felt blessed. When I saw you smile, Seeing me in traditional bride groom dress, I felt teased. When I held your hand, During the marriage rituals, I felt responsible. When you entered my lonely bachelor life, And changed it into a heavenly abode, I felt lucky. When you showed the same love as I did, Towards my parents, I felt proud. When you scolded me, For neglecting my health amidst my hectic work, I felt pampered. When I saw you scream, Crying out of labour pains, I felt helpless. When I saw tears of happiness in your eyes, As you looked at our kid, I felt blessed once again. All these feelings have bloomed in my heart, But are yet to blossom in reality. As these are feelings I long to feel, For these are still unfelt. WILL YOU MARRY ME??

A newly wed girl

2009-03-04T18:54:00.001+05:30

A newly wed girl was being welcomed at the husband's home in a traditional

manner. She was asked to give a little speech.

She addressed as follows:

"My dear family members, I thank you for welcoming me in my new home and family", she said:

"Firstly, with my presence I would not want to create any inconveniences by

my being here. I mean that I don't want you all to change your way of life, your routine."

"What do you mean my child?" asked the patriarch of the family.

What I mean dad is:

Those who used to wash dishes must carry on washing them.

Those who used to do the laundry must carry on doing it.

Those who cooked shouldn't stop on my account.

Those who used to clean should clean.

As for me, I am here just to entertain your son !

SOME SCENES CANT BE SHOT EVERYDAY...

2009-03-02T15:40:00.002+05:30

VOTED THE BEST EMAIL OF THIS YEAR 2008

2009-02-28T00:36:00.001+05:30

VOTED THE BEST EMAIL OF THIS YEAR

Humbling...truly humbling

If you think you are unhappy, look at them

If you think your salary is low, how about her?

If you think you don't have many friends...

When you feel like giving up, think of this man

If you think you suffer in life, do you suffer as much as he does?

If you complain about your transport system, how about them?

If your society is unfair to you, how about her?

Enjoy life how it is and as it comes

Things are worse for others and is a lot better for us

There are many things in your life that will catch your eye
but only a few will catch your heart....pursue those...

Husband V/s Wife

2009-02-26T15:16:00.001+05:30

Man: Is there any way for long life?
Dr: Get married.
Man: Will it help?

Dr: No, but the thought of long life will never come.
_________________________________

Wife: Darling today is our anniversary, what should we do?

Husband: Let us stand in silence for 2 minutes.
_________________________________

It's funny when people discuss Love Marriage vs Arranged.
It's like asking someone, if suicide is better or being murdered.
_________________________________

It is difficult to understand GOD. He makes such beautiful things as women and then he turns them into Wives.
_________________________________

Girlfriends r like chocolates,
taste good anytime.
Lovers r like PIZZAS, Hot n spicy, eaten frequently.
Husbands r like leftovers, eaten when there's no choice.
_________________________________

Man receives telegram: Wife dead-should be buried or cremated?
Man: Don't take any chances. Burn the body and bury the ash.

_________________________________

Q: Why dogs don't marry?
A: Because they are already leading a dog's life!
_________________________________

Fact of life: One woman brings you into this world crying & the other ensures you continue to do so for the rest of your life!

_________________________________

Q: Why doesn't law permit a man to marry a second woman?

A: Because as per law you cannot be punished twice for the same offence!

__________________________________

Here comes the Ultimate One :)

Prospective husband: Do you have a book called 'Man,The Master of Women'?

Salesgirl: The fiction department is on the other side, Sir.

Dancing Baby

2009-02-26T15:03:00.001+05:30

Four Liquid Stages of Life... Simple...

2009-02-26T14:53:00.002+05:30

Four Liquid Stages of Life...

Amazing creativity shown by the photographer

Office Improvements

2009-02-26T13:46:00.003+05:30

How to treat a rude customer!

