Me on New Year's eve

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, Love gives us a fairy tale!
anon


Blissfully single and so much not in love ;-) I walk on streets of Kathmandu unaware of any tugs at heart. But the season of love is not far, I guess. For the first time in life, I look at couples walking together. Some hand in hand, some a little far. Some shy, some too unbothered by onlookers existence.

I walk into Court yard, a lovely café. Candle lights and wooden chairs. An ambience, that draws you in. Alas, they have taken away the coffee menu. Annie joins me here. And we order a veg sizzler. The sizzle, the white sauce, the lovely noodles, the French fries. The taste , the texture, the fragrance… After a long time, I am just me here. Just me. No thoughts in mind, no strings at heart, free as a bird!

Annie goes home. I take another turn. As I walk, I am drawn into another café, a sweet looking couple invite me for a cuppa. Bad coffee but good company. I look at the two, and just then I am reminded of all love songs, and all love poems, and all promises that these might have exchanged. For one sec, I wonder how would it be, to be with some one I would love some day. Till then, a toast to all those in love!

And Happy New year.

plastic flowers and real ones

God, came to me last year since I was being a good girl. eating icecream in winter and staying out till late ! So he said, Vid dear, what do you say.... start behaving and you get something good. I said, sure chum, whats the deal. He tells me... well keep these flowers , these are plastic ones and nice looking ones keep them forever and well be happy. Hmm... I wrinkle my nose... what man, you come all the way to the Earth and give m e plastic flowers... so he said.. ok..take these bunch of real ones... (well he just shows me the pictures of the real ones actually). I say...these are pictures...he says but these are the pictures of real flowers..

Hmm... GOD is funny guy. Now this year he came to me again.. with flowers ...this time real ones too. He said hey Vid, now take these... I took them, fresh and lovely... next day they wilted...but since it was GOD who gave them to me I keep them.. I keep them for a week...and there HE comes and tells me I should throw flowers when they wilt and replace them with fresh ones. Hmmm... and form no attachment with flowers he says... He tells me, you are lucky you got real flowers, most mortals choose plastic flowers and they never need to throw....

I take another bunch from him. but this time.. i walk to my garden and decide to plant flowers. I need flowers for a life time. I cannot afford to let them wilt....

At this point...GOD puts on this song on his MP3 : plant your love and let it grow...eric clapton

and he says..keep jumping keep fit... I will bless you cause good ppl send you my blessings :D and say NO to plastic ;-)

Hopping and shopping

Shopping is a versatile activity. And it is an activity that female of human specie takes to like fish takes to water... naturally!

Recently, I have been going out for shopping a little too frequently (strictly by my standards). Given that I shop once a month for basic necessitites (personal care items usually by P & G ) and clothes are once before every sem begins.

My shopping companion was my sister, until she went to Manila. The two of us would get on our Kinetic Honda (red in color, and the number plate read the number 2). Both my sister and the Kinetic are no more my shopping companions. Kinetic to Maruti was a change (but still red in color). Di to Annie was another change. I am not disapointed by either changes ;-)

Hmm.. for a fun kind of shopping you need to have a good rapport with your companion, otherwise shopping becomes a big headache. Annie and I get along amazingly well, given we are both of opposite dispositions, but we match on buying practical shoes versus high heels, buying a big leather tote bag versus buying cutie pinks, and more. But I am this pampered 'eat at home kid' and 'get back before it is late'. However I realised after 2 years of our friendship how much changes have happened. I am now, a 'happy go burger eater' and reach at home comfortably by 8 .

