Aisle placement

People who shop regularly in shopping malls (which means all of you!) already know that product placement on aisles is a science, and a lot of thought is given to – which product goes where.

Now without getting into the details – products at your eye level are generally paid to be placed there by the manufacturer or for selling them off faster. On the other hand, staples (things that you would buy irrespective of where they are placed – salt, sugar, medicines … ) are placed on lower or higher aisles. Also same products with different expiry dates are kept in the FIFO way so that people pick up the older items before they go for the newer ones (that are kept at hard to reach places!).

The problem with all these intelligent placement algorithms is – even morons like me know about them. So naturally, when we go shopping, we try to game the system. I always reach out for the hard to reach places to search for “fresh” stuff. The problem for the shopping malls though is – everyone does that. The old stuff just becomes older and everyone picks up the fresh stock from behind. Even after discounting products to sell off the older stuff, people just take the discount on the newer items off the aisle!

So the owner of the grocery mall that I go to now has adopted a random placement policy. Even if you reach for the most difficult corner, you can’t be sure that you will get fresh stuff there. First few weeks, people unknowingly picked up older stock by reaching for the back. But these days, we (the shoppers) have become smarter. We actually go through the pains of handling all the items, checking their expiry dates and then picking up the freshest ones. Not only this makes the aisles all crowded (with each one of us spending a longer time searching!), but it also now has made the entire mall a messy place (with people keeping the items here and there to just search for the best!). This also has led to a lot of items getting damaged. I pity the owner, by trying to game the shoppers, that person ended up damaging goods and taking higher losses!

Radio Addiction

These days I religiously listen to the local FM radio stations at least for 2 hours everyday. An hour on my commute to office and an hour back. Now people who drive through traffic everyday know that radio is a welcome distraction. For everybody’s sake, these are the channels that I get out here in Navi Mumbai:

1. 91.1 MHz Radio City
2. 92.7 MHz Big FM
3. 93.5 MHz Red FM
4. 94.3 MHz Radio One
5. 98.3 MHz Radio Mirchi
6. 100.7 MHz AIR Gold FM
7. 104.0 MHz Fever
8. 104.8 MHz Oye!
9. 107.1 MHz FM Rainbow

Now my general observation is – in a half an hour interval a normal station plays close to 4 songs. The rest of the time I am made to listen to advertisements. And then there is always the over enthusiastic and chirpy RJ who is trying to pep me up by talking about all the amazing stuff that is out there. And then there are the self proclaimed citizen journalists or moral police who have something to complain about our city. Finally the RJ would ask you to call in and voice your opinion. Then I get to listen to a few disgruntled people who think that the entire system is out to get them ( I ain’t complaining, yeah but I don’t really enjoy that part). .

Of the 4 songs that I listen to in that half hour interval, the probability of me actually liking more than 2 of them is pretty low. Even if I switch the channels, I get to listen to the same routine over and over again across all the channels. Many a times, I switch over and over and just listen to advertisements everywhere during my entire commute.

Now the thing that really interests me is – even though I know that I ain’t gonna get to listen to some good music, I still tune in to the radio absolutely everyday! If I pop in a portable music player, I know for sure which songs its gonna have, and I know for sure that I can put in only the songs that I like, for my commute.

And this is where the internet comes to my rescue. Apparently, we all like unexpected surprises. Apparently, in a study conducted on monkeys, it was observed that the dopamine levels in their brains went up, each time they got an unexpected surprise (the key is “unexpected” here). So in an hour, even if I get to listen to 1 song that I like, the dopamine levels in my brain go up. And just to get that sudden surge of dopamine in my brain because of that unexpected song I hear, I listen to this long torture every single day. Tch, tch, the things we do for pleasure!

Administrative efficiency

I belong to a generation of drivers in India when the driving licenses were written by hand and looked like a small book. After 12 years of driving around while carrying it in my pocket and through sweat, rain, mud and other elements of nature, it was tattered beyond recognition. So I decided to upgrade myself to the latest state-of-the-art Smart-card based driving license that the state government introduced a few years ago.

Like I have already mentioned before, going to government offices in India is generally considered a nightmare. So we got agents everywhere (even outside the offices itself!) that promise to make your life easy. Most of them reign on FUD and tell you that its almost impossible to do any activity in a Government office without paying a bribe or spending insane amounts of time and several visits. So the naturally gullible citizen decides to pay the agent upfront to get her work done.

Now the brave soul I am, I have been experiencing India (Mumbai) in its element for a while now. So I decided, I take time off my priceless routine and actually experience how bad this license change procedure actually is.

