Lifting Shadows Off A Dream

Prayer

2010-07-05T11:19:00.001-07:00

Lord, Give me the strength to accept what I know is wrong but to do so for a better cause

Almost

2008-12-10T08:57:00.001-08:00

I've been away for the longest time and I have an almost reasonable explanation for it. In the two years that I've been away from here, I almost lost the will to speak up.

But today; today something else happened. For the longest time I have heard and read about courage, patience, strength, resolve and love. And today I saw it.

I am in awe.

Christmas Day

2006-12-25T10:22:00.000-08:00

Today I learned that you can still play with someone you don't understand or approve of.

MBAs Bloody MBAs

2006-11-15T02:56:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I took it upon myself to meet more non-MBAs than I usually do in ordinary weeks. It came as a surprise while going through my list of friends on Orkut when I realised that at least 90% of the folks there were either
a) Considering an MBA
b) Surviving an MBA or
c) Had already completed one

So I decided to take the initiative to meet more people from varied walks of life. So far I have successfully made friends or at least acquaintances with people from the film industry, lawyers, Air Stewards, artists, economists (though these buggers can be as bad as MBAs), a major from the Army, a gynaecologist, an entomologist, a call centre cab driver, the xerox guy from down the street and my grocer to name a few.

And it has been an experience like no other. You people are so refreshing in perspective, its like taking a vacation. I mean I have other friends who I can picture asking the waiter at a restaurant what their core competencies are. Or a lady MBA giving constructive criticism to her puppy. Or noticing the person next to me in class writing an executive summary for a love letter. My personal favourite was when a friend described marriage as a form of 'M&A'.

My world is otherwise so full of retards that I have personally seen people use the word 'paradigm' in everyday parlance with the doodh wala. Or asking the pan wala to do value addition to his business by shrewd cost cutting measures like bulk purchase of supaari. I distinctly remember my ex-roomie once saying "I want to do some more market research before having sex with my fiance."

For a good part though I guess, I'm guilty myself of indulging in this free for all freak show. Last weekend I went out on what I can best describe as a test marketing exercise. The girl sitting opoosite me however, thought it was a date.

Needless to say, it didn't end the way it was supposed to.

Is your Spam a reflection of who you are?

2006-10-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’ve learnt that some e-mail providers share such information (see previous post) with companies that could use it to tap unsuspecting blokes as customers sensing their consumption habits from the activities in their inboxes. Now what I don’t know is whether they share this information with SPAM engines because today I started noticing what some of it said and now it’s got me worried.

I'll share a few lovelies with you folks as I find myself questioning my activity on the internet

“Keith is in Bombay, Want me fix you up with him?” (Hmm, when was I on a ‘I like gay foreigners’ website last?)

“Enlarge your Boobs now, 100% satisfaction guaranteed!” (Me? Am I supposed to forward this to my skinny she-friends?)

“Lowest prices on Viagra. Up already?” (This would have been funny if they hadn't made me the subject)

“Valium that doesn’t show in Urine tests, 30% off” (No thanks I’m fine with the JD that does show in my urine)

“Gain weight now, ask me how!” (LOL, have you seen me?)

Sheesh!

Who wants to be a Billionaire?

2006-10-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I became interested in Google and its ilk. Companies like these are privy, and without our endorsement, to so much of our personal life that it totally freaks the guzeebles out of me.

I understand it’s a big deal in the west but here nobody gives a rat’s ass to what Google knows about them. To be fair to us, most Indians in India DO have miserable lives with nothing particularly worthwhile being shared in their inboxes. I mean how interested can Google be about someone’s conversation about two boyfriends’ ‘styles’ of doing ‘it’ being discussed. (Yes, the person did leave herself logged-in on my computer and yes she is going to repent all her life that she did. And for no fault of her own, her best friend will too)

Anyway, for a while I wondered about how Google made its money. Then a couple of years back I saw that there were sponsored results on the right side of the page every time I searched for any piece of information on the internet. Then a friend joined the company and told me they make 98% of their multi-million dollar revenue chunk out of getting people to have Google optimize searches and placing them in results. All that was fine and I admit I was rather impressed with the ingenuity of the revenue model. Until they started doing it with my inbox.

