Half front page of the Pune Times - what a menace!

A letter that I wrote to the Editor of Times of India, Pune last week about the odd half front page of the Pune Times. Response awaited. Read on...

Dear Sir,

Over the last couple of years, advertisements seem to have literally invaded our lives, they’ve gotten into every tiny nook and corner of our homes, into everything that we do, into everything we hold dear. At first, we took no notice of how these marketing gimmicks were gradually creeping into our lives because, well, they didn’t really affect our daily routines. We got around the advertising, blocking them out of our minds like the ex-boyfriend of a beautiful beau.

But, I am sad to announce that advertising has gotten out of hand. The first clue I got on how intrusive modern advertising has become was while watching the recently concluded India – South Africa test series. If one took stock of the sheer number of minutes when an advertisement was on during the match vs. number of minutes of actual cricket, the statistics would be horrifying.

Even the most popular and esteemed news dailies, the Times of India, I am sorry to say, has succumbed to the wrath of advertisers. Pune Times, companion to thousands of Puneites during their morning ablutions, is the latest victim. What once used to be the ideal ‘potty partner’ has now become the most inconvenient piece of reading material one could hope to get. The half front page is a nightmare to handle, especially when one is precariously positioned on the WC!

So, Mr. Editor, my humble request is to return Pune Times to its old time glory of the full front page. I understand that advertising is a necessary evil, but let us not compromise on the customers’ comfort. After all, the customer is king, and deserves all the comfort on his beloved throne!

Regards,
Siddharth

Buy Now, Pay Later *

“Buy now, pay later! Pay me when you have the money, man! Relax!” About 10 years back, one would’ve loved to hear these words from any shopkeeper. Those were the good ole days of the tab system, or in the more popular Indian parlance, the ‘khaata’. Not everyone got that privilege, mind you! You had to earn it, you had to prove your credit worthiness, you had to be a regular at the store, be known, and more importantly, be liked. The first memories that come to mind when I think about the khaata system is the movie Mr. India, and the friendly squabbles between Calendar and Roopchand. Of course, unlike Roopchand, not all grocery store guys would go wicked on you owing their loyalty to Mogambo! Well, at least not if you’ve been clearing your tab regularly.

The present day avatar of Roopchand and his khaata system are the credit cards. But, do beware - these seemingly harmless, and often delightful, creatures are pure evil. They lure you in promising the world – you know, with the all-so-familiar “Buy now, pay later! Pay us back when you have the money! Relax!” philosophy. You get roped in just like a naïve little insect heading into the Venus fly trap, unassuming and very vulnerable. You calmly walk in to their wondrous world of low interest paybacks, pay-by-EMI schemes and my personal favourite, the minimum amount due. And once you’ve been reeled in, there’s no getting out. There’s no patch that can help you kick the credit card habit, no magical gum with approved credit card nicotine levels that can help you get out!

Just think about it. How have we, and our spending habits, changed in the last 5 years:
- You drive into the petrol pump (or ‘gas station’ for the US-returned folks who don’t seem to remember what a ‘petrol pump’ is) and go – full tank, fill ‘er up! No more do you fill fuel for Rs. 500 only – that’s passé!
- You walk into an Adidas store with the huge SALE sign in the window – 40% off?!?! Shoes only for Rs. 3500? Awesome! Charge it to my card, please!
- Partying at the Blue Frog in Bombay? Holy smokes! Rs. 600 for one cocktail?!?!?!?! You gotta be kidding me!!! Okkkkk…charge it to my card!

One fine day the credit card bill arrives, and you wonder! When did I spend that much? There must be a mistake! You start going through the transaction details one by one. Rs. 4,800 at Area 51 – oh yeah! I remember that. Next – Rs. 9,500 paid towards Jet Airways? Oh yeah, Tambi’s wedding!! Did that bozo have to get married this month?!?!?! So on and so forth. And then there’s always one or two entries in there that you just can’t figure out. Right? Am sure that happens to each one of us every single month. That Rs. 3,400 at JD Electronics or something of the sort? What??? What was that? What did I buy from JD Electronics? You wrack your brains for about an hour, ask everyone possible about what this amount could be. You rummage through whatever bills you have lying in your bedside drawer. Then, you just give up! You just go back to the bill, and look at the final amount to be paid. Rs. 20,000?!?!?! Wow!!!!

