#stratalogues: Live, learn & earn in the west. Retire & spend in the West?.
A strategic business opportunity out of the reverse migration needs of the rich, older Indians looking. Their needs for a hamlet will be fulfilled outside the boundaries of India?
“Mind Your Language”:
a strategic provocation by wolfzhowl strategic behaviour & brand instigation consultancy.
Simply Google the amount of languages that are palpably employed on an everyday basis in India.
Mr. Anant Rangaswami in his 1st book (elephants in the room: http://www.firstpost.com/ebook_download.php?id=80 ) opined about lack of “regional-connect” in advertising and how the lack of relevant re-interpretation of the thought in the local language alienates people.
In my immersions with people as consumers in #stratalogues, I have videos of Andhraites finding most of the ads “dubbed”, “non-conversational”, “non-contextual” and most of the times only distantly relatable.
Some Andhraites even find the ads (TVCs mainly) laughable and funny. (Will put-up a few videos as soon as I can process them & check with the respondents for their p
ermission).
Hey! There is quite a lot of popularity for all the south-films dubbed into Hindi… but they are aired only in the afternoon, ever wonder why? Would the north population ever replace Bollywood cinema with dubbed south cinema at 9pm?! Would it be aired on prime time on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday?!.
Yes! Just like the African American culture became popular amongst the Caucasian population in the USA, there seems to be a south culture finding an MTV’isque & ghetto’ish popularity in Bollywood (Quick Gun Murguan, Ready, Rowdy Rathore, Chennai Express and Rambo Rajkumar etc;).
From Mehmood’isque slapstick portrayal of the south’ies, “Southern Masala” has come a long way. But if you pause & notice the most successful Bollywood movies’ based on South culture, which have done well, all of them are originals. They have been re-interpreted in the right context and enough creative pains have been taken to either infuse elements of South into mainstream popularity or placing a northerner amidst a southern setting and creating a relevant context for viewers.
Whether Dhoni’s ads for Chennai Super Kings or Virat’s ads done in a Tamilian context – it was like an ode being paid to the 70mm, melodramatic aspect of Southern & Tamilian culture. Again well thought through and it is not the same as mindlessly “dubbing” originally thought in English/Hindi TVC’s into local languages.
Coming back to Mr. Rangaswami’s point in his first book, if advertising is all about creating consumer-connect for a brand, then we are miserably failing most of the times while connecting with people of other languages (with the exception of a hutch pug ad or har ek friend zaroori hota hai – which is about a universal human emotions – it is semiotics in motion that any & every human being connects with). The problem is with the other 70% of the ads that actually don’t connect & infact alienate and are a waste of money!
For example, let’s look at a simple word “glamorous”. In an urban/Mumbai-Delhi context (& I give it to you even parts of Hyderabad – but not even in a Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam e
tc;) the context in which “glamorous” is used or the meaning of the word is so very different.
“Entertainment” is an FB page, which has more than 80,000 FB followers and most of its “tollywood” based posts get 50/60 to 300+ likes and on an average 10+ comments (at the low/mid-end). It keeps posting “tollywood gossip” & has an avid consumer base (these are stats some of the best brands can also not boast of).
Check this link from them and please for yourself analyze the meaning & context of the simple word “glamorous”!!
Glamorous = a subtle (southern polite) way of saying exposing (bit of skin show).
Now imagine a dubbed TVC, which chooses to convert the ad thought in “Hindi” and keep it in a “Tinglish = Telugu + English” manner.
Imagine the TVC is for a brand like “rejoice” shampoo or another brand addressed to women in the heartlands…do you really think a woman would buy that product with you saying “glamorous ka unda daaniki” (to stay glamorous)?!.
And who are our contextual-conversational custodians while “dubbing”, “translating” or “trans-creating”…. the language re-writers who are as much Mumbaikars as we are?!
“Mein meri bhi baat nahin sunta hun or something like that” etc; are mainstream dialogues beautifully leveraged by advertisers/agencies/creative-folk at times. But where is “naakoka tikkundi, daani koka lekkundi” ( I have certain madness & I have certain calculation/measurement for it) punched by Power Star Pawan Kalyan being leveraged in advertising?. Sadly several opportunities are being missed!
Certain categories can work on universal, common aspirations. Certain categories simply do not!. So let’s not aim to do Cannes or urban all the time – cause it does not simply work! It simply is not relevant! Let’s stop looking at every piece of creative from what we want to create only and filter in the context and the connect.
