The economy of loyalties !

This is a glimpse from a wholesale market in Guntur. If some of you who have lived ever in small towns will know what this is. The bull here is called "Nandi Bull" in Maharashtra. I dont know what it is called elsewhere. This is a tradition where a guy accompanying the bull asks him questions (obviously those whose answers delight people ex: will the shopkeeper become a lakhpati) and then the bull who is trained to nod, keeps on nodding. And his master gets the moolah. Nice way to earn a living !

Two reasons why i started this post with this story. One, this brought back my childhood memories where i have spent about 14 years of my childhood in small town where this was a regular feature and the second is to tell you another interesting story.

I interact with a lot of distributors who are handling varied businesses and its interesting to know how exactly each business operates. A month back i was terminating a distributors services for my company (we parted amicably though) due to conflict in business objectives. There i learnt he had been recrutied for distribution of a dog food brand. Now listen to this interesting part.

This is an area near to where i live and it is one of the upmarket areas in the city. He (the distributor) was also handling a baby food brand. Now this area has around 6-7 big hospitals where maternity wards are present. So the sales of baby food has been very good (say x lac). Interestingly the dog food sales in the same area is 4 x lac. Look at the contrast, i am sure if you get down to more details the number of babies will be double than the number of dogs in the area. So people are spending more per dog than per baby (agreed that the consumers will be different, but still). I also agree that the rate of dog food per kg is much higher than baby food per kg and even the consumption will be high. But still the spending is more on dog food. i was astonished to hear this.

So next time you buy food for your baby (if you have one) and you buy food for your dog (if you have one) just look at how much you spend monthly, would be interesting. No disrespect to dogs as i myself love them and i think they deserve this and more for being a loyal friend to the humans.

Thats why the economy of loyalties :-)

till next time adios !

As always the contrarion view ! some numbers ...

Well i was compelled to express my anger so many times during the terrorist attacks that rocked MY city last week but i held my horses and was just observing the proceedings during and after the event ... Just to take a helicopter view .. my batch mates will understand this...:-)
I am still following the happenings and have decided to take a contrarion view, as always .. i know this annoys a lot of people but it throws out a lot of interesting perspectives for me ....
Well to start with the very issue of Mumbai and what its worth ... the city which contributes to 40% of taxes gets back nothing .. if you just put numbers on paper (this is my new hobby since i have moved to sales) you can see that it gets very little for what it is worth... with almost 23 million residents Mumbai is second largest city in the world... beat that !!! did you know this ???.. only Tokyo, Japan is larger than Mumbai... does the government know this .. i dont think so .... so does the city get the financial and infrastructural support that it needs .. its very easy to blame the BMC and the state government but the central government who is one big sucker of Mumbai's money gives little back to the city .. glaring examples are the city trains which are running at around 250% of their capacity utlilisation... So this is MY city for you ....
Coming back to the attacks and the aftermath well its been over a week now and life is as usual .. yes you can say that there is a movement which has started and all but its all bull shit !!!!
I just want to know that out of the 1 lakh people who were present at the rally at the Gateway of India last week how many voted in the last election .. how many of them know that who is the industries minister of maharashtra .. i bet, and anybody can challenge me on that, not 1000 or more will qualify.. so all the revolt is ok if you choose your own leader.. if you have not voted there is no freakin way in this whole god damn world you can even say anything about the leaders... The other day there was this debate on the TV on one of the over enthusiastic news channel where 4 people called "citizens of India" were screwing spokeperson of the incumbent party for VIP security .. one of the gentlemen was a guy who has started a new party called the Professional party of India.. he had his own agenda of spreading awareness about his new party's manifesto ... i bet he doesnt even have the clue what is happening in the government .. he was talking about road being blocked and stuff when politicians go around the city.. well, i have lived in 5 cities now and have been fortunate or unfortunate to have high profile politicians as my next door neighbours and believe me not once has my road been blocked .. i think that guy must be staying just outside Mantralaya then :P.... I am angry .. frustrated because these guys are just opportunistic , ask them which city was attacked before Mumbai and they will be like a deer standing in front of head lights of a car.... the problem is no one wants to get their hands dirty and this attitude is seen across, even in the corporate.... its an attitude problem.. everyone wants to be a part of India story but there are very few who are contributing to it, really !
My only point is show patriotism in the right way ... dont blame politicians, either get into politics and be the change or vote your own politicians...
The other side of this is India's so called succesfull democracy is actually digging its own grave .. with almost 730 registered pollitical parties it is nothing less than a mess... any Indian voter who wants to choose his leader cannot expect him to do anything because he is so confident that his electorate cannot make any difference because he carries no decision power in the parliament where alliances matter.... There is a dying need for the system to immediately move to a 3 -4 party system where at least there is a sure chance of your vote getting counted and making a difference... other than this, the money that is laundered due to this barrage of parties is phenomenal ... 90% of the donations that are made to political parties are tax free and about 95% of this money in not accounted ... as Kareena says in jab we met .. Just Imagine !!!!
How many people in this country would like to join the army or the intelligence department, forget that the Chandrayan mission recently did not have a single IITian working on it (the fact that i am an engineer and a MBA from IIT doesnt make me a less sinner) ... so what are we crying for ?? why are we so angry that the government doesnt do anything .. I think politics is a very good career option today for anybody, because you just have to represent a particular caste or religion or an ignored state and you will have minimum 10000 votes in your pocket .. the rest you can buy out and there you are you have earned yourself a seat in the premier legislative assembly.... for those whose caste / religion / state does not have so many people .. tough luck, try your hand at something else ...
So lets vote in the next election and then see who we choose to run our country and protect our city.. till then shut up and move on .. you dont have a choice ...