What's in a name? - Part II

We saw some unusual and interesting names found in Dubai & Sharjah in my previous post. In this one lets see the most commonly used names or phrases or terminologies here in this part of the world.

These words go with the name of any company or business. From Stationery to ships or from Laundry to Couture brands. And from eateries to earth moving equipment or from beauty parlor to airlines.

1. Arabian

2. Emirates

3. Middle East, Middle Eastern

4. Gulf, Persian Gulf

5. Falcon (it’s the national bird here)

6. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Umm al-Qaiwain (or the smaller locales inside these Emirates)

7. Golden

8. Most of the bakers have “Lebanese” tucked on to their name. It is almost like “Bangalore Iyengar bakery” or those “Punjabi Dhaba” back in India.

So if you want to unleash the entrepreneurial virus in this part of the world make note of these little things. These would enable your company / enterprise acquire an authentic flavor.

What's in a name?

Brand names have always been a matter of fascination for me.

Why Levers? Why Procter & Gamble? Why Wal-Mart? Why McDonalds? Why JWT?

* Founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever
* William Procter, a candlemaker, and James Gamble, a soapmaker, formed the company known as Procter & Gamble in 1837 (they were brother-in-laws who came together at the insistance of their father-in-law)
* Founded by Sam Walton in 1962
* Began in 1940 with a restaurant opened by siblings Dick and Mac McDonald
* Originally founded by William James Carlton in 1864 and renamed by James Walter Thompson in 1877 to the J. Walter Thompson Company (not many would know about this WJ Carlton bit!!)

Like these every name of a brand / company or commercial establishment has a reason. It signifies something. Some of the names in Dubai & Sharjah found my fancy, particularly of restaurants, internet cafes and billiards parlors.

These are some of those interesting names in Dubai & Sharjah.

1. Traffic Jam restaurant – This place is next to an important junction. It is also a traffic bottleneck. And maybe therefore this name.

2. Decent restaurant – In one of the most congested localities of Sharjah. Next to a big dust bin. May be the owners wanted to stand out of this clutter and wanted some positive energies to flow.

3. Radio restaurant – Another significant name in Sharjah. I told myself maybe they must be only playing radio in the restaurant and hence the name.

4. Airport restaurant – This name is anybodies guess. Yes, you got it right. This is on one of the roads that lead to the Dubai airport.

5. Automatic restaurant & café – I wonder what is automatic here. The preparation? How they serve? The billing? The payment?. It’s an unique name but.

6. Public Cook – Must be this restaurants main business comes from bulk orders - marriages and other functions.

7. Daily restaurant – I am wondering why the restaurant is named so. May be they want their patrons to be back on a daily basis?! Let me know a reason if you could cook one.

8. Golden Finger internet parlor – May be the owner is a James Bond fan! He gave a twist to the old 007 classic and made his parlors name Golden finger instead of the original.

9. Blue Door Ladies Salon – This is situated in a building painted white. But I managed to see a blue door that leads to this salon. May be that is why they have named it so.

10. Eject rent-a-car – A tricky name to have for a rent-a-car business. What happens if the car I rented ejects me out in the middle of Sheikh Zayed Express way. When every one around is moving at 120kmph. Scary!

11. Automatic Technical Laundry – These people in Dubai are obsessed with the word “Automatic” & “Technical”. I leave deciphering this name to your imagination.

May be sometime these grow as mammoth as an Apple or Linux or a Virgin and then people who mocked at these names (including me) would run to do case studies on their success or for having them as one of their clients.

God Bless them!

Following up with Emotion – I'mowshun “Any strong feeling”

Sajan says that this commercial is being pulled off air. Hence I wrote a mail to Sajan trying to explain / reason why this is a good commercial and why it shouldn’t be pulled off air.

The reasons why this is being pulled off air (strictly my version)...

1) This not being a good creative (the clients perspective)
2) The product not being hot enough for people to buy (the agency and the Marcom managers perspective)
3) The Marcom manager never involved me in the making of this commercial (the product managers perspective)

On the product not being hot... The onus is finally on the marcom person to sit with his product guys and try and augment the benefits this product could bring forth...

To put it simply, everyone in Tamil Nadu knows that the penetration of TATA Indicom is negligibly small.

So, what they (the client and the account planners / managers) must have done is

1. Have this campaign as a long term recruitment plan (don't tear the duck off for 10,000 golden eggs overnight!! you would get none!!)
2. Supplement this campaign with grassroot level promotions aiming at new recruitments (possibly groups... aiming at corporates, colleges, self help groups, women’s clubs, clubs etc.)
3. Do a member get member aimed at the existing base with an extra incentive or two for the target audience. The returns – Imagine a 1% return on the existing base, you would clearly see how beneficial this promotion would have been.

While I stand firm on saying that this is a result of a good creative brief and a this is indeed a very good creative. I don't want to accept that it is a bad product.

To give you an example of a similair scenario in FMCG…

1) How many of us remember the Evita soap commercials of 1994-95?

2) And how many of us who remember those commercials know that the product was pulled of the market within 12 months of being launched?

3) And how many of those who knew about the product pull-off know that Godrej scrapped the product (to relaunch it recently, if I am not wrong)?

So was it a dull / dud inferior product? NO
Was the communication strategy wrong? I don't think so
Was the product pricing wrong? May be (it was at that point in time .50p more than the regular beauty soaps, the normal weight )

So what could have been wrong?

1. The timing (as the TATA Indicom case is – Low numbers in Tamil Nadu). This is simply because Evita spoke about Vitamin E and moisturizer's when Lux was talking about woman, pampering and aspirations (using film starlets) and Liril was talking about independence, breaking free and emotional benefits. There was no Dove in the market, the market wasn't educated enough.

2. The woman at that time or for that matter those men who used Lux and Liril to look good, were influenced purely by the celebrity who endorsed the product. He or She didn't mind what is good and what is bad for them. And therefore Evita's product promise of Vitamin E etc. was not accepted or rather not considered at all.

The result... The product wouldn't sell and they had to rollback. Had Evita been launched two years later (97 - 98) or had Godrej sustained to keep the product on shelves for those 2 years, this product would have been a viable Indian competition for Dove. Godrej has woken up now and relaunched this product in a cluttered market, only time would tell how this would fare now.

Taking some morals from this story...

Your product managers and Marcom execs should have balls enough to stand by their product and sustain it in the market for a couple of months before reaping its benefits. I must also say that the people in the agency are equally responsible for the growth or otherwise of the brands they handle. Specifically the planning and the account management team.

If the client didn't foresee these stuff when he briefed, the agency must have gone to him and told him about the advantages and disadvantages of the product and suggested a comprehensive 360 degree communication plan rather than a TVC and some press approach.

All these said I still maintain that this is a good product and a very good creative. Unfortunately we lacked a owner to get the product running and win the race

P.S: Thanx a ton Sajan for permitting me to post this online.

Test Of English As Mother Tongue (TOEAMT)

All those who claim English as their mother tongue need to take this exam (like our TOEFL, Test Of English as Foreign Language). Just to make sure they are not mocked at in public by those who have to take TOEFL.

Why?