Till then “think context” before you “dub”!!
Wolf-out
source: #stratalogues
@wolfzhowl
http://www.slideshare.net/ChallapalliKalyanRam/edit_my_uploads
https://www.facebook.com/Wolfzhowl.Strat
http://in.linkedin.com/in/challapallikalyan/
“Mind Your Language”
<a href="
” title=””Teaching The Teacher” – A business opportunity in the Digital Education Category”>”Teaching The Teacher” – A business opportunity in the Digital Education Category
A strategic provocation around a business opportunity in the education category in India. This would most probably be relevant to other SAARC countries and Africa as well.
“Teaching The Teacher” is a module on impact of digital on education category and the life of a teacher. It includes concepts, research and strategic socio-cultural background (in brief) about education/learning in India.
Brands like NIIT, Classroomteacher.com and others looking for a business opportunity can leverage this strategic provocation.
Written in a conversational, casual manner – this deck is verbose and long, so patience is a pre-requisite.
#stratalogues is the source for these findings and @wolfzhowl owns & runs #stratalogues.
More strategic instigations are coming-up in the near future, so stay tuned.
Tollywood Audio Release Functions – huge impact opportunity
The ambitious Telugu film Industry (State of Andhra Pradesh) in an effort to scale-up earnings is turning towards film marketing heavily. As a part of this, every major film has “Audio-release functions” done on the scale of a mini-filmfare awards function.
This is usually a grand affair, with some major celebrities attending, song & dance and a lot of fun stage acts.
The audio-release functions of top Tollywood/Telugu stars are a huge impact media opportunity for brands.
The top 5 stars of Andhra are: (1) Pawan Kalyan (Chiranjeevi’s brother), (2) Mahesh Babu (endorser of Thumsup in Andhra and son of former super star Krishna), (3) Allu Arjun (Is called the style star & does a lot of things with his hair and is thought of as single handedly driving styling of hair & clothes in most of Andhra youth – could fit with SetWet/Advansed/Spykar/Wild Stone/After Shower etc; perfectly – Nephew of Chiranjeevi), (4) Ram Charan Teja (Chiranjeevi’s son & starring in remake of Zanjeer in Hindi – a multi regional opportunity) (5) Junior NTR (NTR’s illegal grand son).
Note: Actor Prabhas is also very popular. His personality right now reflects “rebellion/intensity & anger”.
Slotting these actors roughly:
Pawan Kalyan & Mahesh Babu are joint no:1. While Pawan Kalyan is a mass (family + youth hero), Mahesh Babu is more of a younger couples + youth hero. For example if you consider in-film placement for Family targeted brands “attarintiki Daredi” (whats the way to inlaws house – whose audio function was on July 18/19 2013) makes a terrific fit for advertorial kind of messaging.
While Mahesh Babu is very good if you want to target a young nuclear family kind of a couple or the individual male/female who is 30+. He is also apt for a Advansed hair cream (while Stylish Star Allu Arjun is more of a set wet kind of a guy).
In a fragmented Telugu media scenario, the glamorous audio-release-functions of super movies is a fantastic opportunity to create massive impact for the brand.
Some or the other event happens once every 4months and hence there is a 3-time opportunity in a year. Mini-superbowls of Andhra Pradesh.
Here are the following links:
Press release hinting at the hype and following: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/regional/telugu/news-interviews/Tight-security-for-Attarintiki-Daredi-audio-release/articleshow/21161009.cms
Audio release of “Yevadu” of Ram Cheran Teja (its a 3hour video – gives a you a feel of the amazing opportunity that is there.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAIgWj0k7G
Forget just Andhraites, even Telugu NRIs from USA are gearing up to watch todays audio release function (hence banks like ICICI etc; who have their eye on NRI marketing can also leverage this opportunity) and go crazy in Andhra for just the live telecast of the audio release of power star Pawan Kalyan’s “attarintiki daredi”. (What’s the way to the inlaws house ).
This is a good friend and Telugu NRI’s Facebook update. Everyone is very eagerly 
planning to make food or buy food from outside and just park themselves in front of the TV.
Posters are printed on a massive scale just for the audio-release and spread all across Andhra Pradesh. As part of the trading-terms, a brand could be present even on these posters.