(ouch am i touching a relatively sensitive nerve, given Annie is getting instrtuctions to get home before 5 :)) )

Hmm, evenings are fun time to be out. The scorching sun is gone, it is just happy warm and day light. You don't have to walk lady like, since you don't wear that kinda shoes. So, I jump, skip a step, sing the tune of a song in my head, grab Annie's left arm close to mine and draw attention to high heel shoes. Hmm.. I now am a proud owner of 3 high heels, not pointies, but decently lady like :P

I can be a girl when I want to be, someone said long time back. Given I own more than 5 lipstick now, and still fumble how to wear one :)) I think I know what, being a girl means. Hmm.. interestingly I think I am being a girl... I will soon have a proper red sweet dress.. with one arm held securedly by a gentleman and the other swinging free :)

As we walk across zebra crossing, Annie tells me, I am 2 me. One me the wild and the fanatic.. THe other , sweet and caring. The wild and ill behaved me is just out of control. The sweet and caring me is what I will be long term :))

Hmm.. given our conversations, shopping expeditions, Annie is getting lot of material to make a good story. Hmm.. all my interesting thoughts, she plans to steal :> . So, I am telling her, I will give it all a big thought, and in the book that I will soon write :P I will put on a chapter called Annie.

In the last chapter that I talk of Annie, it would be one of our shopping trips, buying girlish things, thinking of climbing down an escalator that is moving up, bumping into high school teacher.

And then the chapter will close, with two girls chattering and walking past their car. And then scolding one another for walking aimlessly and walking back to the car. The reverse gear... and the chapter ends...

Now... there are more chapters that follow Annie. THere is no mention of Annie, the prot, thats hopefully me, lets call her Divya ( div and vid... but i like divya better than vidya ;P) .. So Diya in 5 chapters down the novel is walking along a pavement. It is winter, she pulls her cap down to cover her ears (someone told her maximum body heat is lost thru ear ;-) ) and suddenly there is a tug at her left arm. Mumma, the little girl screams, in the same delighted fashion. Hopping like a crazy happy thing :D she grabs her arm and tells her to look at those lovely leather boots :)

Annie, Diya says... no moist eyes...no reminisces... just that name, which is just too sweet to recall.. Annie! who's Annie Mumma, the little girl will say. And Divya will smile and recall the wild girl and the fanatic shopping spress, the mid night phone calls, the hug before leaving home each time, and finally disapearing for a life time without any complaints, any expectations, any ties.

SOme chapters , don't have easy ends... So , Divya will walk with her little girl and buy her boots. (Annie's father told her not to buy boots when he knew I was with her to buy her a pair of shoes :))

shopping, hopping, writing, loving, liking...

this is creating a story !

On 4th Sem Courses and some learnings:

Strategic Management:
The instructor would read out from the slides.The lowering enthusiasm made sure, I never arrived in time. What would you miss any case?
But my learning:
Opportunities need to be carefully identified. You miss an opportuniy, you miss it. It's no use pumping in resources after you realize the opportunity is gone. Put your stakes on the winning horse!

Entrepreneurship:
There is nothing like taking risks, entrepreneurs seek to lower their risk!! Through innovation of course. Well!! entrepreneurship in classroom, someone had remarked. 'Get into the fields and get your hands dirty', were the actual words. Well, I never got into the field, but through class room studies, I generated a ordinary report on innovation. As in go looking for innovation in a Financial Institution. Well my learning points were, being able to converse with the finance honchos, thanks to few Management of Financial Institutions classes that I took on weekends.

But thanks to this course we have fairly learnt how to design entrepreneurial SYSTEM, and that DRUCKER might be dead, but so long Hail Drucker.
(If you were looking for a comment on the asst. proff... ;-) hmmm... his classes sucked too)

Consumer Behavior
Ah... here comes a marketer's dream. It's easy, isn't it?? You are after all the consumer :D. well I went shopping just an evening before the exam... to get real life experience... :P

well, interesting course, but why the heck didn't we have any field project for this... :P not that I am ready to handle it now...anymore...

One major learning point: unintendedly copied my instructor's accent....such that i can take even her kids for a ride... once when i called up her and said..HELLO..the sonny said... MUMMA :))

MIS
No no ..it isn't Milan is Sexy :))

It is Management Information System. And well, a fundoo course. Specially the vivas on Bill Gates' 'The Road Ahead'... questions like, his wife's name, who he dedicated the book to :))
Well, more fun was a documentary that we had to make.. We did a wonderful music video on Bhaktapur. Never wandered anywhere as intensly. Too good a place!!