I heard a Radio Jockey (RJ), a native Canadian who works for one of the respected FM radio stations here in Dubai saying something like this “Mr Geoffrey wants to say something to us on the air”

Well, I thought the correct usage is “Mr Geoffrey wants to say something to us on air”

The irony is that he doesn't seem an Indian migrant. He claims he is authentic Canadian.

Don't control your emotions

Emotion – I'mowshun “Any strong feeling”

When I get emotional, I laugh, cry, get angry, smile, curse, abuse. The list goes on…

Why does one get emotional?

Well, one gets emotional when a particular thing attracts or affects him positively or negatively (Well I don’t know if I have got the definition of why one get emotional but am sure I am kind of right saying this. Correct me otherwise)

So why should one get emotional speaking over a phone? There could be many reasons…

1) I got a 200% hike (what a thought?!!)
2) I spoke to my friend of 25 years after 24 years
3) I won a lottery of $ 10m

Or to simply put it. I got something I was always longing for, which I never expected to happen in the immediate future.

So what happens when my mobile service provider gives me incoming as well as outgoing calls free?

I would get happy, emotional, uncontrollably emotional even if this offer is only restricted to those outgoing calls where I call some one who is a subscriber of the network I patronize within a geographical boundary.

Why? Because I could laugh, cry, get angry, curse, abuse speaking to someone I know without having to spend a pie.

This is precisely the route the new TATA Indicom commercial has taken (Again, this one is also from the kitchen of Sajan. My friend, classmate)

DON’T CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS

It follows a father who is away from his daughter. The first time the father tries calling her, the daughter speaks fast, asks her dad to control his emotion and keeps the phone down.

The reason. The daughter doesn’t want her father spend too much being a jabberwocky. Outgoing calls are expensive and that too when you are roaming out of your town / base.

This happens the second time too.

In India everyone is very concerned about their mobile bills. And that too if someone is a frequent traveler then he / she must definitely expect a fat bill courtesy the roaming charges.

The third time the father’s driver dials the daughter’s number for him. The driver tells the daughter about the new offer from TATA Indicom, free outgoing and incoming throughout Tamil Nadu between TATA Indicom phones.

This time the daughter asks her father not to control his emotions but keep talking till he could.

The reasons are obvious.

This is again a commercial using celebrities, not one but two this time. Luckily again both are established film stars. Here again the product isn’t hijacked by the celebrities but they play a part magnifying the product benefits.

So ask anyone who saw this commercial what he / she understood.

The answer would be simple “Don’t control your emotions”.

And the product benefit, even a kid would say “A TATA Indicom connection lets you communicate as long as you can***”

*** The voiceover clearly says that this offer is only when the caller and called are both inside Tamil Nadu.

How better and clearer would you want a communication to be?

Second one in a row by Sajan, keep it up buddy. I must also appreciate / congratulate the person who wrote the brief, this must be one of the best briefs that person has ever written.

A good brief for a not so good product – A battle won.

This happened when I was handling one of the big mobile telephony service providers operating in the state of Tamil Nadu in India.

Mobile telephony market was just maturing. The government had just brought about some changes in the regulations. This made the operators offer a more competitive price and an array of products and services. This made the market bleed. The operators saw huge churn of customers every month, growth wasn’t that obvious. The market was reaching its saturation levels. The result was low ARPU but increased usage of the basic service – making and receiving calls.

In order to increase the ARPU the SMS rates were lowered. The client started offering value adds through SMS like cricket scores, astrological predictions etc. But still people weren’t using SMS. We had a problem. I managed to convince the client on doing a small research to find out why the people wouldn’t use SMS services. The results we got from the research were baffling.

Tamil Nadu is the southern most state of India. The people speak Tamil. Most of the mobile users were traders and businessmen who couldn’t even properly read English, leave alone speaking. We found that they mocked at their friends who used SMS to communicate as “Englishkaran” (English man).

So language was a barrier for them not using SMS. I presented our findings to the client. After a couple of weeks the client called us over for a meeting. He said his product team had made the breakthrough. He thought he finally had a winner of a product which was SMS in Tamil.

I wondered how, he showed me how it worked. It was a little complicated. Those were the days when you didn’t have language keypads on mobile phones. So you had to type the transliteration (in English) of what you wanted to communicate in Tamil. When you send the message it would reach the operators server where this message would get converted as a image file and would reach its destination as a picture message.

I too believed that we had a great product that would do well in the market. We had a reasonable budget for this campaign, there was press and BTL. I was so happy when I cracked the brief, it touched the emotional chord of the audience. We had a series of three adverts, which we were sure would win some awards for us.

It was when we finished work and I was supposed to present it to the client when I had some doubts about this product. This doubt stemmed from the research we had done earlier. The research said people hated typing something in English because of two reasons

1) They were shy about their knowledge of the language
2) They didn’t know the language

So how on earth would you expect this guy to transliterate (in English) something he wanted to say in Tamil?

Had he had the knowledge to transliterate something, he could as well use this service in English.

So the product was flawed. It would be a huge failure if were launched. This time around I didn’t have a boss, the one I had quit a couple of weeks ago. So I marched straight to the client, presented the layouts we had for him and then told him why I wouldn’t want to launch this service in Tamil Nadu.

The client was impressed. He was happy that we presented the creative as promised but still told him about the flipside of launching the service. The result some revenues lost for the agency by suggesting that we not do this campaign. The client felt bad having to kill a campaign which could win some awards.

For me personally this was a battle won. I felt that some work I was doing for the brand would be an absolute waste of resources – money and energy. And therefore I wanted the client to scrap the project. The client agreed to what I had to say and appreciated my proposal.

This client still respects me, I have moved a couple of places since, but his respect for me is not gone.

The moral of this story – Respect thy clients business, and he would respect thee

PS: Incidentally some other executive from the north of India wrote a similar brief (after an year of us scrapping our campaign) and his creative team produced a very similar campaign for a vernacular newspaper. This campaign did win some awards nationally (and may be internationally too). But I should acknowledge that there was no way that they would have seen either our brief or our creative. It was pure coincidence.

A good brief for a not so good product – A battle lost

It happened about a couple of years ago when I was handling a consumer durable major back in India. They wanted to launch a new color television – 29”.

The unique selling proposition according to the client – “this is a picture-in-picture television”. Meaning, you could watch more than one channel at the same time.

And this product, was the only one of its kind in the market at that point in time that gave the opportunity to get the audio feed for 3 channels at the same time. One channels audio would be beamed through the televisions speakers, and the other two through two wireless headphone sets that were provided free with the television.

And you could actually see 6 different channels at the same time. So this was a 6PIP with 3 Audio channels.

The moment the client briefed us and demonstrated the product, I had a creative brief in mind. To add to my enthusiasm of having cracked the brief even when the client was briefing, it was a $250,000 campaign including media and production.

My boss was gleefully happy, he would comfortably cruise through his annual targets if this campaign would come through. My branch manager was jumping up and down a couch, like Tom Cruise. Professing his love for this client. I was also happy, dreaming about a fat increment and a reprint of my visiting card.

But before I wrote the brief I had in my mind and set the ball rolling, I wanted to be sure about the product. I wanted to test it out for a while and I also wanted to test the product on a couple of guys from my agency.