“A must”: I recommend stage branding as a must. One time investment and repeat ROI – every time it is re-telecast and put on youtube etc;.
Other initiatives which fit seamlessly into the editorial can also be figured out. It is also a great sampling/trail inducing opportunity, what with thousands of fans flocking to this event and housing themselves in a separate ring of the auditorium. “Brand pouches” meant to induce trail can be given as “return gifts”.
The movie fraternity which incurs massive costs for organising this event will be more than eager to reduce their costs via brand sponsorships.
#stratalogues Andhra Pradesh
http://www.slideshare.net/ChallapalliKalyanRam
A strategic provocation around the breakfast/mini-meal opportunity #stratalogues
The Breakfast opportunity: Increasing pressure on mum’s to keep-up with the growing education & extra curricular needs of the children, the more practical nature of classes in school, more science exhibition participation and more craft projects is increasing her involvement and decreasing the time she has at hand. Added to this liberation and a seepage of more western attitudes has given birth to the new need for their own space & time (mostly TV serial watching, even internet surfing at home in the afternoons) has made their everyday schedule even tighter. In the heartlands, especially in the joint families and even in the nuclear families this has led to a unique phenomenon. (1) Children: While breakfast is fed to the children at home and the lunch-box is packed, the first interval tiffin/snack is being bought by the kid outside. Some or the other fried local tiffin (snack) that is appealing to the kid of that age (if we do a taste palette Vs age mapping of Andhra tiffins – then fried snacks like bonda, dosa, bajji etc; appeal to children. Only when they enter the blander life/blander taste palette age of 30+ do you really start taking to blander food. Though mums do make a spicy chutney to make Idli, upma etc; more interesting for children). This mapping also shows why Quaker oats (though has made a good innovation with its flavors & trying to keep the interest going and hence increasing occasions per week) which is so similar to upma will have a huge problem with occupying the morning breakfast occasion with kids. In most Andhra families I have seen, kids are the enter of attention and mostly food is made for them (along with the tastes of the father in mind, even if it is a joint family the grand parents give primary importance to kids – where as in Uttar Pradesh it is much more of a democratic mix, with the grown-up men being given the primary preference and also the kids alternatingly).
However this increasing pressure on the mother’s time is leading to husbands being asked to go out and get their morning breakfast (which they are more than glad to do as they get more variety and a chance to go catch-up with their colony/area friends and indulge in male gossip and a cutely-grave discussion on matters of the world and hence feel more manly).
The class-room first break, interval-tiffin and the men’s morning breakfast and sometimes the kids breakfast is the opportunity for brands.
Though the mother is having to do this, there is an inherent guilt that rides in her about not making the food herself or eating it herself. Apart from this there are quite a few shrewd commentators in the male circle and the female circle who actually pass ribbing dialogues like “oh! No.. ladies are becoming sooo busy now-a-days, they don’t even make food at home. It’s all kalyug tch! Tch!”. This further adds social pressure on the mother.
What she is okay with is giving them high-quality food that is easy to make and serve their children as well as husbands. However she has to have something to do in that role. If it is just picking-up and pouring out of a packet then it is as good as them eating outside in her head. Hence she needs to in the least stir something and add her touch. Usually that is the reason why most mothers actually top-up and add their touch to have a sense of ownership around it (if you are marketer or advertising person reading this – then perhaps you can equate it to your junior or somebody doing a presentation deck and you making a few changes to get that sense of ownership – with that example I hope now you can relate better to the mother and her feelings around this issue).
On finding this, when I spoke to mothers about cereals and other such stuff, I was surprised with some of the insights. In order for kelloggs to try and substitute the breakfast at least a few times a week, they need to take the perceived gravitas of cereals up in the consumer’s head. Apart from iron Shakti and the flavours and all the bears and balloons, it needs to Indianise and make them feel that this is a richer meal.
The mother’s sense of guilt can only be replaced with a certain product gravitas “wajan” as they call it in Hindi. This seems possible by Indianising and adding some Indian ingredients to the cereal mix. Some of the ingredients that have been thrown-up by mothers in my conversations (with grandmothers stepping in with their nuskas – tips too) are:
Badam (almond), Kaju (casehwnuts), Kishmish (dry grapes – which kids love), Kumkuma puvvu (saffron) and few other natural ingredients with hints of Ayurveda – which increase immunity, increase focus & attention and mental absorption.