Now, when I see an email in which someone has talked about a ‘single sheet of paper’, I see the URL of ‘Mumbai Singles’ alongside it. Or if I have an e-mail talking about a certain Ann then right there beside it in bold is the link to a very questionable looking URL (hint- handcuffs and leather)

So really Google knows a lot about us. And I have an idea. I have finally found a way to be a Billionaire.

I shall join Google and systematically dispense such information to wives and girlfriends until I’m an old, rich man bearing the nickname ‘Traitor’ sipping rare scotch on the cover of Time magazine.

It’s Genius, no?

For a friend...

2006-07-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

At first when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us.What we should really fear and dread, of course, is that that WE wont stop loving them.

Modern Medicine

2006-07-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

This one really reminds me of someone

On Orkut

2006-06-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

Orkut is social spyware.Period.

(Don't) GO ENGLAND

2006-06-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

To all those people who think im being fascist in not supporting the English football team in spite of liking them both as a team and as brilliant individual talent this world cup, the following quote made a long time ago might justify my stand, albeit mildly.

"We are all British gentlemen engaged in the magnificent work of governing an inferior race."
- Lord Mayo

Bastard!

Coincidence? I think not

2006-06-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

Man, sometimes you realise that the stand-up who said that God has a weird sense of humour wasn’t kidding. God doesn’t laugh on a “A man walks into a bar and says to the bartender…” joke. He needs complex irony so tickle His funny bone.

Like when last night I had some really spicy food from a not so clean joint in Kalbadevi. I wake up to my bowels complaining and fidgety. Needless to say, I’ve made umpteen visits to the office loo. I even had a banana and a Dependal tablet, but well some things you just cannot control. I would have tried wearing red underwear, but that joke is too lame, even for me.

To top it off, it was spicy food I ate. For the benefit of those readers who are not yet familiar with how graphic I can get in my observations and descriptions, I am going to let your intelligence and imagination collectively figure what I mean by this.

Ah yes, about God’s sense of humour… I got back to my seat after one of my visits to the restroom cursing the spicy food and guess which song is playing on my laptop…

Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’

Salaam Bombay

2006-05-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

Its a strange city, this Bombay. Its strange because its impossible to try and comprehend how many alter egos this city has. It changes its character, its colour, its people, its smells and its sounds so many times a day, its easy to lose track. Its like living alongside a schizophreniac, and having it mock you in the face, like Rushdie's Tai, an enigma which makes you delve deeper into its brain with you getting more lost with every inch you inch.

Many a times I've heard people say "Amchi Mumbai", which translates to "My Mumbai" and wondered why it is that only in this city people celebrate life the way they do. Why do these folks come down on the streets and celebrate their festivals outdoors. Why do people relate to the city as an extension of their own being. Or why after a deluge in which thousands die, the city wakes up the next morning like nothing happened. Why the Parsis who own prime portions of real estate in town run cafes that barely make a few grand a week when they could lease them out for a few lakhs. Why the security guard, Agarwal, makes only 4000 rupess a month but is one of the jolliest people you'd ever meet. Why Leopold's and Monde's brim with youth culture in the evenings. Why poverty stares you in the face while you look away at Marine drive. Why people smile back at you if you smile at them at Fort. And why Shobha De is a popular writer (?) Questions, there are really no answers to...

Compare this to say Delhi, which many claim is every bit a metro as Mumbai is. Why has it taken more than 5 decades for someone to say "My Delhi"?... The Commonwealth Games? An afluent yet responsible middle class? A little misplaced patriotism post the Rang De Basanti effect? Ahem...

Try as I may, I cannot ever realistically claim that I have found a complex behavioral matrix which explains this strange phenomenon, or why people here enjoy their miserable difficult lives as much as they do. Take my boss for example... but lets save that for another day. However, there is no denying that if there is any place I have seen where people 'live' their lives, its here.

And then there is this repertoire of nuances this city has, which I will follow up later. For now an interesting fact. Recently, I found out that the suburban railway system of Mumbai ferries 2.2 billion passengers every year. A reference point in perspective? The world's population is just over 6 billion.

