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.

home alone

I am such a family man. Yesterday I was to reach home and fend for myself. My wife and kid were at a party where we men weren’t invited. Some kids birthday. So Jasmine offered to cook me dinner. I refused. According to her I just need an excuse to eat out but the truth is that I hate to eat alone. I went to the theatre complex next to home and browsed around Crossword for a good book and ordered a noodle dish at Zenzibu. But I was so depressed and lost, all alone.
I hate it. Even while travelling on work, at the hotels, in the evening it is so boring and alone. Eating dinner alone is a punishment for me. I try and delay it as far as possible. Try and order something in the room itself and eat silently, watching TV. Staying at the five stars adds to the solitude. They are in such sterile environments and there is no one at eth front office that you can really chat up with. In the good old days at Balsara, I had a 30 day travel plan. So I ended up going to the same places over and over again. Those were the really cheap sales hotels. How cheap? The most expensive room was 280 bucks a night and the cheapest was at 80 bucks a night. No I did not miss a zero there. And the most expensive room I ever stayed in, ever. 15,000 a night at Delhi Taj. But hold on, I think the Geneva room I stayed in was even more expensive. But now I am diagressing. What was the point I was making?
Yup, the cheap hotels in Blasara. They were pretty nice places. You sometimes catch TV in the hotel lobby. You meet other sales guys from other companies. There is some action happening. People talking. The owner talking and giving some gyan. Its good fun. Those days in the evening there was a line for people wanting to talk at the STD booth. That was fun. Waiting for 20 minutes to talk for 10.
The five stars have none of this camaraderie. I remember my days at my favourite hotel at Baroda, Junagadh, Ahmedabad. Also these hotels were bang in the heart of the city and I loved going out for a walk around. Getting outside the 5 stars is a walk by itself. The cheap hotels are merely a building that adds to the commotion on the street.
Then also I hated to be alone and I hated having dinner alone. Yesterday somehow I remembered those days. The only small difference was that 12 years back I also had to see my budget and figure what / where to eat. Now I don’t really need to look at the right hand side of the menu anymore.
Luckily half way through my chow mein, jasmine came in and I felt at ease. I think it’s easier to spend the day all alone at home but in the evenings, I so hate it. I can empathise with Jasmine when I am on a travel plan and she has to be home alone. or even when I am working till late. But at least now she has Jispa with her. All alone… I can’t handle it.
Earlier days when we stayed with mom, Jasmine used to go to her mom’s home to stay for a few days in a year. I used to find it impossible to sleep early alone. I would watch TV till my eyes closed and then hit the bed. The house just does not feel nice without people in it. I hate it and hence this time I refused to go home in the evening to get an empty house. Sometimes I feel I am such a baby.