Now this kind of a mix immediately justifies the replacement in the mothers mind from a lot of angles:
- It is not something she can make at home, yet is so rich that it is actually perceived better than the normal Indian breakfasts. Hence she is rid of any guilt of not making it herself.
- The Indianising of ingredients makes it less foreign as a food and hence finds deep-seated cultural resonance and relevance. Hence it is potent mix of the formulas of the allopathic west and the ayurvedic India.
- It also suddenly becomes both an adult (husband) and child friendly morning start-up meal. As a lot of Indian wives do give a few almonds and cashews to their husband and children in the morning. These are usually kept in water to soften-up for a while before being served.
- To further appease the mother by letting her do the top-up etc; kind of fulfilling her role kind of an act, communication developed (especially in social media)can actually talk about adding everyday fruits to it and even throw some bright red cherries (to please kids) and different fruit for different day. Which keeps the variety going. The absolute and abysmal lack of use of social media for these kind of frequent engagement activities is surprising.
- The addition of memory enhancing, energy giving, non-oily and non-fat ingredients suddenly roots it to the pre-school going meal and hence will be very well received. Fast, focused and energetic for the children at school and the husband at work is a good story for brands to communicate to mothers.
- Additional communication of this pack of cereals also working as an evening after school and before play/tuition mini-meal if communicated to the mother justifies the box purchase. It will make her feel like an any occasion ready mother”. This multiple occasion usability further justifies the packs presence in the shopping cart at the beginning of the month as well as in the kitchen shelf. Cereals especially are had with milk and giving milk is a natural habit in most India households – hence better advantage should be taken of riding on the goodness of milk. Aiming to take share from milk-additives and also fortified milk is a good approach. But unlike either additives or fortified milk itself the visible presence of almonds, cashews, saffron and kishmish is possible only in cereals (others will have to claim them being powdered and being mixed into the bottle and cue it in communication laboriously as well – cereal brands can even take a potshot at powders on this aspect). In the Indian cultural “tangible” is a huge socio-cultural need. This is predominantly the reason why we have millions of gods. Each god also is contextualized and then a separate symbol is created for that particular context (example: dhana-lakshmi, dhanya-lakshmi, Vijaya-Lakshmi, Vidya-Lakshmi etc;). Hence it is good not to underestimate the power of visible during consumption ingredients and differentiate at a product level.
Note on porridge & oats: Most of the principles discussed above do apply to these as well. However they have a specific problem. Mothers believe that at the moment of consumption oats based porridge etc. are just like upma. The flavors are also Indian, which makes it even more like upma. Upma is very easy to make mind you and is considered by the rest of the consuming household as a boring and easy-to-make tiffin item. One house wife actually said “atleast upma is compatible with chutney which my husband or children like”. Now there is no point in jumping and porridge compatible with chutney/pickle (it will further kill it – as it will become even more of an upma). Rather deliver the format in which upma cannot compete. If possible innovate with Chinese flavors or continental flavors and make it actually like the fast food tat kids die to eat outside – but with this being a much healthier alternative.
NOTE: A cereal bar for the tiffin interval or any-time hunger pangs filler with goodness of nutrients is another opportunity. Key visuals: Snack bar being placed in the tiffin box for either the interval snack, any-time hunger pang or pre-playing/sport snack.
Also no need to stick to bears and other such creatures. Brands do need to wake-up steal/borrow from the happy meal concept and capitalize on the success and popularity of chota bheem, bal hanuman etc;. Both characters stand for strength, courage and bravery – which suits these brands well. So please do toy around with that idea as well.
This is how you would be mutually profitable. Better than outside food and yet relevant and healthier. Brand and consumer benefit mutually.
In the next blog: “emergence of the curry point & impact of TV and urban migration”.
Source: Consumer & cultural Immersions from #stratalogues Andhra Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh.
…wolf out
.A strategic provocation around the Indian breakfast & mini-meal opportunity.
Isn’t it time we rethink about periods as a taboo?
Isn’t it time we rethink about periods as a taboo?
An strategic provocation by @wolfzhowl & @theotherguys @tgifemale #tgifemale
Rude Retail 2: The King is rude, customer is the king.
While there are laws for protecting consumers, it is high-time there is some sort of protection for retail service staff and other sales people in the customer-service function. Weird that there is none!