There are just so many exclusivities attached to this city that it would be unfair to try and put them anywhere except in a book. Hell, Suketu Mehta and Gregory David Roberts couldn't do it justice, I'm just another intern :)

Here's to you, my ugly friend

2006-05-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

I had disappaeared for a while and have only recently resurfaced. The sole reason of this was my summer internship, which besides moving along really well, keeps me busy for upto 14 hrs. Everyday. Coupled with a need to find an apartment in this city, each day knocks in quite a punch. Most people I used to hang with have now got new friends, new apartments or have moved to different cities. I have had more than one person come and tell me that theres a hush around campus about my finally flipping the lid, which i would like to think is falsified information probably instigated by propaganda of some classmates who get paid for not working at all.

A rumour that I had locked myself in my apartment and gotten addicted to eating custard was just that. (A rumour not custard, you moron)

So obviously, with all this happening, it doesnt leave much time for socialising but yesterday while a friend and I landed at a favourite haunt, he reminded me of how I had been the 'dial a drinking toast/quote' person in college.

It made me wonder why I don't celebrate a drink with a friend in the same fashion any longer. Perhaps its the way my hectic schedule has made me or maybe I have just changed for the worse.

Whatever it is, it is unacceptable and I vow to never again indulge in my drink without taking time to appreciate it, especially around a friend.

I enclose some of my all time favourite drinking toasts here. Even if one person who reads this remembers to celebrate his/her drink with a friend, it would have made me a very happy man. Cheers!

Here's to the girl I love the best.
I've loved her naked, and I've loved her dressed.
I've loved her standing and I've loved her lying.
And if she had wings, I'd love her flying.
And when she's dead and long forgotten,
I'll dig her up and love her rotten.

Here's to all of the women who have used me and abused me...
And may they continue to do so!

I like beer. On occasion, I will even drink beer to celebrate a major event such as the fall of communism or the fact that the refrigerator is still working. -- Dave Barry

Work is the curse of the drinking class. --Oscar Wilde

The mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer. --Ancient Egyptian Wisdom, 2200 B.C.

The problem with some people is that when they aren’t drunk they're sober. --William Butler Yeats

Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.
If you cheat, may you cheat death
If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart.
If you fight, may you fight for a brother
And if you drink, may you drink with me. -- Alexander Botham

Of all my favorite things to do,the utmost is to have a brew.
My love grows for my foamy friend,
with each thirst-quenching elbow bend.
Beer's so frothy, smooth and cold--It's paradise--pure liquid gold.
Yes, beer means many things to me...That's all for now, I gotta pee! -- Varun Cheemra (?)

P.S.- Most of this post is not my own before someone labels me a plagiarist.

A swift kick in the nuts

2006-04-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve stayed away from home for 7 years now but never have I been so excited about being back. Part of it, I suspect, is because of the fact that the last couple of weeks have knocked the wind out of me. Presentations and exams and then the worrying about flunking my Strategic Management exam, a delayed flight, a 10 hour bus journey, and the fear of having had acquired the Avian Flu in Bombay, have all collectively taken their toll on my poor self. But being in my old room in Shimla has rejuvenated me like I didn’t think possible.

Now coming to the point I was going to make. Strategic management is a subject that I trust I know quite well. Why then, you may ask, do I think I’ll flunk. Well, the problem is that the professor who taught me this is, for the lack of a more apt word, a retard. He wanted us to learn by rote what Mr. C K Prahalad, Mr. Pankaj Ghemawat and Mr. Michael Porter once said about the subject. Though I have nothing against these gentlemen, I do feel its one of those subjects in which you cannot really have a theory. At best you have a reference to other people’s thoughts and some companies’ best practices. There is no single strategy that would apply to all businesses leave alone all functions and processes. All in all it has been a complete waste of my time and money. To top it all off, they are probably going to make me take the exam again.

I feel like one of Calvin’s customers who fell for the con. They’ve put me through such misery and made me pay money for it.

I did do something that made me strangely happy though.

My business school provides all faculty and students with an e-mail id which due to server constraints has a 5 MB limit. I found out his email id, and subscribed him to a few websites.

I really do hope that as we speak, he is cursing out loud while deleting gay porn from his inbox.

Foodie at heart and stomach

2006-03-31T10:28:00.000-08:00

I am a food-addict and I’m sick and tired of people who otherwise don’t give a damn, monitoring my dietary habits and telling me I don’t eat right. This is too much, even for me. I mean hypocrisy is one thing but being outright shameless like this is simply unacceptable. You can’t just order a hamburger platter, a double order of fries and pitcher of kingfisher and expect me to watch you devour it with a sald in front of me just because your genetics are immune to calories. Is it really such a big crime to eat and drink what you want?

