Yes, the World.

I will not be helpless

I’m trembling with rage.

I’ve just finished watching ‘No country for women’ which my friend Aparna shared with me on twitter. If you haven’t watched it yet, I suggest that you do. Right now.

I can give you a long list of reasons why Indian men behave this way. I can tell you that it will take a few generations to change. I won’t explain why you should try to change it, but if you’ve seen the video it’ll be hard for you to not try.

Often we see something that disturbs us and we hit a few likes or share it a few times. Hoping desperately that this will bring the change we want to see in our world. It works some times. But this time it will not. And I can say that with absolute certainty. India will not change any time soon. Its men will not stop treating a woman like a walking sex toy. Women will still be raped. Molested. Video-taped. Silenced. But, if you’ve watched this video, you’ll know you have to try. Now.

Here are three things I’m going to do, starting right now. Join me if you like.

1. I won’t let a *single* man get away with making me feel like a walking sex toy

Every man you let go of, gets more confident the second time.

If a stare is making you uncomfortable. Yell. He may not stop. Yell harder.

Be safe. But don’t be scared.

Be aware of your surroundings. But not of the so-called ‘weak’ness of your sex

2. I will tell  men, who joke distastefully about women, to shut the fuck up

I realize that I sound like a kill-joy, but *stop* the rape jokes.

Stop that colleague in office who talks about how awesome it would be to have many ‘hot women’ in the team. We are not your evening entertainment. We are not chai pakoras.

Tell him to respect women or shut the fuck up.

I’m guilty for not always asking men to stop joking about things that are degrading to women. It gets harder in a professional environment where relationships need to be maintained.

But fuck that. Starting monday, if you try that around me, you’re getting an earful.

The words you use. The jokes you crack. They add up. And right now they’re stacked pretty high against women.

3. I won’t let my work disrespect women

There aren’t enough women in our offices. But the ones that are there need to stand up and be counted.

Don’t let such ads, films, videos be made. Not on your watch.

The decision may not be in your control. But voicing your opinion in those boardrooms is. You are not half as helpless as 90% of Indian women. Use your MBA and your big fancy designation. Use it!

I for one, will not watch helplessly. You can decide for yourself, but I desperately hope you choose action over practiced silence.

Update: No Country for Women has a facebook page you can join here

in fond memory of yahoo chat

There was a time when yahoo chat rooms were ‘in’. a/s/l was the buzzword way before RT even existed.

The yahoo chatrooms allowed you to pretty much pick any topic of your interest and join in conversation with a bunch of people that you did not need to know. There was true exchange of ideas without having to break ice or know about the other person. Sure the occasional ASLs were exchanged and people took conversation off the group into the personal domain. But it really was the coolest thing ever. Don’t have friends that listen to western classical? Join the chat room for it and have intelligent and rewarding conversations with strangers from all over the world.

Twitter started out that way too. You could follow anyone you found interesting, without having to say hello or ask about his dog. You could follow his thoughts and the links he shared. Scott Frogg and Shashi Tharoor was suddenly within reach. You could shout out to them and engage in interesting conversation.

But somewhere along the way with @replies, people turned it into personal networks and group chat with many followers finding themselves in the middle of conversations that are useless to them. Is twitter now perhaps a FacebookLite.

With the demise of the yahoo chat room, where does today’s surfer go for interesting conversations without having to engage personally? Omegle?

So what’s the trend today?

Trends are like snitches in our world of advertising. They’re tough to spot and tougher to catch. But they sure help you win the game.

There are plenty of websites that you can subscribe to that send you latest trends from across the globe. (trendspotting trendhunter trendrr) There are plenty of advertising pundits too who spew trends at the speed of light.

I write about this today because I see that ‘trends’ and ‘insights’ are often abused. There is almost an angry rush to catch the trend or an insight for every piece of communication we do. And judging by the number of ads released in the market every day, our planners must be spewing insights by the hour

So I pose a question now – are trends simply observations of existing advertising?

Sample this:

Trend: ‘people are exploring their roots and being Indian is now cool’

Support: This trend could come from the observation that sanskrit language insititutes are seeing a rise in registrations, comparable to alliance francaise.

Now I can live with that. I can.

But I don’t see how trend-specialists can analyze existing advertising and pick trends from there.

Trend by trend-spewing ad-guru: ‘people are exploring their roots and being Indian is now cool’

Support by trend-spewing ad-guru: Fundamint talks about ‘being desi’.

You can’t observe an ad for fundamint and announce that being desi is a trend!

Why not? Because someone’s already thought of it and made an ad on it. Clearly you’re not spotting a trend then. You’re simply picking a trend in advertising. You’re no guru, I should think. Anyone can comment on the great work others do, doesn’t make you great strategist. Makes you a reporter.

Should a trend not come from observations made of the world which don’t include our own projection of it (advertising)? Or should we include advertising themes as part of social culture? But then it’s one big loop of a mess no?

Imitation brands

Prenu coughed just like me.

She also walked like me.