My driver in Ghaziabad was a seemingly nice guy, very polite and very accommodating. But on one occasion, I really found him to be extremely rude. I had gone to a local super market (actually mini-mart) to buy some stuff and the ever-curious driver followed. There I told him, to buy something if he needs. So he disappeared into one of the aisles.
After about 10/15 minutes I turned another aisle and noticed him speaking to the retail-assistant. The way he was talking to retail-help was extremely rude and bossy. For no apparent fault of the retail-assistant, the driver was mistreating him. After the incident, back-in-the-car I asked him whether anything was the matter. He replies with, a swagger in his voice “no Sir, it’s just that these people do not know how to give good service”. I was shocked! Then I was wondering whether I reacted badly myself, because he was a driver?. Partially yes. What is justified behaviour for us is not justified for our own employees.
If we draw-back and consider, the way we shout/scream at the retail-assistant/on-line customer service representative for a wrong bill, for putting us on hold or not speaking good english is appalling. It might be the brand’s fault, the customer-service-rep’s might be getting paid partially to handle the heat from the customer…but that is no excuse for us to behave the way we do. Is it?
Somewhere, somehow the repressed average Indian finds retail the best place to throw his weight around. Most of us are into saluting some superior or the other (social-superior, professional-superior etc;) and hence we need to be saluted to, too!. See the watchman of an apartment complex throw in a little bit of arrogance while checking whom you have come to visit. He could ask the same a lot more politely, but he choses to feel like a cop or a military soldier and exercise his authority at that moment. Especially if it is a multiplex office building or a private sector office building etc;. even more so if you do not appear in a posh car.
In India we serve babu’s and secretly all of us want to be served as babus.
I want to introduce you to Arindam Sahu & Raman Kumar Pandey. Two blokes around 23 yrs old from Uttar Pradesh, India. Arindam is a Odiya (from the State of Orissa, India) whose family migrated to Uttar Pradesh 2 generations ago and Arindam/s UP’ite Hindi is much better than his mother tongue Odiya. After finishing +1/+2 PUC in hindi medium, he left to Delhi to work in a big multi-branded-retail store. A bunch of youngsters were recruited by “work-force-agents” who look for semi-educated youth to work in these big big retails stores that we go to shop & splurge in.
These retail-agents recruit semi-educated youth as they tend to stay longer, are cheaper and they can be told that they are paid-less because they are being trained. The “company is investing in them”. By the way a lot of the in-city youth, native to that city do not want to work in these retail outlets or demand higher pay and more perks and considerations. Hence the rural-recruitment drive. anyways there is gut-wrenching Tamil Movie which depicts that part of the horrid story of retail. I will not dwell on it, go see the movie (Angadi Theru) at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SIgM9FvCto
What I want to talk about is the “rude king”.
So Arindam Sahu though from Hindi medium, was the dude who knew most amount of english, back home in Uttar Pradesh. He enjoyed a demi-god status in his hometown of “Anup Sheher”. He was thought of as the most urbane, forward and stylish amongst his group. His friends and sometimes even his elder brother’s friends used to come and ask him for style tips. The local saloon owner used to treat him special as he used to bring in his gang along.
His experience in Delhi with the “sophisticated shehri’s” was obnoxious to say the least. This smart, small-town boy aced his retail-training and took to the floor space with great eagerness, only to be shocked by the rude behaviour of the customers. A rich lady (South-Delhi types, from his description) shopping in-tow with her daughter refused to speak to him because of his broken-english and made faces at him. Imagine you being treated like that infront of a girl of the same age by your teacher, uncle, senior etc;. How would you react?. Arindam dealt with it the only way he could, smiled, bowed his head and moved on. There was another experience where a young teenage gang were making snide remarks about how “dehati” he looks (loud enough to be heard by him). Then there was the educated customer who called him names. Why? because he directed him to customer care. The customer had come to exchange a t-shirt after the due-date was over and was yelling at Arindam because he was trying to explain to him that the due-date was over and was politely directing him toward the appropriate people.
