keep roaming

Travelling for research takes a toll on the mind and body. Intensive research days involve back to back meetings at clients place, all over the city. These are interspersed with time spent in the car getting from one place to another. The car rides kill the back and the meetings while being fun are completely stressful. One is writing notes, thinking hard, connecting dots and trying to make sense of the entire conversation. Sometimes one meets disgruntled clients who don’t want to open up at all. Some want a solution right now, some want it later, some don’t care. Talking to them, putting them at ease and making conversation that is enlightening and illuminating to both is a real challenge and of course a memorable experience.
No matter how bad the interview and how tired I get, I always make it a point to learn something more about the consumer and his business in addition to what I might need to know from my products point of view. Thanks to this, in this research I got to know about car dealerships, bike dealerships, lubricant distribution, truck transportation, quarrying and much more. These rae incidents that I may forget over time and then these are incidents that will be in my memory for a long time to come. Some become the shining example that I will recall again and again ad use it to prove my point.
This research and conversation shapes me as an individual. We are shaped by how we interact with our environment and these interactions help push our knowledge base. This also helps me push the boundaries of who I am. I dare say that intensive research changes me as a person. Definitely as a marketing person but more so as a human. The constant humility one needs to have while talking to clients is something that seeps inside my brains. I am in a receptive mode. A mode that says no matter what I think, the consumer is right. He is trying to tell you something. Please keep your prejudices and biases aside and listen carefully. It is truly a humbling feeling especially for someone who might be… no correction, for someone who IS as naturally egoistic as me. So I go about this research trying to understand what my clients say and I understand a bit of what I might be or hope to be.
Any one saying anything during this mental state seems to have a larger more profound response from me that what I might have naturally given. My mind is open to so much stimuli, that at one level I find it exhilarating and at the other level I find it very draining. I so love being able to do research. Especially since this is a multi city thing.
In the past I have travelled to many cities but have been holed up in the hotel rooms. I haven’t ventured too much outside and I have not ventured out to taste the local cuisine and interesting places to eat. Then came the recession in the year 2008. That is when I regretted travelling to these places and being holed up inside. I promised myself that I will try to do a little more the next time I get to travel. Surely I don’t get enough to take in the sights as I might have loved to, but if there is time then I am sure I am not going to waste it. And at the very least, I am going to try the local food, street side stalls and a few shops if possible in my effort to understand this place a little more. The simple act of going out to eat dinner in a local famous place itself gives you so much more to learn and see. These are small things that I would value in addition to all the research that I might end up doing. These things change you and at the very least give you tons of stories to talk about later.
This time I was in Ahmedabad, someone told me about Manek Chowk in the heart of the old city, a place where the deeply fired sweet gujju goes to get his gastronomic delights. Eeyah! A complete gujju cowboy approach to food. We ate the chocolate cheese sandwich. It is basically melted chocolate spread between slices of bread and then you have grated cheese all over it. then we had the chocolate pineapple pizza, where you get the base, then melt the chocolate on it, then put a few chunks of pineapple, followed by a healthy (unhealthy , actually) helping of grated cheese. Note: all these dishes have melted chocolate in it but the cheese is not melted. I saw this phenomenon in Gujarat 12 years ago. They still haven’t figured out how to melt the cheese. But honestly in this case I shudder to think what might have happened if the melted cheese got together with eth melted chocolate. The most special dish was the one that followed. The ice cream sandwich. This is bread with butter and pineapple jam applied on it. Then you grate cheese on it (of course) and then you smash an ice-cream (cashew raisin flavour) in the middle. Really wild or vile as you see it.
Ashamedly I might add, the gujju genes in me made me actually eat all this and I might not be able to openly admit, but it was fun! I dare say – tasty fun. Only a gujju who has grown up on food that needs to be a hash of all flavours at one bite can appreciate the value of what we ate that day.
It was a fun experience. Simple acts of eating weird food, meeting different people, sharing experiences makes all that travel worthwhile. Back breaking but fun. Thanks to the travel I missed out on swimming and my yoga. Yesterday I felt the crick coming back in my back. Out came the yoga mat and bye went the crick. Today also I managed to catch 10 minutes of stretching before taking Jispa to the swimming pool at 5.45 am. This is the routine on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Morning two bananas each for Jispa and me. Then we rush to hit the pool by 5.45 am. Then I have to figure either treadmill or squash, followed by a proper breakfast that Jasmine gets by 7 am. Then Jispa goes to school (jasmine drops her off) and I go for my swim class. Then I go off to office and have one more breakfast on route. I never knew a man could have three breakfasts. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it’s going to be a simple 15 swim before office. I guess the key is to settle into routine as fast as possible and get going. Else this can kill me. I guess 10 pm then is lights off! And that means getting out of office by 6 pm. Let’s see if it works.