Recently a professor teaching us business ethics, always an oxymoron to me, launched herself into a monologue about the benefits of eating right, sleeping right, exercising right, and leading a simple life towards the ultimate goal of Nirvana/ Moksha / Shangri-la / Elysium / (choose your spiritual end).

When someone asked her if this was for the eventual tranquility and peace of mind and for happiness of self, she had to reply in the affirmative. My question is, how in the name of lord do YOU know if this will make ME happy? Maybe it makes you happy, but are you sure living a life of spiritual intercourse, sexual or otherwise, and measly helpings of food would make me happy? If I know myself, not indulging in my food, my music, and my precious sleep would make me nothing short of miserable. You do 5 hours of sleep and 2 hours of Pranayam, I just simply do 7 hours of sleep. You eat lettuce in salad, I eat it in hamburgers. You turn on the music before having sex, I have sex and I hear music automatically. You take out time for meditation, I take out meditation to make time. And, somehow, it all works just fine for me.

Yes, it might put me in a sorry state when I’m older, and yes I might not live to be 70. But at least when I die at the age of 50, I would look back at my life and think to myself “You might not have done so well otherwise, but you did manage to become the proverbial Chef’s dream come true”. Drunken people’s proverbs, these.

Irrespective, this post is in lieu of a new blog I would be launching in May (which is when I get my hands on a brand new Canon S2IS), dedicated towards appreciation of good food and drink. The URL is www.lonelystomach.blogspot.com.

And this brand new blog is dedicated to all those near and dear ones who kept me from that elusive piece of chocolate, and that chicken tikka and that 4th filet-o-fish burger at McDonalds. I do hope you folks succeed in your endeavors of keeping me from my 5 meals a day.

:-P

Take that!

The worst thing I could've said

2006-03-21T21:24:00.000-08:00

I might have effectively ruined a 7 year old friendship yesterday when a good friend met me online. For some reason she decided to confide in me and was telling me (apparently!) how her love life with this random fellow I've never even met was transpiring.

Long story short, the chat window looked something like this

HER- And then he told me that he was going to dump me because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...

...blah blah. You know Varun, I wanted to thank you for always being there for me, and for being such a good listener.

ME- Hey, I'm back!

The lamentable end of an era...

2006-03-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

My school web-group had an email yesterday which made me cringe. A young lad just out of school wrote an email that made me wonder how things could have changed so much in the last seven years since I left St. Edwards, Simla. For those who don’t know this already, I take great pride in my convent school education and the fact that I was lucky enough to live and stay in this environment, in Simla, for 16 formative years of my life.

From the corridors which had teachers making us chorus 'i and e, except after c', to this current forgettable state of affairs, it is rather painful to see how writing etiquette and a general lack of acknowledgement of the presence of grammar has reached this deplorable state.

I for one, somehow, still swear by the ‘Wren and Martin’ grammar book, which I think has given me access to the English that many Englishmen don’t speak today (Do I sense resentment there?). Of course, having a good vocabulary meant a lot too. The most important thing I remember learning in school though, remains, how I was advised to be contemporary yet simple. A redundant style would often be received with criticism by Mrs. Sachdeva, and coupled with resistance from folks who couldn't care less about the language et al, it would often turn riotous.

At that time, we were made to learn grammar rules and then their exceptions. Yes, they were too many; but that never took away their importance. Not for me atleast. I suppose it’s the advent of this little thing we call the ‘internet’,and our blind faith in its effectiveness/efficacy, that we find ourselves 'understanding' how the world works. A conceivably refutable argument I heard recently talked about an alternate understanding of issues in separate/separated communities, that made me think whether punctuation is disposable. Grammar rules (and their exceptions) , though not sarcosanct, are 'pointers' on "what it is". And that is what I eventually stand by.

For instance, capitalization and punctuation can mean the difference between “I helped my uncle Jack, off a horse” and “I helped my uncle jack off a horse”.

And what is the reason for following up all these sentences with an innumerable number of dots. Makes you feel like summoning Pac-man from the dead. I mean they are meant to be three in number and are meant to show continuity. But every sentence? Come on...

Am I really a freak to care this vociferously about this then? I think not, though your comments are valued and appreciated.

