All birthdays end up being just a little less exciting than you dream in your head, and if you rank it, each birthday is just a little duller than the other.
This year I got to spend my special day in a factory. Yes the same day that comes every year to remind me that I'll have to live with 13 year olds calling me 'Aunty', that I'll have to move aside in a party so that 'the kids can dance' and that falling hair can no longer be blamed on 'the quality of water' :)
Now, I dont generally go around with a utopian, kites-flying-in-the-blue-skies-as-people-march to-the-tune-of-Happy-Birthday-bowing-to-me-as-they-pass, kind of an image.. but I do expect something special.. like a small party maybe..
But this year, my unfortunate location (in a factory 3 kms from the highway, 25 kms from the nearest big town, 116 kms from the nearest airport) ensured that all signs of a party without a trace.. sank. It looked sad, and all I was looking forward to was going to a mandir for puja in the evening or stealing discarded Milo from the plant.. when suddenly.. the old grey cells twitched.. (yeah kiddos.. this one still works) ;)
A few months ago.. before I anticipated this turn of events.. I'd hidden my birthdate from public view on orkut.. thinking its ridiculous to coerce people into wishing you like that. But sitting alone in my room.. with my hands on my chin, two days before day zero.. I thought.. whats the harm?
I decided to launch a teaser campaign, with a blink-and-you-miss flashing of the date, when yours truely wailed her way into this world.
The target group for the marketing plan; kith & kin, friend & foe and anybody else I may or may not know. Create noise, mass market the concept, consumerise your day of birth..
It seemed to work, atleast for the 3 hrs I let it display before I hid it from public view again, ashamed at my slimy attempts to gather more wishes..
On D-Day, with only the niche target group (the regulars) calling.. I decided to crank it up a notch and put a status message.. the original version of which was "Wish me you morons, its my b'day" however.. discussions with saner well-wishers forced me to put up a subtle yet suggestive message.. that didnt really suggest much, being as subtle as it was..
In the end, I realised that you gotta go all the way if you want more wishes than the candles on your cake.. gotta earn it like everything else.. or just be really really happy that you still have the 'regulars', the old chips off the blocks, the ones who'll always be there, and the ones who'll send in that cake and flowers and make sure you feel like you're on the top of the world everyday :)
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Deviyon aur Sajjano! Welcome back after the break!
Hmmm.. what can a 'blogger' say about her long, baseless absence from a blog she started on her own of her own will? Nothing, except for hoping that the next post will not be 6 months later :)
Life's become interesting these days and probably that's the reason I didnt get time to sit down and reflect.. Am working with Nestle these days or the "Sunrise company" as is more popularly known in the parts of Tamil Nadu where i hower these days.
I joined Nestle partly because it was a great brand, partly because it sold Maggi and partly because it would get me marketing sooner than other FMCGs. 4 months of hardcore sales later, I'm afraid I've been converted to the unglamorous, ground level, grindingly real and really grinding world of sales. My appreciation for the function is doubly so because of the fact that I learned it in a part of India where I couldn't ask a question in a language they'd understand and where their answers were more like questions themselves.
This helplessness is what pushed me to learn tamil and so I marched towards Landmark to buy a English-Tamil book.
But u know what.. the enthusiasm for referring to such books dies down pretty soon.. Imagine someone asking you 'whats the time' in tamil and instead of looking at your watch, you're flipping through 300 pages to tell him the right answer!
But not referring to books has its cons as well.. I remember being locked out of my flat once, so I went down to ask the watchman if he had an extra key.. Only when I rushed down I remembered our man spoke Tamil alone.
Being the queen of bravado that I am, I put some tamil words together in my head and blurted out " Neenga duplicate key irruke?" Which clearly is respectful, but means "Are you a duplicate key?"
I figured out that I'd said something not quite right only when he rolled his eyes at the bizarre questions of the 5 foot nothing girl standing before him :)
Sales in Tamil is not so difficult initially.. All you need to know are a few sentences like 'stock irruka?', 'stock illaya?', 'ellamey fresh stock irruke?" . Unfortunately, the more confidently you utter such phrases, the more the retailer would be convinced of your prowess in Tamil and start relating his life's woes in one swift shot. It is for moments like these that you should also know words like "Appadiya? (Is it?)" and "Aama (yes)" which you can interject with along with a sympathetic nodding of head.
Ofcourse there's the more likely occasion of you not having to speak any tamil whatsoever when you enter a shop, identify yourself, and are greeted with a highly pleasing sound of "Vanda, Vanda, Vanda" (Don't want) in a tone so frightening that you'd be scared to cross his outlet the next time.
Unfortunately its time to say 'parkalam' to TN now as my sales stint winds to a close and I'm pushed into factory stint at Nanjangud, Karnataka.
So will manufacturing coffee in Kannada be as much fun as selling it in Tamil? Let's see :)
Life's become interesting these days and probably that's the reason I didnt get time to sit down and reflect.. Am working with Nestle these days or the "Sunrise company" as is more popularly known in the parts of Tamil Nadu where i hower these days.
I joined Nestle partly because it was a great brand, partly because it sold Maggi and partly because it would get me marketing sooner than other FMCGs. 4 months of hardcore sales later, I'm afraid I've been converted to the unglamorous, ground level, grindingly real and really grinding world of sales. My appreciation for the function is doubly so because of the fact that I learned it in a part of India where I couldn't ask a question in a language they'd understand and where their answers were more like questions themselves.
This helplessness is what pushed me to learn tamil and so I marched towards Landmark to buy a English-Tamil book.
But u know what.. the enthusiasm for referring to such books dies down pretty soon.. Imagine someone asking you 'whats the time' in tamil and instead of looking at your watch, you're flipping through 300 pages to tell him the right answer!
But not referring to books has its cons as well.. I remember being locked out of my flat once, so I went down to ask the watchman if he had an extra key.. Only when I rushed down I remembered our man spoke Tamil alone.
Being the queen of bravado that I am, I put some tamil words together in my head and blurted out " Neenga duplicate key irruke?" Which clearly is respectful, but means "Are you a duplicate key?"
I figured out that I'd said something not quite right only when he rolled his eyes at the bizarre questions of the 5 foot nothing girl standing before him :)
Sales in Tamil is not so difficult initially.. All you need to know are a few sentences like 'stock irruka?', 'stock illaya?', 'ellamey fresh stock irruke?" . Unfortunately, the more confidently you utter such phrases, the more the retailer would be convinced of your prowess in Tamil and start relating his life's woes in one swift shot. It is for moments like these that you should also know words like "Appadiya? (Is it?)" and "Aama (yes)" which you can interject with along with a sympathetic nodding of head.
Ofcourse there's the more likely occasion of you not having to speak any tamil whatsoever when you enter a shop, identify yourself, and are greeted with a highly pleasing sound of "Vanda, Vanda, Vanda" (Don't want) in a tone so frightening that you'd be scared to cross his outlet the next time.
Unfortunately its time to say 'parkalam' to TN now as my sales stint winds to a close and I'm pushed into factory stint at Nanjangud, Karnataka.
So will manufacturing coffee in Kannada be as much fun as selling it in Tamil? Let's see :)
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