louve for fmcg

Why would you want to be in FMCG and in rural markets?

especially if you want that rural market to be Kerala..

> you should love the thrill of seeing buses hurling down 6 feet wide roads and missing the sales officers bike on which you are riding pillion by centimeters..

> you should like hotel clerks who look at you suspiciously when you check in late evening (which by the way is anything after 6Pm), smelling like the combined stale sweat of a football team.. and who insists that you pay up the entire amount and a little more in advance

> the smell of 'Parotta fish curry' in the morning, oily fat drenched 'puffs' for lunch, and of course the sweet smell of 'wine' in the evening should tickle your appetite, and the food smashed down on table by waiters should be the epitome of service

> after travelling for 10 days in a stretch when you come back home you should love the fact that there should be 15 days worth of cleaning up to do, that ants have eaten through the plastic jar holding your sugar and other eatables, and that the window you forgot to close meant that the rain is in your living room

> you should realize that not having paid your cable, newspaper boy and water can dude because you were absent when they came for their dues means you dont have any of these services in the following month

> and primarily you should love the fact that it is you responsibility that every mallu eats your product, and if not you forcible feed your distributors

blog blah blog blah

is time going fast or what! independence day is here and suddenly i m like didnt republic day just go by! where was i around then? gawd. so far i'v always been like let time go slower so i can experience more types when most people around me had exactly opposite views. at work people wanted time to go faster so their annual vacations would come by and they cud return to india... at college people wantd time to go faster so they could get out of the tough regime there.. i never subscribed to that view..
i had hope for better or i kept thinking that those moments were better than what was to come later..
and yeah i did enjoy most of it
till now
now i certainly want time to fly.. it is like this situation sucks and the future picture isn't rosy either. what do you do then? wish time goes fast cause any way it isnt too interesting or worth waiting and noticing?
uncertainty isnt good at all.. not knowing when and what could happen to change life .. and i dont mean life changing out of the world let me hope for nirvana kind of thing.. all i am saying is if you dont know how long you are going to stay in a boring hotel room with questionable bed sheets.. how long you need to pretend you are contributing to work.. how long you report that shit is taking place.. how long do i need to crib and do nothing else about it
if i were to list things i do now that are signs of super boredom
> i buy DVDs of new movies and never get down to watchng them cause it s too much to do
> i walk around the the place aimlessly for hours together
> i drink cola drink cola drink cola
> i am done with all the restaurants arnd here. i am done with flavours of kellogs, i am done with dosa idli vada as food for any time of the day
> i am trying to learn the tamil alphabet
> i eat biscuits.. i hate biscuits!
> i am giving patience a try.. as a general policy



>

A hundred ways of sayin "Sir"

people in Madurai have discovered and over time mastered the art of expressing miriad emotions through the word sir!

for instance..
the word 'yes' has been nearly forgotten... why with this much btter word... sir. for instance if i ask do you have idli sambar.. the answer is 'saar'
have you finished your sales beat?.. answer is 'saar'

then.. if you were pulling my leg and i was tryin to say hey c'mon right you kid etc.. why say all this wen one word.. 'saaaar'conveys it so beautifully! note the emphasis on the 'a's

if someone was showing you the way and wanted to say "come this way" why try so much.. just geticulate and articulate 'sir'

i cant stand sir anymoore.. people of madurai the next person who says the word sir will get punched in the face by me!

Losing track

Pune to bombay to gurgaon to Bangalore to Chennai to Madurai.. in a week and a half. now 2 months in madurai n the other southern districts for me with this launch project.

waking up in a new place is distracting.. a different bed, different noises.. like this place i stay now in madurai has blocked ventillation and even by 7 in the morning the morning the room is dark.. the first morning it took two mobile phones and a watch to convince me it was actually 7 in the morning. still i wake up every day hoping it is some 2 or 3 in the morning and the alarm just rang early!

and again people are different in all these places.. for instance in gurgaon or delhi the hotel
guys are so nice to start with and slowly but surely sour within a couple of days.. in pune or mumbai they dont give a damn, in madurai they look real nasty to start with but in a few days become so sweet you think something is wrong.

living out of the suitcase has literally become a habit, the last 6-7 years has all been tough on my VIP's and i have run thru 2 of them really big ones.. now i am on my third vip.. this time a strolley heavy enuf that no porter has gone without cursing me.

in 2002 it must have been some wierd time i left my home, i have been literally lugging my bags around ever after..chennai>Kerala>AbuDhabi>Dubai>Oman>AbuDhabi>Kerala>chennai>Kerala>Pune>
Gurgaon>Kurkumb> Pune>Mumbai>Gurgaon>Bangalore>Chennai>madurai..and now god knows where else.