Hmm..we did something on information too!! Encryption - decryption. well i can write an encrypted love letter to my fiance now, such that only he decrypt it :P

Lotsa abbreviations... DSS, RSA, CASE... and knowing lotsa good ppl... Ken Olsen (DEC), Steve Balmer(Microsoft), Turing (was a gay !!)


HRD
Non credit course... Hmm.. fun ! thats it.. The instructor never bored us. I have no text book to refer to. Never did much of notes taking this sem, so nothing is there for HRD. THe exam is on 23rd of December. I guess I should be on look out for good material in the web.

Wish me luck on my grades. This time I have two sets of parents to show my report card too :D

Exam time Prose

When you have exams going on, Annie tells me you get sudden urges... Urges like, cleaning your room, or watching movies, or chatting with long time friends, or .... Well, I think exam times do make you fidgety, here is a prose, that just came to my head... And I had this silly urge to post it!

Brazen Woman


Oh! Have you seen her, the brazen woman
She keeps the forbidden jewel to her bosom
Guards it like it were her secret love

Oh! have you seen her, when she takes off her veil
She isn't the sweet woman, you thought she were
Her eyes still carry dreams, that she should be ashamed of

She opens her window for the wind to blow her hair
She will let go of her inhibitions and all the world's care
and she will take out the jewel that he gave her

And with childlike delight
she will wear it on herself
If only he came... she will quietly say
but lucky he doesn't come, or else she would indeed be a brazen woman.

Smiles and Tears

Smile...

when you are alone
when youlook up at the sky
when you are on the phone
when you are feeling high
when you see your room in mess
when you feel how unfair is life
when you take time to dress
when you KNOW you still don't have a wife ;) :p :))

Smile increases your face value! So smile :-)...well!!! you didn't smile... :> okay..now say cheese... hmmm... thats good :)

Smiles and tears aren't best friends...after a cry when you smile, the tears better go. Cause the smile is here to stay.

Often after you have shed your tears, you have a friend who is there besides you eager to offer you a smile. Well, times that I have felt like crying, I have cried. And each time, some one gave me a smile so that i could increase my face value ;)

Hmm... however, sometimes we take time, to collect that smile which we are being offered. We keep looking back at the rear view, at the mistakes we made, at the wrong someone did to you, or at what you lost and then...your eyes well up.. And salty water trickles down. You call them tears actually. Not that tears are bad. They actually eliminate the waste from your body ;-) and clean your eyes.

But you know, of the two, who you are better off with..So choose the better one, and smile once more.

:-)

Smile... cause someone likes you better when you smile :D

Frightened like a...

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. So, let me go easy on words today.
This picture is taken in Bhaktapur. Shalin picked up a chick (or chicken) and kept it on my arms. The bird flew on top of my shoulder. And then you would know who was frightened like a chicken :P

P & G teaches ABC

By the time Annie teaches her kid ABC, I think P & G will have filled the blanks in the following nursery rhyme. It was during our recent presentation that I made this remark. I just refrained from mentioning Annie's name ;-) but I did say, when a kid is now learning his ABC it might just be, you know :D

A for Ariel
B for Braun
C for Camay/Crest
D for Duracell
E for Era
F for Folgers
G for Gillette Mach 3
H for Head and Shoulder
I for Ivory
J for Joy
K for
L for Lacoste
M for Mr. Clean
N for Natural Instincts
O for Old Spice
P for Pampers / Pringles / Pantene
Q for
R for
S for Satin care
T for Tide
U for Ultress
V for Vicks
W for Whisper
X for
Y for
Z for Zest

Unduplicable is:

