The land of ironies- India

I got one of those ‘Be proud to be an Indian’ mail today; yes, might be for the Nth time it has found its way in. I believe it’s something that goes around in circles and lands up in your lap as you are just another point in multiple overlapping social circles around you. The content is usually the same; we have 33% Indians in NASA, Microsoft, most number of doctors and engineers on the planet, the birth of zero and ayurved and the recent addition being to fact that we sent an actual probe to Mars at a cost less than a Hollywood movie about events in space. Not that I have an issue with such mails, but considering at times information in two mails actually conflicts, I often am at loss to understand who these mails are actually meant for.

Yes I can brag about what I read in the newspaper or a book and be the king amongst friends until they get the same mail, but when people around me do read, this mail has actually no value. But then it occurred to me that this mail was designed to turn me into Akshay Kumar from Namaste London and give that mega stats studded response to someone from the west who feels India is a land of snake charmers and tantriks. Yes, we love to believe that the west has just forgotten to update their knowledge about India and still love to live life in the 18^th Century. But coming to think of it, India has so many ironies woven in itself that I wonder why any foreigner should not believe in the folklore. So let’s just start here with what I have seen and experienced in India which kind of build this mythical idea of India.

I had a German visitor who had come down to India for his first visit and even though a well- traveled person otherwise, he had been told to look out for the elephant on the road. It took me two days to tell him things like; you landed on a world class airport, we moving around in cars that are much the same in his hometown in Germany and the only reason you are here is because we are buying the same high end automation systems in India, why should we have elephant in cities? On day 3- I was welcomed to a 15 minute video and equal number of photographs of an elephant walking on Worli sea face the same morning. By the end of the day, I was left with a feeling of being egged into submission that he was right.

But this is just one of the things that has got well entrenched in the minds of people that they just refuse to look further. Like a friend of mine went to Italy on a holiday and found the levitating sadhu outside a museum in Florence. Attractions in India for the less informed is yoga, Kamasutra and finding peace with some vague baba or spiritual guru who talks in a language they don’t understand; but who also gives an English translation. The more informed are coming to India for its English educated and well trained work force, its highly attractive and high spending consumer segment and its dynamic youth population. It is quite stunning that we invite large corporations to come into India and invest in our technological knowledge and the first return gift or memento for the visitor is chosen from Fabindia or Bombay Store as we talk about our rich handicrafts.

Now that’s about some ironies that build the face of India for people abroad. But ironies in India exist on practically every level and every product or service that exists in this country. Take for instance we have a toothpaste with salt and a toothbrush with charcoal bristles- I guess if that was what was needed right from the onset to keep my teeth healthy, people in India had been using salt and charcoal for cleaning their teeth since ages. Lemon and orange beverages mostly have a line saying- Contains no fruit juice, contains added flavour- apparently the dish-washing liquid I clean the glass with has real lemons. .  The flower decorations in almost every house are plastic and the air is carrying the floral scent emerging from room fresheners, reed diffusers and scented oils.

There are a lot of other ironies I am actually curious about. Like why do I get all the unsolicited calls from banks for credit cards; but when I have something to do with my own bank account or credit card, I usually have to either be on hold or go through the first minute on IVR menu to get my job done. For some reason the pizza delivery guy is more inclined to make space for himself to surge ahead in traffic while an ambulance driver keeps either honking or fighting for space. Also if you are waiting on a signal, the guy in the first lane right at the front is the most lazy to start off on the green- the 7-8^th car is the first to honk tough.  For a city like Mumbai, it is home to the most expensive real estate in the country along with the largest slum area having a GDP at par with some African nations.

As Indians we may take the pains to scrub our tongues clean, but the rest of social hygiene is out of the window when we colourfully decorate walls. Homes are spic and span; but the filth rests supremely on the courtyards and around buildings. It is actually both surprising and disappointing. A Hindi movie named Shanghai had an interesting line about India- ‘…sone ki chidiya; dengue- malaria, ghar bhi hai, gobar bhi hai….’ I guess that sums up my sentiments about ironies for now.  

A for Apple

It is possibly the very first letter to object association one might learn as a toddler. Once a part of your life, it rarely happens to leave you. It keeps coming back as a part of a fruit plate or a pie on your table, an appletini or just a glass of juice, Adam’s apple and also the apple that got Newton to propose the concept of gravity and possibly change the way the world then was. I guess the world today has another apple to add to the list.

Yesterday was the launch of Apple iPhone 6 and for some reason it was an event which was the talk of the town. Business and news channels were following it, alerts were being circulated on news apps and almost every newsprint had it as a front page news the next morning. So Apple launches a much awaited iPhone 6 with two variants and announced Apple watch to hit the markets in 2015. To me, it seems like Apple and Samsung are gonna fight a technology supremacy war while the Xiaomi and Micromax take over the world.

Ask me, I’m not excited as the first reviews I read do not promise anything earth shattering. Experts are actually critical of post-Jobs Apple entering the large screen market; something Jobs was vocally against. Also since I’m not so much an Apple or iPhone freak (my only Apple asset to date is an iPod). If I compare the specs, Samsung seems much more in control. But for the world Apple definitely seems to strike a chord with its apparent brand equity. As an Indian stand-up Apoorv Gupta had in his act; ‘…for some the excitement of an iPhone launch is no less than the birth of a younger sibling in the family…’

Apple since its inception has been associated with innovation and more often than not, it has stuck to its roots. Apple and Microsoft started a few years apart as assemblers of computer hardware. All thought out the 80’s, Apple was holding out on its own as the IBM-Microsoft combine rolled on. But once the home PC market was established in the early 90’s, Microsoft with Windows virtually took over the whole world by storm and entered almost every household. Apple on the other hand was a niche for high end graphics and processing. The association of Steve Jobs with George Lucas and Pixar is well documented.  The Mac’s were usually considered a richly engineered and expensive computing experience.