The RTO in Vashi is situated inside the APMC (Sec-19) (not welcoming to begin with). I chose Tuesday morning as a strategic time to visit. Saturdays are nightmare to go to Government offices. There is a spill over crowd from the weekend that keeps Mondays busy. So generally Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are the best times to go.

When I reached the office, I was pleasantly surprised to see hardly any crowd. I approached an officer who helpfully guided me through the procedure. This is very unlike public perception that Government officials are rude. Well, to be fair, he was not all smiling and happy – but then I am not expecting that level of pretentious service from them. He even went through the pains of fixing my form for me (wherever I had left the simple form empty!).

He asked me to then go to the payment counter. I was assuming, I would be asked to pay more than the receipt (corruption for morons). But they charged me 250 rupees and provided me with a receipt for the same! That too with no complaints for not providing exact change (its a sin to carry higher value notes).

Then, I was redirected to a room where my photo, thumb print and signature were taken. There too the lady official was sweet enough to warn me in advance “Sir, your photo will be taken now”. Most places where my ID photos are taken, I am caught unawares so my photo makes me look like a convict. Here, I could smile like an ape with a banana in his hand (well that part is my fault not theirs). She also asked me to verify that my signature made sense (cause you have to write on a touch-sensitive electronic pad!). Then she told me that the driving license would be delivered to my home address and I could go home now!

Total time in RTO office = 20 minutes. Total time spent by me in filling the form = half of it. I am mighty impressed by the way our RTO works. I am sad to see an article in DNA India that they did not have a similar experience in Andheri RTO.

Exactly 3 days later, I got my shiny new license in my mail delivered to my doorstep. Just for kicks, I asked a local agent how much would he charge me to get my license renewed. He said 1000 rupees. That's 4 times the amount that the RTO actually charges, and that too for doing nothing special!

Welcome to the new India. Like I said before, India at grassroots is not as corrupt as it is at the higher levels in the administration.

Brahmakamal

Biology was never my subject of choice in school. Except for the birds and the bees part of it, I found everything else fairly boring. Last week however, I had the chance to do some research on a flower, so I thought I share with you some of my new found knowledge.

In India there is a flower popularly known as the “Brahma-Kamal”  which literally translated would stand for Brahma (the Hindu God of creation) Lotus the flower(And for a moment if you visualized Brahma whizzing around in a Lotus (car), don’t worry, you are not alone!). Now my knowledge of Brahma’s relation to the lotus is limited to the fact that he is supposed to be sitting in a lotus that grew out of Vishnu’s (the Hindu God of preservation) navel. Anyway, this flower is supposed to bring good luck. It blooms rarely and it blooms and wilts over one night. My mom has had the flowering plant potted for close to 5 years now and we never had a chance to see it bloom, till last week.

After seeing a bud, we were obviously excited, and we were all prepared for the flower to bloom. I took out my camera only to realize that it was no longer working. Luckily I could borrow a camera (Sony DSC-H10) from a friend of mine and all the pictures that I took are thanks to him. The funny part is – his camera was so sophisticated that however hard I tried, the flash kept whitewashing my entire image and I couldn’t take a picture at all. Finally I came up with this stupid idea that I would light the flower using an ordinary white-light based emergency lamp and then take pictures with the flash off. The pictures have been put here for your viewing pleasure.

Now for some trivia. Being the wanna-be geek I am, I obviously did some googling around before posting this blog. Apparently, the flower that is actually termed the “Brahmakamal” is Saussurea obvallata and is found in the Himalayas. It looks like the one shown below:

The flower that grew in our house was actually  a Epiphyllum oxypetalum (also known as Dutchman’s pipe, Night queen or Nishigandhi). It is a type of cactus (a variety of nightblooming Cereus). And there goes away all my luck! How I wish I hadn’t googled and remained happy with the fact that there was indeed good luck blooming in our house!

Sweaty encounter

Bumped into some more celebrities this weekend. However since I have already finished my quota of celebrity spotting on this blog, I think I will let you know a retro celebrity incident that happened to me a long while ago.

For the few of you who do not know, I am quite a pseudo-adventure junkie. By pseudo I mean, I love adventure, but I am such a chicken that I do things that I know are statistically safe. So I don’t do death defying stunts, but I like things like sitting on a roller coaster and shouting away to glory.