The findings weren’t quite encouraging. Being a visual medium, even on the 29” screen if you had 3 different pictures running, one couldn’t concentrate on his picture. So people either let their eyes wander (which happened most of the time) or miss some audio trying to catch-up with a visual in another screen.

The result, it wasn’t a pleasurable experience. It seemed a painful technological innovation to digest.

I went back to my bosses and told them my findings. I wanted to go to the client and say the product wouldn’t work for 2 reasons.

1) The viewer couldn’t simply concentrate on his visuals and sound
2) The cost of this product – I could buy three 25” (there used be a TV of this dimension those days), keep them in three different places and three people could peacefully watch without distractions.

The bosses wouldn’t agree, they were in fact quite pissed off with me. They wanted the money more than the client. I was reminded about the story of the “Goose that laid golden eggs” my father had told me when I was young.

I was too small a fry to be heard. The result, I went ahead to produce what I think one of my best briefs till date. That resulted in a television commercial (big budget, my CD flew places – as usual), a barrage of press adverts, some good number of POS material and all very good quality and very creative. This also resulted in our agency getting a couple of metals in the Abby awards (conducted by the Bombay Adclub) and some in Chennai.

The agency got the monies and awards, the branch head & the CD were there all over. It was a good PR exercise for the agency. But the television didn’t sell, the brand was not doing well. Eventually the account was lost.

We killed the goose with the greed of finding a huge haul of golden eggs, the result we killed the goose and from then we couldn’t even get the one golden egg she laid per day.

My experiments with a creative brief

In my last 7 years of advertising, direct marketing and out of home experimentation, I have written countless briefs for the brands I have handled.

But there are a few that I think are worthy. Out of these few worthy ones, some were really satisfying - Accepted by client, worked upon and have provided fruitful results for the brand. Many have gone to the bin.

And some are those I really didn't want to work on as I knew that they would be a waste of money for the client. This I thought is an interesting segment to look at.

I wanted to see in retrospect as to

1) Why I didn't like to do that work?

2) If I didn't like it, then what did I do?

3) If I did something to express my displeasure, then what happened? Did the campaign go on as expected or did the client and my folks in my agency agreed with my point of view and scrap the campaign.

So for the next two posts a postmortem of situations where I thought I had a good creative brief but the brand didn't fit or the product was not so good and threfore I wanted to scrap the campaign & dump my brief.

Did I manage to pull my briefs back or did I loose my battle & the campaign rolled on?

Let's see over the next two posts.

Using Celebrity... A recent example

A couple of weeks back I happened to see this TVC for TVS Star city a 100cc 4-stroke bike from TVS. At Rs. 29,990 and 109 kmpl of petrol it seemed like any other bike. My curiosity swelled further when I happened to see Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the latest poster boy of Indian cricket on one of the press ads. In Hindi the headline read “Jitna Dum, Utna Style” loosely translated “Like Power, Like Style”.

Frankly it disappointed me, here you are in the automobile 2-wheeler market. In a very cluttered 4-stroke, 100cc category after 12 years you still talk about power?

How powerful could a 100cc bike be? And that too a 4-stroke engine.

Dhoni cut a sorry figure in that press ad. in a boxing glove in the background. An image of the vehicle in the foreground. What is so special about this bike? Is it about power?
No it is not. Is it about style? May be yes and may be not.

In my opinion, having a stylishly shot Dhoni doesn’t bring the product benefit or differentiators out. For me it reminded me about “Burnout” the burning issue of Indian cricket for which Dhoni is one of the champions. If Dhoni continues doing silly ads like these, he would soon burn out like Saurav.

While I was thinking what the differentiator could be and how this celebrity could have been used better, I got a mail from one of my classmates. Sajan, now a copywriter with the same agency that handles TVS Star City. He told me about a TV commercial he had done for Star City using Surya, an actor in the Tamil film industry. I wasn’t too kicked about it. The reason being the Dhoni ad I had already seen. But I had hope on two things

1) Surya is an actor by profession, so he would do a good job.

2) Sajan is a very talented young man with lots of common sense, so he would definitely know how to handle a commercial with a celebrity. He had done many before.

Sajan didn’t spoil my hope. His is probably one of the powerful ads on TV I have seen in the recent past. Lots of commonsense.

1) Surya the actor had already endorsed TVS Star the elder brother of Star City

2) Surya is fresh after a hit movie where he plays a vengeful hero who has amnesia, he forgets every thing. So to remember things he clicks photographs of whatever he has or sees and has it with him. This film was a major hit and no Tamil would forget this film for another 6 months at least

3) The differentiating proposition of this vehicle is not power (poor 100cc), not price (all 100cc’s cost nearly the same) or the looks (the elder brother had a near similar styling) but it was the alloy wheels the vehicle has. No other 100cc 4-stroke has this feature as I know.

So the commercial goes like this…

A guy sitting on top of his TVS Star City, brimming with pride is ready to roar from a parking lot

Surya in his “vengeful amnesia character” get-up jumps from this guys back, threatens him saying it is his bike this guy is sitting on

The guy frightened argues saying it is his bike. Surya pulls out some photographs shows them one by one to this guy. The last photo is of the wheel. Alas the photo is of a conventional wheel and this bike has an alloy wheel (Establishment of the proposition).

The guy is jubilant, Surya disappointed goes back.

Cut to a TVS showroom where Surya is busy photographing a Star City’s wheels.

Next shot is the parking lot again and the drama where Surya threatens this guy again.

The guy laughs saying he has already once told Surya that this is his bike.

And now the differentiating proposition clearly comes out. Surya takes a picture of the alloy wheel he had taken from the showroom, shows it to the guy (reestablishment of the proposition).

Surya pushes the guy off the bike and gleefully rides it off the parking lot

Cut to super for all the other superfluous details.

Now summing up the positives of the commercial…

1) Unlike other commercials where a celebrity plays himself saying I use this product and so why don’t you, here Surya plays a character he had played in one of the greatest hits of 2006 in the Tamil movie industry. It is a very good usage of a character played by the celebrity which people for remember for long.

2) The celebrity plays a part in the commercial, but more than him it is the character he played dominates. So the product is not dwarfed in the middle, it is seen prominent

3) The proposition that differentiates this bike from others is the alloy wheels and that proposition comes out aplomb.

Good work mate. May you cook more like this in the years to come.

Player burnout – Why is it a farce?

These days cricketers around the world are debating about one thing – Burnout.
I searched the dictionary and found the meaning for burnout – Melt, break, or become otherwise unusable. As far as these cricketers are concerned they think that they might probably become unusable, in the sense that they would become physically weak to play.

The main reason why I think it is stupid and wasting primetime discussing about this is because they are supposed to be professionals. They earn their living playing cricket. So why did you embark on a difficult thing first place knowing that it might burn you off.

If I ever thought, being in the advertising industry would burn me off, I better quit and choose another industry that suits me. Why crib about the industry that feeds you? That feeds you with more than your entire dynasty could eat.

To understand more about why I say this talk about burnout is bull crap, lets see what they do round the year.