2009-02-23T12:12:00.001+05:30

How to Treat a Rude Customer

An award should go to the gate attendant at Luqa airport. A crowded Malta-London flight was cancelled. She was the lone attendant in charge of re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travellers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it HAS to be FIRST CLASS". The attendant replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these people first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?" Without hesitating, the attendant smiled and grabbed her public address microphone: May I have your attention please? May I have your attention please?" she began. With her voice being heard clearly throughout the terminal, she said, "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Gate 14." With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the attendant, gritted his teeth and said, "F... You"" Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to get in line for that too."

Bhagwad Geeta Revisited for Recessionary Times

2009-02-22T13:42:00.003+05:30

The Transformation

2009-02-21T04:43:00.003+05:30

The middle picture might haunt you

Child See Child Do.

2008-05-01T12:34:00.000+05:30

Ten ways to help make your street child friendly....

1. Meet your neighbours: Say hello! Remember their names.

2. Introduce your kids in your street: Make sure everyone's got friends to play with.

3. Welcome newcomers: Make up a Welcome Pack with local schools, playgroups, child health centres, kids sporting clubs, music lessons, the closest all night chemist etc.

4. Show kids you value them: Ask for their opinion, send the kids you know a birthday card, - or just a note to say "well done" to celebrate their achievements!!

5. Involve kids in the life of your street: Help them organise a child friendly activity .

6. Exercise together: Organise a weekly walk.

7. Get the kids in your street to map your neighbourhood: Ask them to identify the places where they don't feel safe. And do something about it!

8. Care for your street: Hold a 'clean up your street' day.

9. Watch out for kids: Drive slowly!

10. Be generous with your neighbours: Share your time, Share your toys, Share your pets!

The Brand Called "YOU"

2008-04-21T21:04:00.000+05:30

The Brand Called "YOU"
"A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless" – Stephen King, WPP Group.
Since pre-industrial times, branding has been used to develop strong, enduring relationship with customers. Today, albeit on a larger, more global scale, branding continues to provide those same benefits. Automobile products from Maruti Udyog Ltd are differentiated from other competing market offerings by its promise of wider reach and trouble-free performance. Mcdonald’s stands for fun and cleanliness. Sahara Parivar is for national cause and patriotism.
But branding is not just confined for corporate groups or products any more. In the new millennium, everything is a brand. Hyderabad is ‘Cyber City’, Mumbai is ‘Corporate Hub of India’, Delhi is ‘India’s Power Centre’ and ‘Operation Desert Strom’ is a branded military operation. Big B, Dhirubhai Ambani, Sonia Gandhi and Sachin Tendulkar. Brand! Brand! Brand! That is right, branding is for people, too.
Personal branding is essential to professional success today. Gone are the days where your value as an employee or vendor was linked to your loyalty and seniority. Today, companies are in a constant state of reorganization in response to the rapidly changing demands of the market. This modifies the way you respond as employees or vendors. On a constant basis, you are working with different project teams, managers and employees. In a sense, you are functioning like your own personal corporations. And that means that you have the need to brand yourself out of the clutter and build demands for your services among the target markets.
‘Personal branding’ vis-à-vis ‘Corporate or Product branding’
• In business, a brand is a perception or emotion maintained by a buyer or a prospective buyer, describing the experience related to doing business with an organization or consuming its products or services.
Your brand in a personal context is a perception or emotion, maintained somebody other than you, describes the total experience of having a relation with you.
• The principles and techniques of brand management only works when the relationship meets the real needs of people with whom those organizations do business: customers, shareholders, employees, other stakeholders and community at large.
The essence of personal branding is a function of the breadth and depth of your relationship in the personal context: You want your family, your friends, your employer and your co-workers to truly understand and fully acknowledge who you are and what you do.
• Brand is not meant to create a unique imagery that does not offer any clear tangible or intangible benefits to its consumer and the firm.
Likewise, personal branding is not about building a special image for the outside world; it is about understanding your unique combination of rational and emotional attributes – your strengths, skills, values and passions – and using these attributes to differentiate and position yourself to guide your career decisions.
Personal branding needs to be carried out through a very well articulated campaign to make it a successful exercise. There are three important steps to successful personal branding.
• Be Distinctive: - To truly understand what it means to be distinctive is to learn that it implies much more than just being different. It results from understanding the needs of others, wanting to meet those needs and aligning your competencies to do so while staying true to your values. Whether you choose to highlight your education, an aspect of your personal trait or a soft skill, depth of your network, or your expertise in a facet of finance, pick something that sets you apart from others and occupy a distinctive slot in the minds of your prospects.
• Be Relevant: - Being distinctive is not the only thing that matters to someone else. What you stand for needs to be relevant. Relevance begins when a person believes that you understand and care about what is important to them. It gains strength every time you demonstrate that what is important to them is important to you. The synergistic effect of being both distinctive and relevant is what ignites the power of a personal brand.
All strong brands evolve with the times to remain relevant to their target audience. This could mean the line extensions (like Maruti offers ‘true value’ exchange offer for your used cars while you are purchasing the new one). It could be modifying the ways you communicate your brand (moving from a printed resume to a resume on CD or ‘your personal website’). It could mean augmenting brand attributes as continue to grow in your career (like increasing the depth of your professional expertise that would result in the ‘value addition’ to your profile).
• Be Consistent: - The third component of building a strong brand is consistency – doing things that are both distinctive and relevant, and doing them again and again. Consistency is the hallmark of all strong brands. As a brand, you only get ‘credit’ (acknowledgement, acceptance or recognition by others) for what you do consistently. Consistent behaviors define your brand more clearly and concisely than most polished and practiced spiel.
Just as with corporate brands, your personal brand is your promise of value. It separates you from your peers, your colleagues, and your competitors. And it allows you to expand your success. Whether you are a senior executive, the president of your own business or an employee of a company of any size, managing your brand is critical to achieving your professional goal. After all, in a world where cities, wars, sportsmen, CEOs, politician and highways are branded, you need to think about yourself in the same terms.