Reverse Bungee

Singapore (at that time) just had 2 adventurous things to do for the roller coaster aficionado – a Reverse Bungee and an Extreme swing. Being a student also entitled me to a student discount. That's the reason I did that quite a few times (yeah call me a cheapskate). One of the times while I was standing in a queue and was just about to sit on the Reverse Bungee, a bunch of burly guys came out of no where, pushed me aside and let through a petit looking guy who at that time seemed a bit weird to me. I was annoyed obviously (after having waited in anticipation and building up all the excitement it was obviously disheartening). Also Singaporeans are generally so disciplined  that even if in the middle of a busy mall you start walking behind a random person, everyone around you will all of a sudden start following you two in a single file line (very much unlike my Mumbai).

But when the guy got onto the ride, I suddenly noticed a lot of 16 something girls shouting out to him. That's the time I realized the entire place behind me was packed with at least 100 odd girls who were screaming at the top of their voice some name that I could not decipher. I figured he must be some sort of a rock star musician from a boy band. I meekly waited for him to finish his ride.

Now people who have sat on a roller coaster know that once the ride starts, you involuntarily start shrieking and shouting. I could see his face, he was shit scared, but still he had to put up a brave face for all his pretty fans. I can go all “Mom I wanna pee, I wanna pee” on a roller coaster and no one would even bother to see who is saying that.

Anyways after the ride was over and he was done waving to his fans and blowing kisses he walked down to me and actually said, “Thanks bud” and shook my hand. Now, I still don’t have a clue who he was, but that was the first time in my life that 100 odd gals looked at me (well yeah they were disappointed why they weren’t lucky enough to get to shake hands with this guy!). Anyways, his hands were sweaty, so I just smiled and casually wiped my hands on my friend’s shirt while he was not looking.

I will always wonder, which celebrity I actually shook sweaty hands with!

The gloved threat

The Central Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006 (India) has now mandated that all people handling food will have to wear aprons and gloves. If someone is found violating the rule, they would be fined up to Rs. 100,000 (close to $2500).

The interesting part though is – there is no mandate on how often should the gloves be changed (or if they have to be changed at all!). I know of a food vendor (who incidentally serves my lunch everyday) who dons a plastic glove early in the morning and reuses the same glove the entire day (or rather I doubt he has ever even bothered to buy a new one). Rather than only handling food (which I believe is the intent of the glove), he handles everything and anything from tables, chairs, pens, plates, spoons and worst – currency notes! Now, research has proved several times that currency notes are carriers of all kinds of disease causing bacteria.

If this is not enough, I have seen him scratch and do all sorts of funny stuff with his gloved hand. We believe that putting oil in our hair nourishes them. This vendor religiously oils his hair everyday. Having done so (and Mumbai being a warm and humid city) his scalp too itches at times. This sensation is relieved by him by gently scratching with his gloved hand.

Sometimes I wonder, if he had directly used his bare hands, I am sure he might have washed them once a while and kept them cleaner than the way he treats his plastic gloves. I have pointed out to him on several occasions that he shouldn’t be handling money and food with the same hand. But he gives me that typical Indian look that says “Dude, are you from a foreign country? This is as hygienic that I can be!” (For the Bambaiya’s he literally means – “Khane ka to kha, nahi to nikal patli gali se”).

Sigh, another well intentioned policy, that is bound to be misused again.

The pink umbrella

I bought a state-of-the-art Japanese umbrella (or that’s what the vendor claimed to charge me a premium) in Singapore last year. It is big. So big that I can accommodate an entire cricket team along with the 2 umpires under it and we still can have a celebration. And then it can be folded down to put into my back-pocket when I am carrying it around. Its super cool so much so that I could use it as a pick-up line – “Do you wanna see my umbrella?”

Anyway, I bought this magic wand to Mumbai. I have been using it on and off in light rain. The first time I took it out in Mumbai torrential rains (we term it downpour, and it literally is – Mumbai rains are like someone in the sky turning a huge bucket of water all on your head at once!), that was the last time it ever worked. Now it is all broken and if I try to open it, the umbrella drapes around me like a burka.

Rains are expected to subside by the mid of next month. So I am not thinking of doing a capital investment in a umbrella now. I thought I borrow my mom’s umbrella. Now the problem with her umbrella is – it is small (I can hardly fit my stomach inside it) and it is pink. Pink as in bright baby pink. Now with the "I don’t care attitude" that I have lately developed, I thought it was okay to carry a pink umbrella and go to the crowded city (and for added effect, I was also singing Umbrella by Rihanna).

I was wrong. Absolutely everybody on the street turned around to look at me. I think the sight of a big fat guy with a pink umbrella didn’t gel well with the rest of the crowd, and I kinda stood out. My macho image suddenly got a huge beating. So to salvage the rest of my pride, I closed the umbrella and walked in the pouring rain. I held it in my hand as if I was carrying someone else’s umbrella. The pains a guy has to go through! Tch tch. Now I have decided to invest in a guy-umbrella, even if its for a day!

