Wheel-chair anthropology

I have an allergy cold, a bad knee, body ache, troubled tummy, a little rash, a bad morale and a little resilience. I am bouncing back … not so fast as ever but bouncing for sure.

Thanks to the bad knee, I was not going to spoil our family outing to InOrbit mall. We went after checking if there were enough wheelchairs available. My wife’s granny in one and me in another. That was really cool. Its nice to see Mumbai reacting to wheel chairs. Some make way, some smile, some ignore and some don’t care. While getting into the lift nobody cares for your wheel chair. Everyone wants to go in first. Dam cheap. They get out without bothering to see how I can get in. since the doors close fast enough they close before I manage to wheel in. I had to request some one getting out, to hold it open for us to get in. Not happening. But I recommend all the arm chair anthropologists to get on to wheel chairs and see how the city truly behaves with the not so privileged. My final take, Mumbai in a mall is polite enough, but enough to give up on their time for you. Time is this fast city is money. I can smile, talk, show sympathy but I can’t wait. I got to go >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> next time, try and give time to others, that’s the only thing we have a need for. As once I learnt a valuable lesson from Rajesh, his daughter had brought two books to my home with the aim of giving one away. He asked his daughter (Twishi) which one she liked more and to give that one away to Jispa. I saw, I learned but did I conquer? I hope to.

compassion

While we get to see a lot of pretense we rarely get to see any amount of genuine compassion. We will see a lot of passion or I would like to call it misplaced aggression, but compassion is in short supply. I am always moved by acts of compassion but to incorporate genuine compassion is so difficult. It’s sometimes so funny to see a lot of people get so moved by dead cows, dead kitten and dead dogs etc on the road but would have no qualms eating it…. hahaha its so bloody funny. Compassion my ass….
No, don’t get me wrong here. I am nowhere near compassion as I would like to be. Or would dream to be. I guess many times I like the laws of nature to take their own course. I try not to interfere with it. Let not compassion interfere in what nature has held out. But ya, I try and help if I can. But to actually understand what compassion means is to meet two of the finest individuals god has produced. One – Prem Sundar Narayan, two Rajesh Shadevan. It is thanks to sheer luck that I have come in contact with these gentlemen. These two by sheer force of their nature have changed me in more ways than one. Their ability to touch, heal, change the very people they meet. Their ability to ---I don’t know how to put this ---- subjugate themselves and yet retain themselves is outstanding. Their greatness in their ability to rise without meaning to, or even wanting to. It is by no mean a co incidence that they the best – the very best – brand strategists I know of. For, to understand the brand one has to understand the consumer, and to understand the consumer it is important to have genuine compassion for him and genuine empathy. Only if you are able to feel genuinely will you make a great brand promise and great brand delivery. Which bloody B school / prof will explain compassion as a prerequisite for strategy? Only compassion will let you see beyond your own mind shit and your own preconceived notions of what the consumer wants, needs or feels. So much time is spent by kids trying to figure out brand strategy with a lot of shit and shat thrown in, but people doesn’t realize to be a great brand strategist one needs to be an outstanding human being. Care must be your core virtue for it to translate outward. CARE CONCERN AND COMPASSION. It’s no wonder we find worms and acid in things we eat. It no wonder people are increasingly fickle and disloyal about brand choice. We won’t dare change a doctor / nurse / teacher who is caring, then why would we change a cosmetic, soap, a gel, a food, a drink. We need more Gandhi’s in marketing, and we need more of them in strategy. Sometimes selfish goals can only be achieved by true selflessness. Opposites do reconcile.