But looking at their playing calendar one would see that they play for not more than 130 days.

Assuming one playing day is 8 hrs

They play competitive cricket for 1040 hrs

There are three levels of contacts that are offered to the players based on their value and utility A (Rs. 50 Lakh retainer), B (Rs. 35 Lakh retainer), C (Rs. 20 Lakh retainer).
For ease of understanding lets take C grade.

The yearly retainer is Rs. 20,00,000

For each test they play they get Rs. 2,50,000

For each one day they play they get Rs. 1,60,000

Now, again for ease of understanding let us assume they get paid Rs. 50,000 for each playing day

So for 130 days of cricket they get Rs. 65,00,000 (this is in addition to their retainer fee)

So the total money they make in an year on an average is Rs. 85,00,000.

So their monthly salary for playing cricket is Rs. 7,00,000

Their average salary per hour of play is Rs. 8173 (this is for the 1040 hrs of cricket)

If this is the salary of a C grade player, imagine what a Sachin Tendulkar and a Rahul Dravid must be making for representing the country.

That is not all, they also earn in millions endorsing everything from a completely misfit sandalwood soap to a television channel. Every Brand / Marketing manager you find in India needs a cricketer to endorse his / her brand.

So the cricketers salary per year becomes unimaginably bloated. We must also not forget a few cricketers who run their own business apart from their other sources of income. We would also not forget those who became martyrs by gracefully accepting the Indian tax structure and agreeing to pay taxes for a Ferrari they got as a gift.

Shame on them for shouting that cricket causes burnout.

Let’s now see what an average Indian skilled worker earns.

Let us take the example of a construction worker, an expat Indian in Dubai.

I am taking this example because he earns more than his Indian counterpart, he lives away from home (that’s another farce articulated by the cricketers – living away from their family) and he works under testing conditions.

He works for 8 hrs in the hot 35 degree plus sun.

He works for 300 days under testing conditions (leaving alone those Fridays or holidays)

So he works 2,400 hrs an year

He doesn’t endorse any brand. He doesn’t have his own designer restaurant, gym or a cricket academy. He doesn’t also even dream about his own Ferrari, leave alone importing it free of cost.

But he is the first idiot who runs to buy his ticket for a cricket match in Abu Dhabi.

What does he earn?

A maximum of Rs. 12,500 per month (1,000 – 1,500 Dirhams)

Rs. 1,50,000 per year

Rs. 63 per hour (and that is the maximum mind you and may be I have inflated his salary a bit)

Does he complain about burnout? He is the one who is really susceptible to a burnout, but he doesn’t complain but for an occasional crib.

He lives away from his family for a period of more than 2 years. That is when he would get his free air ticket to visit his family back in India.

How many news channels have shown his face talking about burnout or exploitation?

How many news paper columns are used talking about this man’s plight?

Nobody even cares about this man.

These cricketers who make such a hue and cry over burnouts must learn a thing or two from these measly mortals. If they decide that they are going to burn themselves out by playing cricket, they shouldn’t. Let them tell the board to cancel their contracts, give them a match fee for every appearance. That would bring some sense on their arguments.

I am sure they wouldn’t do that because if they do it then their other businesses may suffer. The brand manager would call a cricketer if and only if he is popular. And to be popular he needs to fail in 10 matches and score in 1. For doing that he needs to play more than 100 days of cricket.

So to sum up there is nothing called burnout as far as professional cricket and cricketers are concerned. It is a farce. And they are doing this for another pay raise, to become richer than now and grab a few more seconds of TV time and a few more column centimeter of press space.

In pursuit of a corner office

I read an interesting post thanks to Russell Davies about the early bird getting the corner office. He had listed 6 industry captains and when they wake-up with the title “The early bird gets the corner office”. I was impressed and as everyone would I too want a corner office. I decided today that I would get to office early and I hit office by 7.00a today. For doing so I had to wake up by 5.00a. Here I am trying to list down the pros and cons I found in my first day of the new experiment.

Advantages

1. I beat the Dubai traffic. While it takes about 1.30 to 2 hrs to reach my office normally it took me half an hour this morning.

2. I was the first one to read the newspapers that are made available in my office. Normally it is pretty messy after at least about 5-6 servings.

3. I had nobody but me in the office. So I started working at peace and finished what I should have in the first part early.

4. I must certainly have impressed a few of my clients. I mailed back to their queries unusually early in the day.

5. Being early morning it was not all that hot in Dubai.

6. Had an early breakfast because I had to leave. So I would feel hungry by 12.30p and I wouldn’t miss lunch today. My wife would be happy!!

7. I had to reply to one of my bosses mails. So when he sees the time when this mail was sent he might be impressed. May be I get a good appraisal and a hike soon!!

Disadvantages

1. I found it extremely difficult waking up. It is not that I have never seen 5a, but that was when I played serious cricket for going to practice. Now the scene is different and very difficult.

2. I had to listen to some stupid early morning shows in the FM radio here, unusually I preferred the Hindi radio today. The RJ was irritatingly loud and was laughing loud for her own stupid cracks.

3. I had to open the office. Being the first one to reach I had to.

4. I had to pick-up all the newspapers scattered in front of the office, arrange them in the reception. That was before I read it.

5. I felt extremely lonely. I think I would get used to this. The server was making a strange noise, a combination of a bees buzz and a distant pneumatic drill.

6. Finally I had to clean-up my desk. I found it very messy for once, when I entered office today. I had time, so I had to clean my desk. While my colleagues would be happy for me, I have a back pain cleaning the mess.

Summarizing my experimentation being an early bird

I think I would try doing so for a week so and then evaluate. But unfortunately I read Mr Tim Harford who writes “Dear Economist” in FT (thanks again to Russell Davis for making me read Tim). This was about getting to office early (first) and leaving late (last). And I quote him here “I have a word of advice and a word of caution. If you want to play this game, my own research suggests that the competition will become easier to win as the year draws on and your rivals use up their reserves of energy and spousal goodwill. Take it easy at first and only burn the midnight oil once your rivals are getting divorced.
But perhaps you should not play at all. This is a competition likely to be won by whomever is most optimistic about the prospects for a juicy raise. Optimists tend to be disappointed.”
Now, I am reconsidering my decision to hit office early. May be I would get an answer once I am a beer or two down this weekend.

A creative brief and a baby walker

I got my 6 month old son a walker, complete with some music which gets him going. It was quite an experience putting Anirudhha on the walker for the first time. When I did so, I could first see that Anirudhha was not a happy baby. He didn’t seem to like getting confined to a small frame with wheels which had a padded seat and backrest to support him. His defense mechanism worked to the fullest, he wouldn’t leave my shirt as he was getting dropped in his walker for the first time. When I did manage to wriggle out of his hold and stepped back with anxiety as to how my baby son would respond. He did with a kind of a war cry, he didn’t seem to like his new walker.

I pulled Anirudhha off the walker puzzled thinking what I should be doing, to make him enjoy sitting in there. Then stepped in my wife, she was quite confident that he would start liking his walker and he would be comfortable in it.