Blog-O-HoliC

2008-04-16T13:31:00.001+05:30

Headline: Chocoholic.
Workaholic.
Cricket_oholic.
Orkutoholic.
Soap Opera_o_holic.
Cleanoholic.
Porno_holic.
MP3oholic.
Play Station_oholic.
Nymphoholic.
Gymoholic.
Subhead: Check out the new – age addictions in the Health supplement FREE with the next issue of The Week.
Bodycopy: Free Health supplement available only in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore & Hyderabad.
Nutrition : Surgery : General Health : Fitness : Wellness
Baseline: Journalism with a human touch
Agency: Mudra Communications
Client: The Week

It's just another seat. Like BMW is just another car

2008-04-08T13:01:00.000+05:30

Headline: It's just another seat. Like BMW is just another car.Subhead: Sky box seating & lounge at Satyam.
Bodycopy: Bigger & better seats with extra legroom. Exclusive lounge.
Baseline: -
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather
Client: Satyam Cineplex

Encompass Bangalore .... Fun Experience.

2008-04-08T12:07:00.000+05:30

Kids influencers nooooo, market by themselves!

2008-04-03T12:20:00.000+05:30

Kids are no longer influencers, but a market by themselves!

Technology boom and media proliferation, a young new genre of audience has marked its presence in the maturing consumer demography. Yes, we are talking about kids, the new generation brand evangelists. Market estimate reveals kids spend an estimated $4.2 billion annually on their personal purchases. The approximate market size influenced by children is $100 billion causing many millions of purchases among their parents.Interestingly kids have matured from persistent nagging to importance nagging, in what is recognized as ‘pester power’. This appeals to parents’ desire to provide the best for their children. This combined with parental guilt plays the critical role in spending decisions, as time-stressed parents tend to substitute material goods for time spent with their kids. So kids, from just being influencers, have now become ‘active consultants’ and ‘information provider’ to parents on most household purchase decisions. This change can be attributed to the conventional and new-age media consumption habits of kids and their increasing comfort levels with modern technology. Resultant effect: 63% of kids are involved in a spectrum of product categories from clothes to bicycles to computers and cars. Mobile phones get 76% involvement while cars enjoy 43% of kids’ involvement. Parents believe that their children do research and express opinions about product categories.
Since all marketers more or less agree that Kids are an important fragment of their target audience if not their audience in totality, schools provide the most relevant concentration of this audience in an almost perfect synergy of possibilities. It delivers a captive youth audience and implies the endorsement of teachers and the educational system. Marketers and activation agencies have been quick to realize the power of theschool environment for promoting their brand and products. What’s more the school contact program is no longer the novelty it was a decade ago. However there is a downside to having an intelligent and informed audience, the “gatekeepers segment” with parents and teachers which cannot be alienated in the communication process. This has resulted in a clear cut variable in measurability of a program in direct proportion its infotainment quotient. A recently concluded study finds that babies as young as six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize hundreds of brand logos. Research also shows that close to 90% of kids within 8-12 years of age prefer to act in a group than on their own. About half of them feel enormous pressure to wear the “right” brands. It’s hardly surprising that a whopping 90% of kids’ brand decisions are heavily influenced by their peers, worldwide. In planning a successful activation for kids, identifying kid’s icons and what interests them becomes imperative. Most of us when planning the activation fail to ensure that it has the answers to a few relevant questions. Is the activation engaging for the kids? Is the gratification going to excite them? Is the communication going to capture gatekeepers’ interests? Is it going to breeze through their lives with little impact or will it capture their interest and tickle their imagination? If the answers to these questions are yes, then we have on our hands a successful activation which can draw long term benefit for the brand.