Then your attention is drawn to that tiny figure mentioned against the words ‘minimum amount due’ – the easiest escape route from that 20,000 bill, you think. I can pay off Rs. 500 easily – wow! I love this new Roopchand! Frankly, I think the government should make it compulsory for credit card companies to also print 2 horns at the sides of this ‘minimum amount due’. Something like the “Smoking Kills!” signs that cigarette brands have to put on their packaging. Anyway, you go ahead and pay the minimum amount due – that measly Rs. 500. For one month, you forget about the 20k bill that you’d raked up last month, and you step into the mall again. Obviously, there’s a horde of sales on again, and again, you do waiver a little ‘cos you have the Visa Power that Sachin Tendulkar so prudently recommended.

One month down the line, the next bill comes along. Again, that evil minimum amount due figure teases you ever so slightly. “Ah! I need to buy that home theatre system this month, let me just pay the minimum amount due just this once more”, you say to yourself. The home theatre is bought, and of course, you swipe that magical credit card again. Life is sweet! The story goes on for a few months, and BAM! your bill runs up beyond recognition. You wonder how the minimum amounts that you so diligently paid every month have not managed to drop that ‘total amount due’ column even marginally. Yeah, folks! You’ve been burned! The lavish interest rates coupled with the enormously complicated calculation mechanisms of these credit card companies leaves you absolutely bewildered. But, there’s nothing that you can do besides pay the damn thugs off and move on in life! At best, you can use your “I’ve been a loyal customer to the bank for over 5 years” card to knock off some tiny finance charges. Take the whole experience as one of life’s cruel lessons and be a little wiser having been through it.

So, folks, moral of the story: Buy now, pay later does come with a “Conditions Apply” in the fine print. And you all know that whenever you’ve heard those two words, somehow and in some way they have always come back to bite you in the butt! So, beware!

Prelude to the Cricket World Cup

Oh well, I don’t care…
And I don’t wanna see…
Cricket has lost its charm…
Now, its all about the ‘fee’!

Heard that one before?
Oh! You’re saying that too?
The World Cup’s coming,
And you don’t give a hoot???

That’s all gonna change…
Let the matches begin…
Or the opening ceremony even…
Where Bryan Adams’ gonna sing!

The fever’s picking up…
Its happening for sure…
People are walking in…
‘Cricket Crazy’ has no cure!

The practice matches are on…
Yet the stadiums are brimming…
Those cricket crazy fans…
In numbers they are appearing!

Cheering for their team…
Cheering for the men in blue,
Pray they ‘MAKE IT LARGE’ now,
Not like last time go askew!

Come on, Dhoni and team!
You’ve gotta win the cup again..
How long can we harp on ‘83?
Those replays have become a pain!

We need to win this one…
Its in our own backyard…
Go kick some Aussie butt…
Go the whole nine yards!

The Englishmen are in form…
The Lankans will put up a fight…
But our ‘Tendya’ lifting the cup…
I wanna witness that sight!!!

Lets go out there and win…
Go play like champions now…
No matter who the opposition…
Make their heads bow!!!

Of a creative bend of mind – really?!?!?!