in the last week in Madurai the only words of English i spoke were into the phone.. t is so difficult to speak constantly in this language that i cant think in.. It is difficult to be in a place so devoid of style, romance or sophistication.

people are simple to a fault.. brands, modern clothes and accessories look ridiculous here, a girl in a jeans looks obscene even to me here! there is absolutely no cultural connect with the people here..

was the MBA and the FMCG career a right decision, was the fight for the few FMCG jobs worth it? even a short stint in Madurai makes me think all this!.. i dont want to be in Kerala or Tamil Nadu.. two places that look likely to be my final place of posting..
how can i live in a place that is not inspiring, that does not have a bit of romance in it, that does not imbibe some energy..

Sad..but i gotta go

Pune rocks.. a month here and now i realize i love this place, that there is no other place in india i like more. only a week remains of the month i am to be Pune this time around. So many memories i have of this city, of the people i have met when i was here, 2 years of college.. people who will stay with me all my life, in memory and in person
and now a month here with these new friends of mine, people i have come to like too
i remember the day i came to Pune first, the time i met a girl on the train .. the phone number i took from her promising to call. :) i never did
i remember the first people i met, Goks, Santhosh, African uncle :) neel d iranian and the cafeteria guy. the wierd priyanka rungta who was unfortunately the first person i said 'hi' to in college and who sadly refused to acknowledge me..
i remember the first session in the Audi with Subbu and Mohan
I remember the apprehension rumbling in my stomach as i wondered how i would gel with this crowd for two years, how i would claim my turf
i remember my learning group members, samleen the most for her irrestible energy, Sam, rads goks and kapil too. all the assignments and late night sessions.
i remember the first drinking session at mudra a week into college. how many people started drinking around me!.. goks (how he threw up at mudra that day!).. and today adi and aby
i can never forget sh and the magical days at the start of the second semester. the bad days and the good, the pain that made it forever memorable
summers in bangalore fresh like morning dew on a leaf.. fresh in my memory. days and night that stay unerased in my mind. the iim bangalore campus, the walkway from her room to mine. the trip to coorg and the stolen moments together. the rain and wind, sweet and sublime.
nyways, i can be as poetic as i want to be and as much as my nice mood tonight allows me to be.. already the happiness from a great evening out is coming to an end.. i promise not to edit what i have written here and post it as it is. i am sure tomorrow morning i will not feel this poetic and happy..
today was a boring day at office and so we headed out to ABC farms in KP.. and i had as much fun as i have had in a long time.. whiskey after 2 months off it tasted so nice. the company was attractive and interesting, so were the sexy parsi girls next to us..
the food was amazing, every single dish. there was a game and we stayed up leading till the end and ended up in a three way tie.. and the hotel guys gave us a bucket of beer n vodka.. :) lotsa drinks for tomrw nyte.. yay!
anyway i look at it this was the perfect night to drown the end of my pune stint.

Back in Pune,. hu haa ye yaa

huhaaa! i am back to civilization .. the lights and the tall buildings..how beautiful they are :).
nyways it still takes a moment to realize i am back in this city i love. the young crowd, its slow yet energetic flow. ..i tell you it s cool man
net is still limited to GPRS on my phone(which here is fast enuf for me to connect on to my lappie and browse at nearly acceptable speeds).. unless i go to the cyber cafe's - which is something i am very reluctant to:i'd rather have my net slower than in some smelly dank place

we appreciate the mundane stuff of the cities only when we are forced away from it for some time..so what are the ten best things about cities..
1. lights.. man! how important it is to have some light about! if after 7pm roads become dark and empty i am psyched.. i want people around.. and decent people..which brings me to the seconds point
2. PEOPLE.. cities have educated, good looking and well dressed people to hang out with. and rural india does not!if i am forced to stay in a village, i still need some educated and polished people with me!
3. european closets in the toilet. i cant squat
4. phone and net connectivity..i
5. people can speak english or hindi. tamil or malayalam.
6. FOOD..FOOOOD..how could i have left it down to 6th place... food. i wanut some fine dining once in a while. i want clean restaurants. i want my waiter in full pants. i dont want my waiter digging his nose with his left hand and serve mw with his right. i dont want to search for the meat in the oil...
7. grocery.. i want to buy that particular flavour of lays and want to drink a appy or minute maid as and when i want it
8. stores.. i want them all close by.
9.

One month @ Kurkumb.. all posts uploaded in one bunch...