A visibly shaken Arindam is now back in Anup Sheher, working at a local cloth emporium. Getting paid less, but keeping his dignity. But ask his friends and they are quick to point out with anger that the Arindam who returned is much less confident, sometimes depressed and is not as full of life 😦
Raman Kumar Pandey is from Lucknow and his story is not so different. He also went to Delhi and had a pretty much similar experience. Only that he does not work anywhere now and sits at home depressed most of the time. The most painful incidents were (1) a customer calling and complaining to the manager that Raman’s ability to understand them was horrible and why do they have illiterate help like him around. What did the customer want him to understand? A “foreign” brand and a “foreign” size which was not the same in India. How many of us truly know what the US size of our jeans or T-shirt is?. (2) The last straw was a customer forgetting her bag on the mid-shelf of a denims rack and coming back and questioning him very rudely about it, instead of cursing herself for being forgetful. Suspect the “dehati/non-urban” looking guy first, even before you search & check where you have last been. What’s worse is that on finding her bag, the lady turned on her heel and left without as much as a polite & apologetic smile.
Why do we customers/shoppers behave like this? Were we born with a silver spoon or do we conveniently forget that we are not always best at what we do. We goof-up too, we are learning too! What if we are judged so harshly, would we take it?
If we mindlessly keep demanding this excess pampering without understanding the realities, then we will have no one to help us at retail.
The retail category on the other hand is plagued with the need for and lack of the”trained/sophisticated/sauve” help. They are caught between the devil & the deep sea. Well-educated (degree pass) youngsters do not necessarily want to work in retail, if they do – they come at a far higher cost (& where do you think the additional salary is going to come from you bargain-seeking-boor of a shopper?). Even if they are paid so much, there is high-attrition as they leave as soon as they get trained well enough. Poached by other retailers or banks or now even real estate brands who are willing to pay so much more for qualified service executives to serve their luxe-apartment buyers.
So while the customer might be king, please do not bend over your back all the time. Even a King if he/she is rude needs to be taught some shopping-etiquette.
It’s about time there was a campaign called shop with care for those who care for you at the shop. India which has a social-disease of exhibiting babudom, should learn how to be nice back to those, who are helping you buy.
nuff said…wolf out! #stratalogues @wolfzhowl
The Perfect Hand Job
The perfect handjob The perfect handjob
The “Perfect Hand Job”. A few tricks the hand wash category has missed out on!
TRAIN GATE ECONOMY
TRAIN GATE ECONOMY: The story of how the closure of a pass-through train gate on railway tracks in India has an economic implication of its own and how it affects life of Tinku Yadav, Hamid and a few lakhs others across India.
Tinku Yadav & Hamid do not like the past few railway ministers of India. Reason: the efficiency of Indian railways has relatively increased 😮
Meet Tinku Yadav (14yrs) & Hamid (17yrs). Both of them belong to Uttar Pradesh India & I met them on the way from Varanasi to Lucknow. I was pretty exhausted from a month-long consumer-immersion in rural & semi-urban India and even more tired of living in other nice peoples homes, where I could not smoke freely and had to curtail my smoking. So finally I got a chance to do a road-trip and was smoking in the car with the air conditioning off and the windows down. The heat was full on.
On the way, we stopped at a “Train gate”. A “Train Gate” is a blockade of two long poles which cut-off the tracks from the road. In India, railway tracks cut across national highways and side-roads. So 10 minutes before the trains pass & 5 minutes after the train passes, two long poles on either side of the road prevent motor-traffic from passing through, in an effort to avoid any mishaps.
Though I had experienced these in Palakollu (West Godavari district, rural Andhra Pradesh) during my child hood, I never paid much attention. I used to often defy the train and duck below the pole-barricades or wait and put a 10-paise aluminium coin on the tracks, so that I get a flattened and enlarged coin as the train passes over it. I would punch holes, slip a thread through and twirl it at my will. Irritation at being stuck was all that remembered of it.
Now having turned a consumer behaviour influencer, I noticed that along so many “train-gates” that I passed, there were always some push-carts with “kheera”, a family-member of the juicy cucumber that India consumes especially in summer to cope with the intimidating heat. So when we got stuck at one of the closed barricades, I stepped out of the car with my camera and walked towards the vendor on my side of the gate.
I started to position my camera & like most heartland Indians, there was a huge smile on the boy’s face and he said “saabji wait wait wait” and he went ahead to adjust his “craph”(hair parting and style). Once I took a picture of him, I struck- up a conversation and found out that he actually goes to school and was in 8th standard (he had flunked a year, due to poor attendance). The youngest sibling of eight, he loves going to school and since this was the least activity job, he was sent here by his family to sell “kheeras” here. He preferred it here. This was less-busy, relatively calm and hence easier for him to sneak -in some reading of his school books in between selling.