Roopa first took Anirudhha for a guided tour of his walker, she first made him hear the musical sounds from the walker. He was smiling, that was an improvement. She then took Anirudhha’s finger near the buttons that would teach him Cat, Hen, Cow, Dog etc. My son was amused to hear different sounds, he slowly started moving his hands trying to make his own musical sounds. He was happy, slowly he was getting to know his new friend, the walker.

And now Roopa makes him sit in the walker, he seems happy. He kept pressing different buttons for his dose of music and also started to move slowly. Wow what a sight it was to see my baby son trying to take his first steps using a walker.

It was then I was remembered about the creative briefs we write, it has quite a few similarities to my sons walker.

Similarity in terms of acceptance by the creative folks… The story is similar to putting my son on the walker, here it is putting a brief on my creative team.

When I walk into my creative teams room with a brief in hand, the first thing I would face is rejection.

I wouldn’t take any brief now, we loaded.

This brief is a cliché, it sucks as usual

Hey you have just cut paste your previous brief, given it a new name and got it here

I am not taking any of your briefs now

Here I take Roopa’s approach. Try show my creative team the colorful carrot my brief would buy them, in terms of awards & accolades, a raise and how interesting life is going to be after they finish working on this wonder brief from me.

Once I finish doing this first round, I would see some kind of an acceptance. And now I sit down with them and try take them through my brief.

Here they go, this product wouldn’t sell.
It doesn’t make any sense

Now, I try show them the other support I have to prove that this indeed is a good product and it would sell. I barely manage to convince them.

Now the discussion veers to the proposition.

We can’t take this, this is rubbish
Now the third and final round of convincing them starts. This time to prove how interesting the proposition is. And I do manage to sell my brief and I would have my work ready in a couple of days. What a life getting kids and creative folks on the walker!!

Cut the crap

“Why don’t you ‘cut the crap’ and say only what you want to?”

“Cut the crap” - A very commonly used term when we want to shut someone off, when we don’t like something said.

I use it, you use it and, we use this phrase quite very often. Somewhere, somehow I feel that this usage wrong. By saying “cut the crap” we don’t quite express what we actually want to. To put it simply it is a misusage.

Now let me explain why.

What happens when you cut the crap? Even thinking about it makes you feel sick, Is is not?

It still is crap. But in smaller quantities or to be a bit gross, present in portions. But that crap isn’t done away. You barely manage to reduce the amount.

The result – Crap is crap, whatever quantities you might find it in. It still stinks.

So what should be the correct usage.

You should do away with crap / nonsense.

Which is “Cut the crap off”

So next time you use this phrase say “Cut the crap off” in full. It would only then make sense.

And now I would cut this crap off.

When an event planner fails – India Vs. Pakistan in Abu Dhabi

India is playing Pakistan in Abu Dhabi, it is a two match series. This series is aimed at helping the victims of the deadly earthquake that happened in Pakistan a couple of months ago. The matches, dubbed as the DLF Cup happen on 18.04.2006 and 19.04.2006, a Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. Both are day-night contests starting 3.30p Abu Dhabi time.

Well that was information we know. Now moving on to something else we might have missed out on…

Traditionally if you remember the days when matches in Sharjah used to be played. If it were an India, Pakistan fixture the match would be scheduled for either a Thursday evening, if it was a day-night or a Friday. The reason being, Thursdays are half working days in this part of the world and Fridays, as one might know a holiday. Thursdays and Fridays are considered weekends here.

Now try refresh your memory and remember the crowd composition. We had only two kinds of crowds. One the affluent crowd, which included the Anju Mahendru’s, Mandakini’s and others plus Abdul Rahman Bukhatir. This crowd would also include some known faces and names in terms of politicians, actors and others.

The second was the laborer crowd, these are people who come to the UAE to do some skilled labor work, including your mason, carpenter, mechanics and construction workers. This class constituted the largest chunk of the crowd, both Indians and Pakistanis.

You would seldom see people like me and you among the crowd. Unless we are given a free pass to watch the match from one of the vantage stands we wouldn’t even care to go near the over crowded stadium.

This is something we have seen in our TV’s and I have over my last year in the UAE heard from my friends who have been here since the hay days of Sharjah. Now let us see what the intelligent planners at the Sheikh Zayeed Stadium in Abu Dhabi have done for the DLF Cup.

A) They have scheduled the matches on working days

Even considering the fact that this is a day-night fixture starting by 3.30p. One is supposed to reach the stadium at least a couple of hours before to get a strategic position to watch the match.

Now, I am a laborer. I am a cricket buff. But when it comes to life and death I can do away with cricket. Well I guess that would how any sane human being would think. So if I were to bunk work where I get paid by the day, a peanut of a sum then I wouldn’t sacrifice work for cricket. I would rather give cricket a miss.

Now, if I was that serious a buff who didn’t want to miss work as well as work. I would at least have to sacrifice one session of the match, a strategic position and some valuable Dirhams to watch the second session and presentation. I frankly don’t know how many would want to do it.

So the planners have failed on one critical count. Now let us see what is next.

B) Pricing the tickets

The tickets have been priced at Dh. 50 for those famous grass mounds and Dh. 150 for seating. I am not even discussing the other tickets like the boxes. Now Dh. 50 is lots of money for the laborer.

May be that would make sense if he had the opportunity to watch the full match and also the glitterati from Bollywood who is going to perform and the fire works et al. But that would be a big MAY BE.

So the planners have failed in all critical aspects of staging a India – Pakistan encounter, a supposed money spinner in this part of the world.

The local newspaper just echoed my view. According to “Gulf News” there are 6000 tickets that are yet to be sold. I just got to know that the Dh. 50 mound passes are not sold in advance but sold in the venue, over the counter. The stadium seats 16,000 people. Now having not sold 6000 tickets, you expect 10,000 minus the crowd for the mounds. I don’t have a figure as to what the mounds would seat. Therefore. you would have to wait and see how much of your mounds gets filled.

To sum up, unless and until something extraordinary happens. Abu Dhabi government declares a local holiday for the matches or the laborers get a bonanza of a two day vacation, this match is going to be a failure in terms of crowd support in the venue.

Let us hope and pray the first international cricket match Abu Dhabi is staging is a success, Insha Allah. Hope I am proved wrong by the cricket crazy India & Pakistan supporters.

A Reason for a riot

As I opened a regional newspaper here in Dubai this morning. On the front page, bold and blaring it read “Actors death sparks violence in India”. Yes that was the news about Rajkumar, the Kannada actor passing away. I had just finished reading this news when a colleague of mine, an English man asked me innocently “But, he died naturally right? Or was it a murder or something?”. As an Indian I felt insulted by this innocent remark made by my colleague.

I fail to understand why on earth would anyone who is in no way related to the man who passed away peacefully due to old age, pelt stones, burn vehicles and vandalize shops. What do these people who indulge in such kind of violence gain breaking and damaging public property?

Would Rajkumar wake up human from corpse because the vandals managed to burn 10 vehicles and injure 40 others?

Would god lord almighty come down straight to Bangalore and revive Rajkumar or at least apologize to these people for committing the grave sin of having to take the life of a man 77 years old?