Ate the things I liked and liked the people I liked too.

She was the tiniest kiddo in my neighbourhood and I suppose she wanted to be me. Afterall I was clearly the eldest person around and therefore cooler I suppose (or just nicer, I never was cool)

She observed me all the time (it was quite freaky if you ask me).

Vicks’ Prenu

There’s a brand in the market that’s pretty much Vicks’ Prenu. It looks just liek Vicks form a distance, though it isn’t a counterfeit. The packaging, the choice of colours, it all gives you the unblocked feeling of being around Vicks. And mind you, it’s worked wonders for them. From a no-brand to an almost-know-brand, the team’s convinced the brand’s going places.

So when someone suggests a new design and look, it’s only natural for the management to balk at them. After all, who in their right mind would change something that’s doing well.

But ofcourse there’s something wrong with that thinking (else I wouldn’t be writing a post about it, now would i)

Vicks’ Prenu is a small brand today. It managed huge gains by virtue of imitation. But sadly it’ll always remain an imitation. A copy. A me-too. A wannabe.

It’ll grow. A lot. And that’ll be great. But then it’ll stop. Like really.

Brand ambition

Imitation doesn’t work for ambitious brands. The ones who want to kick the leader off his pedestal. It works great for those who wants a piece of the market-pie, albeit a small one.

At some point of time when you’re nearing the market leader, when you’re available at the same shelves, you’re advertising in the same expensive papers and TV channels… someone’s bound to notice that you’re a rip-off. And really, why’d I buy a me-too when I can get the real thing?

But then, how do you convince a client that what’s been working for him these past years won’t work any more…

the sky is falling

Doomsayers are plenty and very few bother to dispel myths and fears.

With all the major news channel and newspapers crying about the end of the earth because of the latest news on experiments with the LHC, people online are really trying hard to find out the truth.

Most, of course are googling out of curiosity, but considering the noise the media is making, I’m sure plenty turn to the Google Gods to provide them with some peace of mind.

Here are the top trends on google (last evening’s) for people searching for the ‘end of the earth’ type scenarios. Quite amusing

Interestingly the US and UK searches don’t reflect any such noticeable trends.

Of course it is possible that the US govt is keeping the doomsayers quiet since they don’t want panic. And we in India cannot keep a secret and are yelling it off any mic we can get our hands on

So before the world ends and all that jazz, I thank you for reading.

Now go on. Add yourselves to the list of people googling for the end of the earth. These two links might help
1. survive 2012
2. LHC machine

you have been ‘cool che-ed’

To,

the cool people in their cool world

Am I the only one who hasn’t received her lingo upgrade, because I’m way behind!

I still get taken aback when people go around cool-che-ing each other in meetings, at coffee-shops etc.

Cool-che literally means ‘cool hai’ which means ‘it’s cool’ (i think)

There are just way too many people cool che-ing each other these days.

Of course this could be because

1. They are gujaratis
2. They want to be gujaratis
3. Cool was too uncool, so you had to add some zing.. err che
4. Che Guevera worship?
5. Going back to my roots (read desi-fied lingo)

My guess is

1. Cool has really been over-used. And I think closing a conversation with just the word ‘cool’ seemed incomplete. People no longer bother to say ‘hey that’s cool’ or ‘hey that’s okay’. They just shorten it to ‘cool’.
2. So then how does one complete their expression of this apparent coolness. You add a che.
3. It makes it fun… only funner (American teen hang-over)
4. Cool Che means you’re with it in the Indian way (American cool is no longer cool. Thank you Mr Bush)
5. Also it takes away the apparent seriousness of a conversation. You can say ‘cool’ very seriously in agreement with whatever has been decided at a major meeting. But I bet you can’t say cool che without minus-ing the serious-quotient.

a lil low on the cool quotient,

Sonal Jhuj

the piracy they earned

There was a time when people appreciated artists and what they stood for. Their passion was what got them their fans.

Of course that time gave way to Rakhi Sawant. Angel-winged strippers took over music and before you knew it you had videos selling the music. They got their fans too but somewhere down the line the respect for good music and a good artist reached an all time low.

I know that piracy sucks and all that. But I think once people realized that the artists was in it just for the money, they started to rip music without guilt.

Off late I notice a turn of events. Though piracy continues unabated, I find that some people ready to purchase original music/films simply out of respect for the artist who created it.

A friend refused to get a pirated version of ‘Aamir’ because everyone said it was a good movie and they’d released the DVD, ‘so then why screw someone when they’ve done a good job’.

I’ve heard a lot about Rabbi’s new album and really want to listen to it.

Rabbi’s lyrics are moving. And in today’s day and age if someone can sing about things the way he does, then I want to buy that damned original CD to show my support for him and his music.

I think it’s pretty cool if you buy an original just because you believe that the person’s work is worth supporting. In the age of information sharing and easy downloads, it says a lot about an artist’s worth.

While I agree piracy sucks, I think some artists totally deserve it (not you Rabbi. not you)