As long as he contributed to the family income, he was allowed to stay in school. Whenever the “Train Gate” closes to respectfully let a train pass, commuters would come to a stand-still and would indulge in some kheera to beat the summer heat. Usually the territory was divided into that-side & this-side of the gate, wherein, that-side of the gate belonged to a push-cart vendor from a village in that area and this-side belonged to a push-cart vendor from a village on this side. This was a peaceful arrangement as there would be “Khushtambhers” (customers) caught on both sides and hence one wouldn’t begrudge the other’s sale. It is just luck of the day as to how many are caught on which side of the gate.
Parent’s with kids on motorcycles make the best “Khushtambhers”, Tiku Yadav told me. As the pesky-little kids always want something and you just need to dangle the kheera close to them & presto! they start pestering their parents for them. Young couples on motorcycles are the next best, as the men like to indulge their women…the young Peter Drucker told me with great finesse and gravitas. “didi lelo naa” (sister buy one no!), melts the woman’s heart and the man immediately indulges her ;)”.
When I casually asked him how the business was, he made a grave face and told me that since the efficiency of the railways had increased and trains were on time, business had taken a dip as the predictability and the shorter time-period of the gates closing meant less business. People would buy less, if they had to wait less amount of time near the gates. Summer is the time when trains were most delayed, but kheera’s get less money. Earlier “jaada” (winter) season used to have magnificent long “train gate” closures too and yielded better profits as the seasonal fruits which replaced the kheera’s on the cart were more in demand and the margin of profit on them was much higher.
He seemed worried that if the efficiency of the trains increased further, his business would take a dip. He was afraid that if the business dips too low, his revenue would go down and his family would put him in a local grocery store as an assistant and he would have no time to study and would have to eventually drop out of school.
I asked him, what he did to cope with the current drop in business. He smiled affectionately and pointed out at Hamid – across the tracks and said that now-a-days Hamid & him had an agreement. There was a critical point of 60 rupees per day in summer they had to meet, in order for them to have parental approval. So whoever was lucky and made more, would give it to the other so that they could both keep going to school.
Hamid (17yrs) was also in 8th class and had flunked thrice for him to be stuck in 8th. Tinku Yadav told me that his Muslim friend got even less time as his family was even poorer. Hamid had less number of brothers and hence was under more pressure to deliver income for the family. Hamid wanted to finish at least 10th class. He resigned to his fate that unlike Tinku Yadav (who is the youngest), he was the “majhla” (middle) brother and hence would have less of a chance to continue studies before the responsibility of getting one of his sisters married falls on his shoulders. He had plans of moving to the city of Lucknow in a year.
Seeing me talk to Tinku, a curious Hamid was shouting across the tracks and asking who the weird long-haired creature with the big camera was and whether Tinku would get featured in some magazine or on TV!!. Tinku quickly gestured that I was just a “bhaiiya” (brother) who was talking to him. I wanted to duck under the poles (like I did during my childhood) and go meet Hamid, but…
The train quickly rushed through & my driver honked asking me to get on, so that we could get going. My really nice driver “Ram” from Varanasi was battling a very bad knee and the constant pedaling was giving him shooting pains. He wanted to reach Lucknow in a hurry and rest. He had a long-drive back to Varanasi and post that an early morning trip to Allahabad with two Japanese tourists, and was excited at the possibility of getting a nice tip from them. The “goras” pay nicer tips than Indians, he told me candidly (also egging me on to pay a nicer tip).
I quickly whipped out 900 rupees, shoved them into Tinku’s hand, ignored his polite resistance and told him to share it with Hamid. He solemnly promised and somehow, I really believe that he will :).
Hello marketer, Hamids & Tinkus need a cart-umbrella during summers and rains and a rain-coat during rains. Could you please brand them well and distribute them to all the Tinku’s and the Hamid’s at “Train-gates”?. Be nice of you. Any brand which needs visibility and reminders can own this property and yes, a salt brand wanting to advertise “iron” in them, like “TATA Salt”, would fit even better as there is salt applied on Kheera’s during summer and on fruits during winter.
Maybe pay the little ones a little money for carrying the branded umbrellas? You could also easily find space for leaflets and brochures on their carts – but might just end-up being used for wrapping the kheera’s for the “Khushtambhers” ;).
wolfout #stratalogues @wolfzhowl
As I know it now 