Creativity – highly misused and equally misunderstood! Does creativity limit itself to the ‘artsy-partsy’ people? To the MF Hussains and the Woody Allens of the world? Does one become creative by holding his camera at a 45 degrees angle and taking a picture from in between Tia’s head and Rohan’s arm? Or do you get tagged creative if you wear ragged clothes and look like you haven’t had a bath in a fortnight or two? Who really qualifies as a creative person? I never was among the creative kind – of course creative back in the day was limited to the ‘artsy-partsy’. I couldn’t draw for shit – still can’t! Never really got into painting in school…every painting competition that I was forced into in school, all I could conjure up was that familiar image of symmetrical triangle mountains with a weird-ass river flowing in between them, rolling down to the end of the paper like Sridevi’s (yeah, I was in school that long back!!!) curves! The smiley-faced crescent of the Sun brimming through the triangles – nope, not once did I draw the entire Sun! Never! Maybe I was too lazy, or maybe my creative side preferred the twilight! Then there was that box-like house with the square windows, and grass that looked like someone had planted pitchforks in my garden! To be fair, I did add the odd new element every year – yes sir! One year there was a family playing on the pitchforks – and judging by the smiles on their faces, they didn’t seem to mind those razor sharp blades of grass one bit! But of course, now that I think about it, the family did look more like scarecrows and less like actual people! Maybe that’s why they didn’t mind the odd pitchfork up their butt! Another year, another drawing competition – the river got flying fish! Well, not so much flying, but more my inability to make them appear like they were swimming in the river! I wonder now who kept pushing me into those drawing competitions to being with –they must’ve been compulsory!

So, owing to the lack of prowess on the canvas (or in my case, the drawing book), I never did consider myself to be creative! And quite the opposite, there was my sis, who counted herself among the leading artistes of the world – from bharatnatyam to oil painting to even some music lessons if I remember correctly. Well, I don’t remember too much coming out of those classes though. Bharatnatyam just about taught her to shake her head from side-to-side without moving the rest of her body - which was a little freaky to be honest! Then the painting classes, the outcome of which were two 8”x10” canvas paintings of flowers – which might have contributed a little to that ‘F’ in Maths as well. Music classes – I don’t quite remember if she took classes or not, but I do remember her boasting about being able to play the ‘keyboard’ (that was the ‘in’ thing beck then) – some two or three old Bollywood numbers + a happy birthday to you! And yeah, she even won some contest in the Indian Express youth supplement where her article was published and she won some prize money as well! So, she was obviously the creative one among us siblings. And I, on the other hand, was the more subdued, introvert kid who was only good with the grades and cricket with the neighbourhood kids!

Somewhere down the line, the word ‘creative’ took on a new meaning for me, a new avatar if you will. I got out of school, and the burden of ‘extra-curricular activities’ was gone! No more general knowledge quiz, no more hand-writing competitions, no debates (not that I participated in one while I was in school), no more painting (thank God for small mercies)! Well, to be frank, college wasn’t too different either! The creative lot in college were the folks who participated in plays, in dances, or those who sang on stage during the college functions. Not that I didn’t try my hand at that – we decided to do a play in the first year of college! Now, I know I couldn’t act to save my life! Unfortunately, my classmates had other ideas. I landed the role of the Professor in our Hindi version of Mind Your Language – and for those of you who haven’t seen Mind Your Language, well, the Professor was the leading man (read most lines…which also equals most amount of acting)! How that bloody play tanked was LEGEND….wait for it….well, to be honest, nobody really waited for the rest of it!!! So, the obvious thought was “its confirmed, I don’t have a creative bone in my body!”. And I was fine with it too! I had survived without creativity for so long, I was sure I could go on without it!

Next stop – Trivandrum! I reach God’s own country for my first job, and out of nowhere, one fine day (out of sheer boredom), I decide to write! I knew my English wasn’t half bad! I sure had the genes for it considering my dad repertoire of published magazine articles. And being in the Brand Management team, I suppose it was expected off me to be creative! There I was, writing a blog in my spare time, writing official articles on behalf of the top bosses in my company, and even being roped in for my opinion by graphic designers! Was I getting there? Was creativity, the bitch that had eluded me for so long, finally coming to me? Maybe it was…maybe it was!!!

So, folks, coming back to the original question – who do you brand ‘creative’? Who qualifies? I guesssssss….everyone in some way or the other???