In other news, Holi was a crazy day (read: alcohol, bhaang and a general lack of understanding of what was going on) which followed itself by an equally crazy birthday party at Insomnia at The Taj. What made the party even crazier was the presence of an inestimable number of bimbos dressed in minimalist fashion. I went upstairs to the deck for a drink during this vulgar display of money and breasts to find the entire English cricket team getting drunk and enjoying the way the bimbos hoarded them.

People in the team don’t speak to Monty Panesar. Nor do the Bimbos.

Cheapskates

2006-02-20T08:21:00.000-08:00

Someone told me that the most secure computer in the world is the one not connected to the internet.

I recommend Iqara broadband.

WTF?

2006-02-18T11:35:00.000-08:00

I have my exams coming up from day after. Cant believe they're putting me through all this and I'm playing along.

I tried to search for " attractive women in bombay who would like to sleep with overworked b-schooler" on the internet.

No results found.

Google is so overrated.

Inzy is the rocks in the Lahore

2006-02-13T06:36:00.000-08:00

Inzamam at the presentation ceremony in Lahore after losing the match-

"Game cricket like this is, sometime winning sometime losing. We are not fielding well because is the losing game. Dhoni batting well is for win India. Inshallah better fielding cricket experience boys next game ."

Note To Self

2006-02-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

When a woman tells you "It's not you, it's me", what she really means is "It's not me, it's you"

Urban Legend

2006-01-12T23:50:00.000-08:00

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of todays date i.e. Friday, the 13th. The origins of the significance (or lack of it) of this date have been subjected to lots of assumptions, rumours, or plain heresy in the past but the most common one remains the legend of Jesus being crucified on 'Good Friday' and there being 13 people present at the famous last supper.

More reading on the issue reveals that the sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear . I have to remember a friends band which was in fact called 'Friday the 13th' and how this Korean fellow I knew back in college REFUSED to go see them play for fear of these unholy men trying to affect his better judgment and belief in the almighty. We had been smoking some pretty potent shit back then though.

Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the entire world in general and the United States in particular. So much for my moms vintage billi raasta kaat gayi and doing an extra 70kms to avoid that road story. There are people out there who are in fact more paranoid than us Indians.

Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date. I have been refused sex on the date personally, just like most other days of the year though.

Interestingly, the time when I owned a bbc computer, back in the early 1990s, I had heard about something called a virus and how it attacked specifically on Friday the 13th. I remember having had taken the fuse out of the house's main line on friday/13 once, leaving no chance for the mofo to even harm my moms imported coffee grinder. I had actually thought, and more than one of my friends would corroborate this, that a virus was a worm that travelled physically into your machine through electricity lines and gnawed at the components of your computer and other electrical appliances.

My father hit me with a stick the next day though, when he found out he had spent an evening in the dark for no good reason. I'm still a little convinced that it is that, an organic worm, though I dont have the stamina to fight the infidels who walk this earth and dont think a virus is a living being.

Paraskevidekatriaphobics ( yes thats what they call the phobics; wonder the etymological underlay) are people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th. I'm just glad I've managed to dodge the affliction of superstition. And if I'm here to tell you more about it later than this day, I would have successfully survived it too.

Touchwood! ;)

Happy Friday, the13th...

Darndest Things...

2006-01-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

Seen on top of a home delivery menu in Noida

Mama's kitchen
- We serve good food right after your mother

5 best kept secrets of getting through business school

2006-01-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

1. The best way to make the other person feel you are brilliant is to make up figures in your own head and while consciously (mis)quoting famous people to corroborate your thoughts and inferences.

2. Learn to sleep with your eyes open and be sure to nod in approval when you dont undersatnd a thing.

3.Find time to sms your best friend the question you’d like to be asked after your presentation.

4. Throw out random numbers at people and end your sentences with ‘Do the math’.

5. When unprepared for a presentation and asked to make one, go to the auditorium computer and coolly ask for a minute to get your presentation in place. Switch off the LCD projector, open the presentation done by the most hardworking donkey in your class. Change the name on the first slide to your own and proceed to read from the screen, while carefully inserting your own bullshit wherever necessary. Buy the donkey a drink in the evening.

If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit!