I fail to understand why people do such kinds of drama, sullying the name of the nation – India, making the complete IT & ITES setup to come to a grinding halt for a couple of days and there by ensuring crores of Rupees worth losses. Yes, I saw in a television news channel that the call centers and IT organizations are not working and the government has declared two days of mourning for the guy who passed away – An actor.

Even accepting the greatness of the actor he was, would these organizations have declared a holiday for that merit? I doubt, they have declared this holiday because they feared for their infrastructure, the danger to the lives of their employees and their properties.

So the net result, the vandals have managed to spoil the name of a great country, the country's business interests and by doing so they also have managed to damage and erase the respect a person from these industries and the general public would have had for the great actor who passed away, Dr. Rajkumar.

Very similar was the pictures beamed from outside a Jodhpur jail where the great, Salman Khan was imprisoned till this morning. I saw people demonstrating outside the jail asking Salman to be released and all charges against him dropped.

Think about these scenarios and you would have 20 coming up. Agitation because Amar Singh’s phone was tapped, because Sonia Gandhi resigned again, because Saurav Ganguly was dropped from the Indian cricket team and so on…

God knows when some stupid people from our great nation India stop doing these kinds of cheap drama for publicity and sully the entire nations name around the world, thanks to the cameras of BBC, CNN and various other news media from around the world. And also effectively derailing the business machinery in the country and thereby loosing crores of Rupees.

Advertising – Sane and sensible

Traditionally advertising is defined as the “business of drawing public attention on goods and services”. That is the very dictionary definition of advertising, the business that helps my chimneys fuming, the trade that has been feeding me & my family for the past 7 years.

I was taught about various models of advertising or rather making your advertising visible and heard. From the AIDA model to the recent Disruption theory. I have been beamed a few award winners through our b-school boardroom projectors, from the local advertising club award winners to the complex least comprehended Cannes winners. I graduated to get into the best of advertising agencies to see some of the accounts of mine getting recognized from the local levels to a Cannes and an Echo. Laurels apart I learnt about five key factors that are important to reach a message to the consumer, the way they like – the way they could assimilate.

The vehicle, timing, message, differentiation and relevance…

I have till date experienced, seen or produced advertisements that try and conquer all the five frontiers of becoming the best advertisement. The result, they are found lacking on at least one parameter and hence becoming incomplete. The products or service so advertised is still preferred by a set of consumers or jury who reward it with gold’s and grand prix. I was searching for one advertisement that fulfilled all the five parameters, that ended when I saw this small strip on a newspaper supplement here in Dubai.

I’m sure you would have your own opinion on this piece and also have your own favorites. I would agree opinions are highly subjective, views depend on eyes. To make things less complicated I’m trying to present my view on good advertising. To agree or disagree is your prerogative. That said, I would love your comments on my views. For that would help me grow and mature.


The vehicle:

This advertisement in question was published in the Entertainment Plus magazine dated 08.03.2006, a supplement with Gulfnews one of the leading newspapers in the United Arab Emirates in the bottom of the 36th page..

Timing:

As I said this is a supplement in colour, it is a magazine that contrasted its parents nature – A newspaper. This supplement as its name suggests is all about entertainment, cinema, gossip and Television programming. Hence the possibility of a consumer preferring this to the parent, the newspaper is more. The baseline – this supplement is well read.

Message:

This was an advertisement for a restaurant in Dubai, to be precise a Chinese restaurant. Knowing Dubai as a city of international importance and understanding the kind of expatriate crowd in the city one could estimate the number of eateries and restaurants here. From star class to the lowest possible class. You have the spectrum available.

So it doesn’t bother where you advertise, when you advertise or why you advertise. The thing that matters the most, as usual is How you advertise – what is your differentiator.

The differentiator:

As we know Dubai is a city with diverse expatriate population. Hence you see all possible world cuisine permutations available at some place or the other. You could see the Indians living here preferring a set of restaurants. Same is the case with Chinese or a British, French or anybody else. The brave few would defy all odds to carefully select those who have the maximum “Word of mouth” and test it. But you seldom see someone transcend these borders.

Hence the differentiator should be able to break the regional barrier and give a global feel, yet be authentic to the roots.

So how about a “Indianised Chinese Cuisine”. Back in India everything is spiced up, flavored. In China it is more bland, raw and natural. So when the Chinese came to India during the pre-historic period they brought with them their recipes, these were blend with the Indian spices to give birth to a new genre of cuisine that was oriental and spicy.

As years passed by lots of the so called Chinese and fast food restaurants mushroomed in India, people started getting used to this flavor and many liked & patronized it. This spread all across the world where the Indians spread. But with limited commercial success. The reason when it was communicated it was either miscommunicated as authentic Chinese food or as the traditional Indian tandoor food. It doesn’t fit both and hence it was a flop.

Relevance:

Here is one “Imperial Dragon” who is brave enough to have the Indian as well as the Chinese tag here as part of his communication. So what make this communication so special for me?

The expat population in UAE is largely Indian and Pakistani, then come the Europeans. The Indians and the Pakistanis are familiar with the Indian made Chinese food, but they can’t stand the authentic Chinese variety. For they want spicy food. So tell them about a Chinese restaurant they would be apprehensive, they wouldn’t even test the food. So when you say the Indian Chinese food, you have a higher probability that they would flock.

Target two are the Europeans. These are guys who already are familiar with the “Chicken Tikka Masala”, the so called national dish of England. Many there still think it is an Indian dish, some know about its Bangladeshi origins. Everyone loves it, so the baseline – they have started liking those food that carry an Indian tag. While this thesis is not a global truth yet, you could largely claim so. Hence if you go to the European crowd and say, hey I have got a food that is Chinese but has a signature Indian taste there is a good probability that they would at least try this cuisine. As someone who has tried this, I would say the percentage dropouts would be far less compared to the hook-ons.

The net result due to the differentiation and relevance of this piece of communication – you have the Indian & Pakistani crowd coming for sure, the local UAE crowd as I know loves the Indian spicy food varieties and they are known for their experimental mentality as far as food is concerned. And you have a steady European patronage at least from those brave tester population. So that well covers the final two frontiers differentiation and relevance.

So what more does an advertisement aim for, you got a majority of your audience look at you and say WOW I should try it sometime. I too would try this food sometime, for I have been enchanted by this restaurants communication strategy. It scores 5/5 from me.

Cost of creativity

I was reading a piece from one of the advertising, media & marketing magazines back here in Dubai. There I found this gentleman, creative director of a direct marketing agency who had given his opinion about direct marketing. He had actually said “Some direct marketing Ideas get squashed by clients because they have overshot the budget…”. I was thinking about this remark of this gent, it wasn’t digesting. I am here trying to contradict the statements made by the gentleman and trying to explain why I think otherwise.

The first oxymoronic thing I found in this statement was “Ideas” and “Budget”. You can’t try and mix both these things. For “Ideas” has something to do with creativity, thinking, et al. “Budgets” as we know is money, plain simple dollars. To tell why they don’t go hand in hand, I have this simple example.

Say I want to go to Paris. But everyone on earth who aspires to go there flies there, some from Europe and around drive their way through. I don’t want to do what others are doing, I want to break the clutter. And therefore I want to go to Paris biking. This is my idea. I want to be different, stand alone hence thinking a bit creative (although this is a little clichéd…) I chose the biking route.

