Ginger & Cardamom

Questions of a Senile Mind

It is a usual evening, where I am sitting on my corner seat, ignored as usual. People think I am a bit odd, may be a bit mad also, but why? Because I come everyday and sit on this corner seat, or may be I walk down such a long distance to reach here. They think that I can not understand the tinge of mockery in their eyes for me. I can, but what I fail to understand is, the reason of the mockery. Is it because I don’t have anyone to give me company or because I am a bit too odd to fit in the type of crowd there? They hide their faces behind their hands and laugh at me trying not to make it obvious that I am on the receiving sides of their humor. Yes that’s true that I can not see their giggling faces, but the glitter in the eyes tell me a lot of things, what it doesn’t tell me is that laugh because I don’t live their kind of life or because I am already had my share of fun and they feel that I am begging for more.

All this fun, mockery, humor and biggest of all, insult still I am here every evening to go through the same set of routine. Yes I can feel it, all of it, but what I can not feel is how I manage to tolerate everything and still be at the same place everyday. Has the sense of indulgence grown bigger than the self esteem I carry? If no, then why I allow myself to be treated in this fashion? All these question haunt me day and night, and even at the time when I set my foot out to take my daily trip. Everyday I go through the same torture and everyday I decide to for go my ego.

I have stopped believing in reason and logic long time ago, but still whatever little I am left with I feel that the sense of loneliness has overpowered me to an extent that I go through a daily dosage of humor, mockery and insult just to have some people around me. So what if they hate me, so what if they despise me, they are the only few who have some time to give a thought about me. Life has an uncanny ability to force me to learn lessons which I never wished to. Never in my thoughts I thought that I would search companionship in loathe, disgust and insult. Never believed what gratification people around me were, never thought that the feeling of being alone can be so haunting and scary. I never thought that I would let go my ego for a mere streak of recognition from some strangers. Sometimes this stupid mind thinks that I have traveled ages to be what I am, but I forgot to carry the map which told me who am I!!!!!! May be its too late or may be NOT!!!!!

Horses' Back

Slippers Over Books

Amazon.com has been a success story for all the supporters of IT & web based selling models from all over the world. In my one year of MBA I have heard a lot of about Amazon.com and was very appreciative of this company which is the hallmark of existence of a virtual world. Amazon.com has been a name which fascinated me for all these years and every time I typed the URL of the website I was greeted by a sophisticated interface.

For me Amazon.com was worlds’ biggest and the best online “BOOK STORE”. Recently an article in Washington Post made me realize and accept a change which was gradually happening and I never realized it. Amazon is changing its business model. They are no more a book store, they are aspiring to be a one stop shop. The title bar on my browser says “Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more”. The interface has changed; it no longer looks like an online bookstore. It is more of a general mart, a variety store or a hypermarket kind of structure.

I had strong inhibitions that this strategy of leveraging the brand, would succeed. As a consumer, Amazon for me does not relate to Online store, but an Online Book Store. The worst part is when I open the site the display greeted me with a display which was not books, stationary, DVDs etc but some pair of Slippers. I can’t believe that a person can have same associations with a place where he buys his slippers and the place where he buys his books. According to me the way Amazon is going it is headed towards doom. Because it contradicts a basic law of branding “The Law of Expansion” which says the power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. That is trying to be all things to all the people undermines the power of a brand. The strength of a brand lies in being synonymous with a single category. Amazon is a typical example of an excellent brand violating the law of expansion and losing the brand value. The same can be evident from the earnings and stock prices from past one year which have seen a major drop. It would have been a more practical and beneficial solution for Amazon if they would have made a new brand from scratch. Amazon for customers relates to a category as an online book store and can never be a retail mart.

Even Amazon is now aware of the dropping brand equity and customer response. They have been trying hard to regain their positioning buy organizing online shows of Bob Dylan and now lately it has decided to make his foray into movie business by buying right to make movie on a best seller novel “The Stolen Child”. This comes in the light when Amazon’s stocks have shown a dip of 60% over previous year. I still have strong feelings regarding that will these kind of desperate measures be able to rescue Amazon, from the bear ride it is now on. Will the strategy of diversifying from books to a store of 34 different product categories pay off in a long run. All these questions remained unanswered and probably time can be the only teller to it but as of now the situation doesn’t seem to be in favour of Amazon.

A Passing Thought

I had a passing thought, felt good about it so leaving for people to comment,

Mere dil ne khayalo main afsane bahut likhe hai,
Jinka tamannao main abhi baki namo nisha hai,
Mujhe pyaar karne ki sazaa na de, aie Vayaz,
Sazaa dene ke bahane aur bhi hai.