New species

Lately, I have been noticing a new species on Mumbai roads. The species resembles the females of the human race but are characterized by a mobile communication device either stuck directly  or wirelessly to their ear. They can be seen walking randomly, aimlessly and completely oblivious of their surroundings.

The species walks and talks oblivious of the fact that it is right in the middle of a busy traffic junction, in the middle of a busy street, or in a shopping mall blocking everybody’s way. For this species, everything around them is a nice quite garden with flowers, birds and bees for their company.

Now assuming that most long duration calls happen between members of the opposite sex, I always wonder, why don't I see equal number of men on the roads walking dreamily with their mobile phones to their ears? This thing has been bothering me for a while. And here is what I have concluded.

The sex ratio in Mumbai is amongst the lowest in India (838 girls per 1000 guys). That means there are a lot of suitors per eligible girl in Mumbai. Being the nice girls they are, every guy who approaches them is given an equal opportunity to prove his worth. So every gal has to entertain so many phone calls in a day and patiently listen to every suitor as he tries to prove his superiority over the other guy.

Considering that its a competition, guys sit in a calm, secure place away from all distractions and call up the gals. The gals on the other hand have to handle so many calls (as they are nice) that they cant sit at a place and take the call. That's why I see many of them walking around dreamily.

So next time when you are driving or walking in a public area, please do not lose your patience, they are just doing good to the males of our species.

Doggie days

India is a very dog friendly country. Especially in Mumbai these days if you are a dog, we take care of your food shelter and clothing (Hmm, may be not clothing – cause I didn’t come across a dog who was shy for being naked).

Food – We throw our garbage on the road. Even if we put it in the municipality provided dustbins, we make sure that we keep the lids open. So all the dogs can get in and eat at their will. Then we have dog lovers who on their morning walk serve left overs from yesterday to all the dogs that they meet on their way.

Shelter – we provide our crazily parked cars. Ever car has a dog sleeping under it. So each time before we get into a car we bend down and request the dog for permission to take away its shelter. Then of course we have all these covered sheds built here and there especially for all our doggy neighbours to sleep. Also in the nights, human beings are not allowed to walk on the streets. Doggies fiercely guard their shelters in the night (may be for little doggies to sleep – or may be they do not like humans invading their sense of privacy). After all, how many of us would like to have dogs in our bedrooms when we get all intimate?

But, all this food and shelter has made the rest of our roads (the ones left after the parked cars and the cordoned off areas by doggie pee markings) doggie dropping zones. So doggies attend their nature’s calls on the only strip of land left for pedestrians. So if you go out for a nice evening walk, either you smear your shoes in doggie droppings or else you hop, skip, jump around town. No wonder Indians who go for a walk are healthier than people who go to the gym.

If you are an exploited dog reading this blog and living in any other part of the world, please come down to Mumbai and I will be happy to help you.

Porter’s 5 forces

So I have had the unique opportunity to interview a few MBAs to recruit for my company in the last few weeks. Being a techie in my jobs before, interviewing was fairly simple. You have a set of your favourite programming related questions that you ask. If the candidate can answer 50% of them, you select her, else bye bye.

Recruiting MBAs however for me has been very difficult so far. You are expected to evaluate their analytical and other MBA skills (read soft skills!). Now these skills are pretty difficult to decipher if you don’t lead the interview properly. Like most of you already know, most “MBA types” are very good at speaking and can very well lead you to their comfort zones in an interview.

Now, as a part of any MBA education, I am sure we go through a dozen or so different frameworks in each subject which aid in analysing or predicting certain factors. So be it Marketing, Finance, Strategy, Operations or Human Resources, there are a set of frameworks that have been defined and widely utilized in each of those streams.

However, ask any MBA to analyse anything in this big bad world and beyond, the only framework that they somehow end up utilizing is the Porter’s 5 forces (Yeah, I am exaggerating, some do use the SWOT analysis framework as well but that's all). In the last few interviews, I have seen Porter’s 5 forces being used to analyse anything and everything from company profitability, population growth of India, US debt crisis, European debt crisis to the effectiveness of the Lokpal bill. My understanding of the Porter’s 5 forces has been now so screwed up (thanks to the enterprising candidates) that I thought I sit and read the theory again to really understand what it means. Hence this blog.

If there is one thing I realized, I am never gonna use the framework in any interview ever, unless the interviewer specifically asks me to use it!