FIRST WEEK @ KURKUMB

there s this guy at work and over the few days we are stuck together at the Kurkumb factory, something about him seemed familiar.. and that vague familiar feeling had a sense of unpleasentness attached with it, it was like i knew this guy long back and i dint like him then..
i couldnt place him however much i thought but suddenly this monday morning when i was sitting in a bus from Pune to the Kurkumb plant (he was somewhere in the back of the same bus)..it came back to me, he reminded me of the SriLankan from Rivoli -- Yusuf..
This dude has the same voice, he articulates or rather misarticulates the same way - the 'a's are short and o's and e's are extra long.. , the same look of 'i have seen this before' attitude..' he spits all over the place.. and he keeps sayng 'i mean'.. he says "i mean" for his i mean's

and now..i think he even looks a little like yusuf.. amazing. maybe they were separated long back.. long lost brothers and imagine me being the key that re-unites them both!

>>>>>>>>>

there are so many things my subcoscidfence knows and yet i dont..for instance
at 7 in the morning most days my mind wakes me up..and yet as long as i am awake i need to keep checking my watch
or
when i start on a trip or some work.. i feel this drift of how it is going to turn out, but i wait for it to get over and mostly the outcome is as i thought

>>>>>>>>>

END OF WEEK 1

lethargy is such a pain in the arse.. it is like a creeper that grows on trees and gnaws on the very branches tht give it support..
it is such a mental torture to sit and have nothing to do.. where decorum and rules disallow comfort or creativity.. the wait for time to pass.. for the mind to find something to keep it occupied..
yeah as far as tortures go this must be in kintergarden category, but it s a torture still
i endure this torture at Kurkumb.. and i feel i keep getting into situations like this.. rivoli was like this.. home is like this.. college at times.. and now this!


>>>>>>>>

MIDLIFE AT KURKUMB


i was reading this speech by JK Rowling at a Harward university convocation ceremony..
one of her para's i found very interesting.. she was talking about her parents wanting her to join a vocational course for her graduation when she wanted to enrol for a course in classical literature.
here goes

"I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools."

bang on the point .. dont you think? for one, poverty is like a sticky gum, and it tends to hold you down, and it's tentacles attempts to hold on to any of its members who tries to get out of its hold.
servitude and poverty i feel go hand in hand. the White tiger (Arvind Adiga) tells a story of how servitude and an inbred attitude of not questioning existing hegemonies makes us so much poorer. poorer not just in a fiduciary sense but poorer in experiences, happines and our creative output.
and in most cases, our parents have been poor in some sense, and they are unquestioning servants of the societial systems that were in place years back. in that sense many of us are held back by shackles that have crumbled ages ago and are just manifestation of the fears of our past generations.

another very interesting line from her speech..
"but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default."

yet.. i wonder why it is so difficult to try something that could involve failure..so atleast try something where i perceive failure..

still the best line from that article was one she pulled from a greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

>>>>>>>>>

SECOND WEEK

lame.. things get so lame, its better to quit. and at times conversation between two people get so lame it becomes a spiral..lame conversations leading to still more lame ones. and when we try to keep up the talk, and when both realize that they try in vain to undo the boredom, it becomes downright painful. still worse when one of them just fails to realize how lame it is.. and happines is when both dont realize it :)

>>>>>

MOUNTING FRUSTRATION.. END OF WEEK 2

i vote the indian closet as the worse invention by an Indian - it is such an indignified way to shit! if some stupid Indin hadnt thought of replacing the hole in the mud with a ceramic hole in a cement floor all buildings would have had the normal plain vanilla closet!
imagine...what a turn off it is to have this. if i saw an amazing apartment and if it had an indian closet it would cease to be amazing any more.. it would be like an amazing looking gurl with a an ultra sweaky voice.
and it s even more disgusting to see some1 sitting on the indian...eeew!.. not that i want to see anyone doing the potty, but lets say by mistake i walk into a girlfriend sitting on the normal closet, it is ok right? but if the same was an indian closet i would say that would be the end of the relationship man!..i wouldnt survive a relationship with that image in mind!

>>>>>>

A PHILOSOPHICAL FINAL WEEK


there are never huge life changing moments, atleast they never appear that way when they occur.. insted life is made up of number of small moments. and it is only with hindsight and reflection that we identify even those moments.
i think i keep waiting for this thunderbolt to hit me before i move my ass..or i wait till i am cornered and have but one choice.even worse.. i know it aint true but i still believe that thunderbolt will hit anytime..could be just round the corner.. and i believe i will do great stuff when it does..! what a load of shit!