The ideal mix of all these must haves combined with an in-depth understanding of the target audience psychology, as well as the integration with mass media, can be seen with the activation for a leading 2 wheeler company for its brand of scooterettes, Scooty. The objective was to increase awareness and consideration in a region where the category itself was still growing. The target audience was primarily girls aged between 15-19 years (the end users) and parents who were the purchasers. A dipstick with the TG brought to the forefront a few critical insights.
a.
The product purchase is primarily utility driven – purchased for the teenager when she requires mobility for school, tuitions, etc. and the male members of the family cannot accompany her to such destinations.
b.
The topic of proximity for these young adults as well as all relevant gatekeepers is one of Career. It is the highlight of all relevant conversation and thus a common link.
c.
In emerging India there is a gap in the information flowing to the Kids and the perception of their parents. In context it means that the child is exposed to a lot of “non-traditional” career options like the media industry, or advertising where as the parents still perceive the likes of medicine and engineering to be more or less the only acceptable options. Here in lay the disconnect, as well the opportunity.
The Brand Scooty positions itself as the “medium to freedom” -- the freedom from relying on others, the freedom for “Her” to go to college on her own, to plan more into her education days, to expands her horizons every day. Small freedoms add up to much more -- the freedom to dream outside the confines of traditional choices. This formed the basis to develop the Below the line campaign SCOOTY AAGEY BADHO which was an integration of various mediums as multipliers like Print, Out of Home, Electronic and PR. This was combined with a Cause “Promoting Higher Education for the Girl child” completed the communication content.
The school contact program used the simple medium of an essay in which the kids were to express their choice of career and why they believed the choice befitted them. The activation was supplemented by career booklets which have information on the top 10 career options. The selected entries went through a group discussion followed by a one on one interview with the judges. 32 girls won themselves a scholarship. Mass media was innovatively integrated. Women achievers and celebrities, including IAS Officers, Bollywood actors, mountaineers and politicians, gave their views & vignettes on the importance of education for the girl child in print and electronic media were used. These capsules were branded by Scooty Aagey Badho. As opinion leaders drew attention to the program, there was increased receptiveness from the gatekeepers. 6.5 lac girls were reached out to and 2.5 lac kids participated.
The results of the activation were measured by TNS India where in B category towns the reach in target group (daughters) increased by 833%, and the percentage of people that associated the brand with the communication increased by 950%.What contributed maximum to the success of the activation? Mainly that in its conception it answered the critical questions and in its plan there was an in-depth understanding of the target audience psychographic. It offers the best bet to pull off a market driver integrating the infotainment basics and building a communication strategy around a relevant subject, which ensures that marketing objectives can be well met through such activations.