Now having said that I would have to embark on a different task, which is costing my trip or budgeting for my adventure. Now if I have a strong will and have a good enough belief on this particular idea I have come up with, I would find budgets from somewhere to execute this idea of mine. In case, god forbid I figure I don’t have budgets to support my idea . I would think about options or other ways of executing this idea of myself of having to bike to Paris.

So if one had a good enough idea he shouldn’t worry about the budgets at all. If the client comes back with this excuse of budgets, don’t worry if you think you are armed with a whale of an idea. You would find economical ways to execute that whale of an idea of yours. Yes, you would find a way to render your idea come what may.

So the next time your client says he doesn’t have budgets to do something you propose, be sure that is not convinced enough with the IDEA of yours.

The first step to that believe in yourself, believe in your ideas, think creative. The ways, means and budgets for execution would follow.

To sum up there is nothing called “Cost of creativity” in this world. Remember even while advertising agencies, for the sake of earning a living and survival have a RATE CARD for their creative they don’t and can’t produce a RATE CARD for creativity.

They moment someone tries to come up with a RATE CARD for creativity, they are fooling you with stereotypes, something uncreative.

10 things to remember if you aspired to be a Pizza delivery boy / girl

Believe me it is remunerating, I am seriously considering a switch in careers.

1. Practice reading maps: That would help you get acclimatized with the city/town where you plan to work as a pizza delivery boy
2. Learn to ride a bike or rather learn how not to ride a bike: That would help you horrify traffic, a few by standers and a couple of Jaywalkers to get your way through the maddening streets. Most of all have a valid license along. If you don’t have one, ask for your friends, take it to a colour photocopy place and get a fake done. This is most important, you never know when you would be stopped by an unfriendly policeman.
3. Speak out don’t shy away: This would make you ask for directions from unknown people when you loose your way to a delivery, stand a better chance of asking a beautiful lady customer out for a date (in case you want a shift in jobs, though you could end up in a police station)
4. Collect coins (only the relevant currency): This would stand you a better chance of getting bigger tips from your customers. For example if you need to pay a customer 50 bucks, pay him / her out in small change. This would force them return some as tips just because of the laziness of people to carry small change in their pockets / wallets
5. Bathe properly, keep yourself decently groomed: This would make sure your stink doesn’t take away the sweet smell of the pizza away while you deliver.
6. Always remember to get two good reasons as to why you were late: More often than not you end up pissing the customers off because your chef didn’t cook your pizza’s in time or the odd traffic cop stopped you for over speeding. In case of these kinds of eventualities you must have at least two proper reasons to cool your customers tempers.
7. Learn reading / understanding faces: This would help you say the right things post you having delivered the pizza. You might ring the bell for a delivery when a husband and wife or two live-in mates are right in the middle of a good middle of the week fight, just say thank you sir or madam once you deliver and rush back. Don’t take the pain of wishing them a nice meal or a nice day / night and piss them off.
8. Learn the art of deceiving walks: Whenever you near a door for a delivery try walking fast, pant if you could. This would create an impression that you take extra pains delivering, this would also ensure that your cold pizza is kept hot – at least in your customers minds till you leave.
9. Practice not to spit as you speak: While may like when it rains, people don’t appreciate when it rains from some ones mouth. And if you spit as you speak as a pizza delivery boy you stand the risk of wetting up your customers face as well as his favorite pizza. You might also be fortunate enough to have a blow or two landed on your face for doing so, so don’t spit when you speak. If you can’t resist, keep your customer and the pizza you carry at a safe distance.
10. Forget Hammurabi and his “Tit for Tat” principle: You might occasionally have some customers who would hurl some abuses, forget and forgive them. For, he or she is your company owners relative. You might painfully lose your job, if they are not related then they would make sure you and your company are well taken care of by an attorney, police or at least by his / her residential security. You might well end-up having a black eye trying to retaliate verbally.

A priceless conversation I would treasure

I, Raja Baradwaj have never been a woman’s man. I have always had my share of problems with women, big huge problems. Those never qualified me a macho, a chauvinist or a womankind hater. The reality has always been that the women never or sometimes ever liked one or more qualities of me Raja B. All this said, I have always and will and would respect women, those Kamala’s, Aparna’s, July’s and Roopa’s in earth, my mother, sister, dog and wife of mine with whom I have always had a special relationship, not forgetting a recent addition an Ananya, my kid sister’s little daughter.

That was perhaps the reason why I never ever had a steady girlfriend though my school and college life, no women asked me out, only a few cranky women danced with me in parties – lots indeed parted ways more than before partying (even though I had a good few of them walking in and out of my life, my history books).

Leaving Roopa alone, custom made for me probably, and add a Sangeeta, Vanaja and a few more, they have all been good friends, very good friends they remain till day and would remain after. And not forgetting all those 35+ (aged) receptionists of all the few many organizations I have been part of till date.

Lady clients have always been not my cuppa tea. But being in client servicing I have always managed to handle them effectively or at least tried to. But I end up cribbing about them more than I would have praised any in my entire life, at least after a drink down.

And this one lady client of mine is so special. I would never ever forget this interaction of mine with her, for sure. I have only had a very few interactions with this lady.

I never wanted to make this few turn many for various reasons. The main being I didn’t like the looks of her, I wouldn’t stand. The other one being that she was a receptionist or an office assistant before getting to be a corporate monster she is today, a marketing staff in the organization.

She had no idea about what marketing was, and is still one. She doesn’t want to understand what marketing is all about. But she always wants to project herself as the most wanted person in her organization, of my clients. She is someone who strongly thinks T & B would get you reach the pinnacle of a corporate (read the T as tits and B as Butt please). And I swear she is a B, a big B (now you decipher what a B is, this word ends with an “itch”!!)

I was barely managing her till this meeting of us happened in one of the exhibitions this client of mine was participating. She was standing in the stall TALL, trying to MAN it as usual when me and my boss Bala decided to pay them a courtesy call. When my boss and me said a hai to everyone in the stall this woman was acting busy ignoring us. My boss decided to ignore her, he was a sane man. He had identified a spade a spade.

I thought why leave her, so I with all my saneness decided to walk up to her for a hello and this is what transpired that day, I repent for that, I now repent. Raja B why did you have to do that, why the fuck did you have to…

Raja B: Hai V@#$a$%, how is it going?

V@#$a$%: Hhh… Hhha… Hhaai……..

Raja B: (puzzled) !! ??

V@#$a$%: you… you are… En… Encomium right??? Raa… Raaj… Raajaa right??? You are??

Raja B: ( even more puzzled) Hai V@#$a$%

V@#$a$%: Nooo, I am very busy you know… you see… I was a little too busy to know, recognize who you are… Raja of Encomium right??

Raja B: Ya… Er… Yes V@#$a$%, thank god you recognized me, it is a pleasure (with a disappointed look on face and fuck you B!@#$ in heart)

V@#$a$%: (turns back to someone in the background) this is the main guy in Encomium you know… our agency… in Karama??

(one dead meat nod of head from the back)

V@#$a$%: @#$%%^ please take care of him okay, he is the main guy… OK??