The complete excitement around the brand I believe started off with the iPod. Apple surged ahead in the market with a product which had a far refined under interface compared to the rest- which were more of USB devices with playback capabilities. The fact that you could create a playlist, a touch pad to change tracks or control volume made the iPod desirable even though no FM radio, the high cost and the fact that you needed iTunes to transfer music or make playlists. I believe this instilled the confidence that Apple rides on as they went ahead with the iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhones.  If the product is ground breaking- people will buy.

I’m really not sure if Apple iPhone 6 and the Apple watch will be a resounding success; I really don’t see superiority in terms of technical specs as yet. I also know of people who have had massive software related problems with their iPhone 5 models. Apple has had its fair share of product failures- the PDA called Newton is one I recall having seen. But there is one thing that no one has so far complaint; it is the quality of the product and its design features. This is not just limited to the phones from Apple but is true universally for all the products apple has in the market.

If Apple as a brand needs to be defined, it would quite simply be a benchmark. Pick an area of your choice and in every category that Apple is present, it is considered a gold standard. And this is not limited just to products: it expands across every possible contact point with its customers. Apple products in a retail space have a presence unlike any other. Its dealer outlets bear an overwhelming use of white which actually makes its products appear in all the grandeur. The jewel case packaging, white accessories, carry cases- just about everything distinguishes itself from the rest and is more often than not copied to a fair extent.

An area where I get a lot of requests is how Apple communicates. Again, this also has the use of white to a high extent with a play between black & white being dominant. The font that Apple uses is also a well-rounded and without serifs type face, which definitely has a fun but not frivolous appeal. It is not funny the number of times clients show us an Apple ad or a product brochure and say, “I want something like this… simple, clean and yet creative”.

To sum it all, we may or may not actually purchase an Apple product, but they have in many ways set new standards. It likes to maintain its place of exclusivity by comparatively higher pricing- but definitely make an impact on desirability. It is a statement through its design and specification. The fact will always remain- Apple will always be ‘The Apple’ of the eye.  

Have I made it BIG???

Since the time I took reading as a hobby (not too long ago), amongst the first novels I read was the Godfather. The impressionable mind was exposed to a like that comes in at the start of the book reading ‘Behind every successful fortune, there is a crime’. Though this line was talking how the Italian Mafia was formed when a good man takes to the gun in times of depression, it had no real impact on how I see things around me.

In the years that followed, I read the success stories of people who made it big in business in India or the world over. Some were pure genius in terms of talent and ideas while some exploited the loopholes in the system and made it big. Either ways, the journey from Zero to Hero in every case was fascinating. Not surprising then that a Branson losing virginity, the yarn spinning out from the polyester prince Dhirubhai or the great story of Indian retail from Biyani were of great interest.

It was not until very recent when I read two articles that got me thinking about what are successful fortunes made up of? I read two articles in Forbes; one on business tips from College dropouts and on Kishore Biyani and his Big Future Group Sale!!! Most of the success stories had people who rose to success in a matter of a decade or two; very few like Dell or Biyani who have risen in sectors where technology or software was not the deciding factor. But somehow, most of them have always been on the wrong side of the law at some point for monopoly, tax evasion, financial irregularities or just simply using their money might to kill off competition.

Amongst college dropouts; some like Michael Dell were in my opinion brilliant in understanding market dynamics. Dell was an assembler of PCs in a market dominated by branded computers. I’m not completely sure if anyone in India with a market dominated by assemblers could have succeeded in the same way; but his Just-in-time inventory concept was definitely path breaking. But when the article spoke of Zuckerberg or Bill Gates- somehow I always seem to find that at some stage, they did violate laws to grow. Both I say are genius as computer programmers. But the very origination of facebook began with the hacking of personal data off the college server for images. Microsoft, with its entire GUI succeeded due to a water tight monopoly with Intel and bundling of IE.

Sir Richard Branson is one college dropout I admire as I see his success coming from simple joys of life. I mean you have people like you who hang around reading about the Beatles and listening to records; but it took a Branson to write a youth journal or get into the records sale business. But the rise of Virgin was its music via mail order own records label, something which did see Branson step on the wrong side of the law. It was a temptation too strong to make more money by smuggling records from countries where the tax was low and selling them in UK.

Though Dhirubhai Ambani built Reliance Industries from zilch, somehow from his day in Aden, he was flirting with the law by smelting coins for silver, trading inside information on government policies or evading tax by importing machinery as spares. In fact chopping down competition by delays in port clearance to an extent where the machinery rots in the hold was actually the dark side of the rise. Biyani built the retail empire which has made the National holidays of 15th August and 26th January the days sending cash registers into a fit, the fact that the group had to sell Pantaloons (the mother brand) to offset debt is a reflection of how the vendors under the retail giant were being squeezed.

On a day I sit back and ask myself, ‘Have it made it big?’(no whiskey endorsed here), all I say is not having to depend on anything against the law, being honest and not squeezing anyone with the weight of the brands I have worked with is possibly how much I have invested towards enriching my life in the Biggest possible way.