Disclaimer - The views, beliefs and tricks mentioned above are not meant to be taken as suggestions. It is meant to be viewed as some of the stuff that I've been able to pull off while in K J Somaiya, and which you probably couldn't negotiate with your limited intelligence.

Americans...

2006-01-07T07:37:00.000-08:00

HAHAHA!!!!!

the funniest thing happened to me two minutes back.

I'm downloading this song from Warez (P2P downloading software)

I message the guy I got it from to say thanks for the song. But, as soon as I'm done he starts downloading it back from me. Yes, the same song.

I go like wtf are you doing dude?

He tells me "Getting my song back, you motherfucker"

HR Managers vs. Platonic friends

2006-01-07T06:50:00.000-08:00

Now heres a situation for someone to explain to me

Theres this friend I have had since school from Shimla and im seeing him after 2 years or so. He is visiting me in suburban Mumbai and we've been quite excited about meeting up. Unfortunately he gets a phone call from a friend...

Background: This dude has always had this bachpan ki dost who he has had a huge thing for since puberty hit him.He's 24 now. He asked her out when we guys were around 16 and she gave him the regular 'I dont look at you that way' jazz. She sees him strictly as a friend.Dude backs off. Dude continues to be friends with her. But the way this person has persisted/tolerated this chick for half his life makes me feel like strangling someone. Him, her, myself... anyone.

His story is roughly the equivalent of a random guy going to a job interview and the company's HR manager saying, "You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis of comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic or a drug addict. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you.We would still like to maintain our interest since you have such a wonderful profile. We will hire a guy with zero intelligence or skills if we have to,and we'll make sure we run that by you. But we wont hire you. We will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired but we will never hire you. Never."

And the fellow keeps going back to the company to ask for a job.
Sheesh...

Life comes full circle, only to get back to being ridiculous...

Anyway, right now hes on the phone with her in the next room. Shes telling him about how her boyfriend is an a**hole and is probably crying. He's trying to console her, while im posting this.

Forgive me O Lord for I should be feeling sad for him. I would do that; if I wasn't busy laughing my butt off!

UN-PUT-DOWN-ABLE

2005-12-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

The Other Guy Blinked, How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars - Roger Enrico
Timeline of Events

1890: Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist, invents Pepsi as a cure for dyspepsia (hence the name, Pepsi)

1895: On requests from people who have taken the drug, Bradham starts marketing vials of the product, claiming they are free of all side effects

1915: Pepsi gets carbonated but due to the design of the packaging, shelf life decreases

1922: Pepsi goes bankrupt due to fizzing out of the drink on shelves and returned consignments

1928: Pepsi recovers from bankruptcy due to improved packaging design

1931: Pepsi goes bankrupt for the second time partly due to the great depression.

1942: Pepsi recovers yet again to continue selling its black cool drink in North Carolina and nearby places.

Fast forward to 1983:

Roger Enrico is appointed the youngest president of Pepsi USA

Enrico signs a multi million dollar contract with Michael Jackson, the most expensive endorsement deal in history at the time

The Book

While reading this book, I actually felt like I was in Pepsi's corporate headquarters, in Purchase New York, listening in on their strategic planning and implementation. Roger Enrico wrote this book when he was just the president of Pepsi USA. He tells a great story of the underdog going to battle with the giant. Later Enrico became the CEO of PepsiCo, and responsible for the spin off that created the new company Tricon. Reading this book will emphasize one's understanding of the importance and value of having a good mentor. Also, after reading Enrico's accounts of the "cola wars" one may never want to watch television or go to see movies again, because all of the real life drama is created by the competition that corporate America thrives on. Enrico points out that Pepsi alone sells enough soft drinks in a year to float an entire armada, and then proposes the question ‘why?’ As he says, “Water is a lot cheaper and booze provides a better kick. It’s all about great marketing”.

A bit one sided, but that is what I expected when I borrowed the book from a friend who recommended it to me, being a marketing person himself. It is still a very interesting perspective on Pepsi's strategy throughout history and especially during the cola wars of the early 1080s. It really must have been an exciting time to work for the company. Lots of interesting business/branding issues are covered in the pages of the book.