Of Betrayal in Love, Trust & Relatioships

I feel shocked, there has to be an element of trust in every relationship. I have never been betrayed so badly, my trust has never gone for toss with such scorn, and it hurts. Yes it hurts badly. I was one of the early adopters of the product called “Soft Drinks” or “Aerated Drinks”. They have been a part of my life since past 15 years, they have been as close to me, and had replaced water to quite an extent in my lifestyle. I still remember my order when I used to visit the Dhaba( a small food joint, by the highway side) and my usual order used to be “Special tadke wali Dal, Butter Roti and Pepsi” which used to make my dinner night after night in my days of engineering college. How I used to be a lover of soft drinks, a loyalist to their product and as well as brand.

I stand here now, feeling betrayed, dumped for the most selfish purpose in life, making money. I always trusted them bestowed my love on them, and all they did was to play on my life, my quality of my life. They lied to me about everything, I gave them a place in my life and they made money out of my cost. Last evening the highlights flashing on the TV, told me that how badly Pepsi & Coca-Cola had treated me. What they had been doing to me behind my back. I was always told that I was being provided was a world class product, a quality product. I always believed that I was getting into a relationship with these products as an advocate for their quality. I never believed then 3 years from now, when they told me that I was being fed on pesticide. I never believed but yesterday I knew that I was dumped in love, I was used, and my trust was compromised.

It’s so bad that I was being fed on pesticide that too 24 times what was permissible for keeping my health. It was like you were blinded in love and your lover is out to kill you. I don’t know how much I have lost in this relationship, how much my quality and length of life have been compromised. But I would follow a belief that has always guided me through bad relationships “Relationships are like Investment, Get out of a bad one as soon as possible”. Now that my courtship with aerated drinks is over and the blindfold removed, I could see the things clearly and have a determination in my heart that I am not going to allow them to play with my emotions and my life anymore, they don’t deserve someone as loyal as me and I am not going to be associated with Cyprians like coke and Pepsi anymore!!!!

Of Impersonating Profiles, Obscene Messages and Mysterious Calls

Someone just forwarded me this article about an upcoming wave of crime on the internet (click here to read). How the people of the fairer sex who have been impersonated on an online people networking interface called Orkut. The internet has come of an age in India and people are now becoming savvy, using all these technology in their lifestyle. I feel happy when I see around me people using messenger, reading blogs, and updating their life style with the new technologies as an integral part.of their life.

But when I read articles as the above I feel that this exposure to technology has given us a lot of power, and with great power comes a great responsibility. The perverted use the technology to pelter out there own frustrations. How can a person get pleasure in impersonating someone else in a defamatory way? What kind of sadist approach is this to life and human interactions?

The thing which makes it worst is that generally the people who do this are acquaintances or friends of the people they impersonate. I don’t understand why can’t people understand some following simple concepts especially with regards to the Internet & other technology advances-

1- If u search “Nude Pictures” in google you get already get 32,900,000 results and why on earth you find that you are doing great service to the netiezen’s as a whole by morphing the picture of a friend with vulgar and obscenity. Everyone knows it is morphed and they don’t really care, except for the person who is really getting embarrassed. So please get a life, as there are better things to do in life than morphing pictures.

2- I have yet to come across who has started of a real good relationship with lines of the genre “Can I be your friend”, “Your pic looks cute, want to be my friend”, “Your internet profile seems very interesting, I would like to know u better”. Interestingly I have seen profile of a lots of my female friends flooded with messages similar to these. And any conversations which are followed on these lines generally tend to follow on the lines of sex. Another interesting observation is that these kinds of messages are passed not to a single person but in bulk, as in it is a mass marketing mailer campaign. So if you feel or your only objective behind these mass campaigns is that you might find someone good as a friend, or might get chance to get laid or discuss soft porn. There are better ways of doing it to sending these messages to completely unknown people.

3- Another interesting breed is who are diligent enough that when they see a girl they take the effort to follow her, get hold of her phone number (I don’t know how they manage to maintain extra large phonebooks, I have troubles keeping my small phonebook updated where I have no separate group which is non acquainted with me). Then they would end up giving missed calls, obscene messages and would like to tell these ladies “That how they have fallen in love with them”. These kinds of people often send some strange kind of questions popping in my brain. How they tend to correlate which phonebook entry corresponds to which number (I feel it would be difficult if u tend to fall in love so often and specially if u haven’t seen the person u love except for once when u were following her). Regarding obscene messages all I can say if u think people laugh reading your obscene messages may be yes but if u think they think you are the seventh edition and 66^th reprint of James bond then may be u r in for a surprise. They really think that you are stupid moronic ass, who doesn’t know what and where to talk. The telecom companies have reduced sms rates but that doesn’t means that gives u the leeway to message anyone, anything that u think might be interesting.

This list is not exhaustive and I can keep on adding but the bottom line is, the technology is here to improve life style and the living quotient of the civilization. Not because what one thinks might be fun and interesting. So when next time you are about to play a prank with someone using technology, ask yourself two questions. First, do you have a leeway enough on personal level to play that prank? Second, how much you yourself, or someone else may be your sister or your girlfriend or your wife would be offended if this was done to her? To end all I can say to everyone is Enjoy the technology with a responsibility....