Raja B: Ok V@#$a$% you shoud be very busy I would catch you, bye…

And that was it the great interaction was over and out.

What in earth anyone have to say post an interaction like that??

I said FUCK YOU, ironically in my minds, inside my mouth my tongue rolled. And I would do that literally some day and I mean it.

God save the corporate world and god save me.

I “Fancy” going to work…

Well, you might think who is this guy who fancies going to work. After all who fancies working? Everyone does fancy getting a pay cheque and they are concerned only about that, getting their pay cheque. Who cares about work in today’s world. But still when somebody says I Fancy going to work, why does he say that?

Fancy is the name of the transport service I take everyday from Sharjah to Media City in Dubai where I work. I have been “Fancy” ing my way to work for the past 4 months. It has been a fascinating experience taking the Fancy. I get to meet lots of characters there, I get to see the whole world under one roof or it should be over one chassis. I have been laughing at some, thinking why I wasn’t born them when I think about some and I’ve also been wanting to kick their balls. Fancy is full of fun, energy and learning. For me Fancy has been a school on wheels.

How could I forget this fat guy? He gets in at the Rolla bridge, he sits just behind me. He is off sleeping the moment our Fancy ride gets 15 minutes old. In the next 5 minutes he starts snoring. In front of the snore this gentleman generates even the pneumatic drills noise is music. It irritates all my co-passengers. One particular day it irritates this lady who was sitting besides him so much that she shouted “Excuse me”. It was definitely sweeter than the snore he generated. And that was it. The man never sleeps, and what is about sleeping? He doesn’t even looks straight at people in the bus these days. For the last few weeks he is always admiring his boots till he gets down from Fancy.

And if that was one what about this lady? The Punjabi kudi who sits in the adjacent seat invariably gets a call from her “bebe”, that is mother in Punjabi I presume. She speaks in chaste Punjabi with her “bebe” thinking the whole world around her is deaf, nobody hears nothing. Yes, she shouts. With the little Punjabi I understand I could decipher she enquires about “Lucky”, “Robin”, “Babloo” and her dog “Tiger”. It is fun hearing her or is that funny? The phone call ends when she realizes she has spent Dh. 28, an Indian equivalent of about Rs.340. She tells the tally to her “bebe” with her loud, sweet voice before she hangs up. She then starts of in a heavy Punjabi accented Hindi with her housemaid. The FAQ’s are “Why didn’t you come yesterday?”, “I am not happy with the way you wash”, “You waste too much of vegetables and spices when you cook”.

Then I have this French bearded Malayalee. This guy laughs like a horse’s neigh. The whole bus including Mr. Musthafa, the driver turn back to have a look at him to understand what he is doing and what the neigh is all about. I start praying every time I hear him laughing. I pray to god for sparing him for the day “Don’t transform him today. Not when he is in the bus my good lord”. Don’t know which racecourse he would head towards and when.

This Arabic woman comes wearing an Armani hijab, the head dress. She is as hot as red chilly, that is her temperament mind you. If any one comes her way as she gets in the bus she mutters something in Arabic. I think that is the “Bastard, son of a bitch leave way for me” equivalent. As she sits down she gives a strong stare at the man/woman who sit next to her. Next she says “EzzCzz Mye” and tries pulling the curtains of the window down. Someday she reaches the window herself and does her operations right, sometimes she fails reaching the distance. Her next action is funny. She gives a super hot stare to her unfortunate neighbour, says “Ezz Czz Mye, why don’t…” and gets into Arabic saying something. I thing she says “You stupid asshole why don’t you? Do it now… You prick”. It is very funny watching and hearing her and that too, if you don’t know Arabic it’s super funny.

Next comes this 24-carat “Mylapore Mami” (i.e.) a Brahmin looking lady from Mylapore an area in Chennai, India. I think she has just landed in the Emirates and has just landed a job too. Her father comes to get her in the bus, like a school kid. More than this woman, the father is funny. As she is getting inside the bus he shouts “Paathu, Paathu Maa” meaning “Careful, Careful my kid”. Then he starts shouting instructions to her like a football coach. “Get down at Knowledge village”, “Have you taken your bag? Is the tiffin box with you”, “Okay, I would wait for you here by 6.30p”, “Remember to call home before you leave office”. As the bus start you could hear a clicking sound emanating from her hands. She has a run counter which normally umpires use in cricket matches which she keeps clicking at regular intervals. From the frequency of the clicks, carefully reading her lips and the number of clicks she counted one day I could find she chants “Om namo narayanaya namaha” I might be wrong in my reading her lips, but she does keep chanting some mantra till at least I get down at my stop.

There is this lady who fascinates me every Thursday. She fights with her boyfriend without fail on this day. She does this effectively over her hand phone. The whole bus could hear her, if that sounds an exaggeration at least half the bus hears. She lists what she has done for the relationship till date and then goes on numbering what her boy has not done. This conversation normally lasts for about twenty minutes to half an hour and ends with a loud “I don’t buy this bull, BYE”. Then you could see her fanatically SMSing till at least for the next half hour. It is good fun watching the way her face goes as these things unfold. One could see anger, despair, disappointment and also that “fuck you” expression.

Then comes this chatter box Filipino lady with a shrill voice and a loud mouse like laugh. She always talks to her neighbour about leaving back from office in the Pive thirty bus. The Filipino’s can’t distinguish between “P” and “F” and so “Five” becomes “Pive” and “Fuck” becomes “Puck”. And hence my “Pancy”, sorry my “Fancy” ride becomes good “Pun”, sorry “Fun” too. With all my minimal voyeuristic observational power I have learnt a little about the Filipino English grammar and a few words in Tagalog the language they speak “Ghanda” means beautiful and “Maghanda” means Very beautiful.

And then how could I forget this guy who sits next to me. He is a Bangladeshi, speaks the Bangla English. He too sleeps while in transit like most of my fellow passengers. But the problem during the initial days was he needed a shoulder to do so and it was my shoulder. I was patient waking him up and telling him he is sleeping on my shoulder for about 2-3 days. Then my patience dried up. So this particular day as he started sleeping I moved a little forward exposing him to my back. As usual he doused off, leaned on my side and to his dismay my shoulder wasn’t there, I had moved. He lost his balance and his head hit the hand rest on my other side. That was a rude jolt, to add insult to his injury I also shouted “That’s why I have been saying don’t lean on my shoulders while you sleep”. I saw him in the bus for the next two days, carefully selecting some other seat. But then he, I thought was too embarrassed by that incident that he doesn’t come in my bus anymore…

And how can I forget this guy. He looks a Maharashtrian, from Bombay I presume. He has a new Nokia 9500 for the past two weeks. He makes it a point to check his ringtones everyday as he sits down in the bus. His experiments with his phone continues till he gets down. And it doesn’t stop there, as he walks down to alight from the bus he keeps staring at his phone holding it at a high esteem. I see a bull in him, inside a china shop… everyday.

There are countless number of other people, specimen who come with me to Media city in the same bus. But every one is a book, I learn a new thing at least every day I take the Fancy. It is a fascinating ride to office. And that is why I FANCY going to office, everyday.