Roger Enrico becomes the president of Pepsi USA with the sole purpose of beating coke. His single minded obsession makes him take the huge risk of signing current rage Michael Jackson to endorse Pepsi. His goal was to devise a marketing strategy strong enough to shift the loyalties of sworn coke drinkers to Pepsi. However his first few days at the position are nothing short of a nightmare as everything goes against him. He even considers resigning from the position and make way for John Sculley (who later famously fired Steve Jobs from his own company, Apple). However Victor Bonomo, the then president of Pepsi International steps in to act as a friend philosopher and guide to Enrico, convincing him to stick on his new position in the company. Enrico goes through a phase of self realization and like most effective managers, makes his own mistakes while making sure he learns from all quarters. However his ability to turn around lost battles eventually makes him come out on top. His self confessed and rather biased ability to turn catastrophe into opportunity forms the attention grabbing demeanor of the book, which is nothing short of a thriller in every sense of the word.

To battle the giant that Coke was, Roger uses advertising as the main weapon in his arsenal. He shocks the industry by signing in Michael Jackson for his ad campaign for an exorbitant sum of money. The Michael Jackson campaign is preceded with commercials showing other celebrities of the time endorsing Pepsi and gives sleepless nights to many in Coke’s management, including Roberto Goizuetta, the Brazilian hotshot, who was heading coke USA at the time.

Blindfolded tests in public spaces reveal that most people actually prefer the taste of Pepsi when drinking out of Styrofoam glasses but when the coke bottle comes into picture most of them reach out for it, simply because they have been drinking it all their lives and there is a kind of a machismo of old times, coupled with nostalgic moments spent with coke bottles in their hands.

However the aggressive advertising of Pepsi coupled with the blindfolded tests, starts to make Pepsi inch closer and closer to Coke.

In a desperate bid to retain its market share, the Coke management panics and makes the near colossal mistake of changing the formula of Coke, Merchandise 7X, with new coke, which blind tests reveal is sweeter and tastes more like Pepsi. The new formula fails miserably because the old ‘taste’ has been taken out of it and Coke almost hands over the throne to Pepsi. Within 3 months of the launch of New Coke, Goizuetta and company acknowledge their mistake and re-launch the old formula as “Classic Coke”.

Besides being a complete entertainer, one which gets exceedingly difficult to put down, the book teaches important management and marketing lessons. It gives the importance of working with the bottlers who are the main investors and the real value of the company besides of course the final consumer. It shows the importance of basing a business on its grassroots, or as C K Prahlad would put it, ‘at the bottom of the pyramid’.

It shows how pretentious companies to showcase their prowess and greatness would spend money on stupid things like extravagant offices of top management and tress flown in from Europe. It shows how the presidents of such companies would have to deal with the tantrums of celebrities at the time. The antics of Michael Jackson at the eleventh hour make for an especially interesting read.

A most enriching experience, this book, which I put down with a smile on my face and new thoughts in my mind. A must read for all management students, especially marketing majors.

Un-put-down-able

A Book Review

2005-12-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

Here I am back with the cocktail as promised, even though not many people are reading what im putting down here so obviously nobody had been eagelry anticipating my next post but here goes.

I've been spending the vacation locked in my apartment by myself and I have to admit that its has been a strangely refreshing experience. Not one of those self realisation experiences but just generally being with yourself can get quite cool; besides I got to walk around naked after bathing and drying myself naturally. I also realised that none of this , you folks ever wanted to know.

But there's something else.. ah yes... I read a horde of books in the last week but one of them I had to had to read at one go.

And yesterday I get a phone call from my Marketing SR (Subject Representative, for the uninitiated), telling me that I'm required to submit a book review. Now I'm no psuedo intellectual PG Delhi Univ type who would rewrite the iliad if they could, but I managed to pen my thoughts about the book down.

Now, even though it was for the professor alone, the fact that I liked the book so much endeared me to share it with you folks.

SO here goes, the copy paste version of my assignment. LoL.

Post Christmas

2005-12-26T04:20:00.000-08:00

Well, Its been sometime since I've been looking to open up my personal webspace on the internet to let random musings out on paper( or html), but I guess the inspiration came from my friend Tee's boyfriend ( it's safe to let him qualify as my friend now, i suppose) on our really cool weekend road trip to Pune.

S****bh is not really the kind of person who would qualify as a muse to anyone, but I guess he'll do for now.

Besides, he's been blogging for sometime now and I could use some pointers on how to get the visuals going.

Thts all for now I guess. Will be back with my cocktail later in the evening.

Cheers!