• Staring at stars.
• Long long walks in cold cold evenings.
• A date with a young guy ;-)
• Throwing Surprise birthday party.
• The impromptu 'Lets meet up for Coffee!'
• Looking at your sweetheart (unashamedly).
• The joy of sharing secrets with your pals.
• The unplanned U turns...and going for a long drive.
• Falling flat, just benath the sky after a tiring hike.
• Savoring Steaming rice with 'bhyattal' (Auntee's special ;P)
• Chuckling while reading Narayan.
• Writing lovey dovey poems ;-)
• Getting long mails.
• Your first video chat.
• First email.
• Dancing 'cha cha' with Melanese.
• Wearing school dress after 6 years of high school.
• Movies with friends.
• Snuggly asleep in your friend's bed.
• Getting lot of attention.
• Carefree laughter.
• Swinging hands while walking.
• Wandering in alleys of Bhaktapur.
• Making a documentary: Bhaktapur in 17 minutes.
• The fragrance coming from kitchen.
• Listening to a song in repeat mode.
• Watching sunset.
• Waking up early.
• Getting wet in rain.
• Misty smoky air in a cold morning when you blow out your breath.
• Wearing the graduation gown and the tassle cap.
• Getting calls from mother in law :D

In My Dreams..

Little Boy

Often in our dreams, we go to far away places, meet different people, make different bonds, and then come back to our cosy beds when it is morning.Last night I met a little boy,
I made friends with him instantly. It was a super dream...


Let me tell you about this little boy:

Naughty eyes
Playful ways
His smile so sweet
On hislovely face


He skipped along
He sang a song
We went on a pleasant ride
With me standing by his side.

Then, we had a little fight
He was wrong or was I right?
In a while we were back being friends
Smiling together and holding hands.


In a small while, I had to leave
He gave a peck on my cheek
I wanted to hug him tight
Say goodbye and stay alright...


*******************************************

It was a nice dream. But when I woke up, I felt sad. I had left the little boy, who had made friends with me. I had left him alone.

Sometimes, dreams are not just dreams... Like, you can't shrug your shoulders and say, 'dreams end with the night, and carry on with your day, like nothing happened at all'.

The little boy who came in my dreams, must live in a faraway land. He must have had a dream too. He must have played along with me in his dreams. And when the morning comes to him, he will wake up and miss me too. But he will have a day as pleasant as mine. He will have a 'helluva time'...

It is strange, what happiness means... My happiness will make so many others happy. My loved ones, and ones who love me.. And perhaps the little boy will be happy too... because... he lives in my dreams..and he would like to come in happy dreams..

So, I look into my mirror and smile!

******************************************

The WOWs and the Yucks

It's like WOW

• Childhood photographs.
• Driving dad's car.
• Getting paid for writing stories (and for getting them published)
• Humming (and being out of tune)
• Baking cakes.
• Cooking for fun.
• Coffee with pals.
• Juicy Oranges when you are thirsty.
• A mail from your buddy.
• A new dress.
• Brand management lectures.
• Reading David Ogilvy on Advertising.
• coffee with ice cream
• being with some one special
  

It's like yuck

• a bad throat.
• waiting in queue.
• Zero balance in your cell.
• Coffee stains on your favorite shirt
• No choclates in the fridge.
• Eating dinner alone.
• No mails.
• mommy's leg gets fractured.
• you got to cook continuously for days.
• pile of dirty laundry
• Your maid is missing
• end sem exams
• Swollen fingers due to cold.
• missing that someone

A day in life

Morning is :

Sunrise
Milkman's clingclang
Joggers' sneakers
Birds cacophony
Warm quilt - the half asleep state
Steaming cup of tea
Newspaper
a hot shower
Puja bells ringing
Maids washing clothes
Mothers fixing tiffin
eating breakfast
Children at bus stop
(a white mouse drinking milk)


Early afternoon is:

traffic lights
traffic jams
strong sun
busy people

Late afternoon is:
Small Nap
Exhausting traffic jams
Lunch breaks in offices
School buses back in motion
(a white mouse nibbling on a bean)


Evening is :
Hustle bustle
Returning home
Buying veggies on the way home
Loitering in chowks
Sunset
Crowds in pubs
Feeling high

(a white mouse hungry)

Night is :
Lit up homes
Bustling kitchen
Dinner
After dinner walks
Staring at stars
Warm Milk
Late night surfing
Mid night phone calls
Crazy smses
Hugging your pillow
Falling asleep

(a white mouse in Annie's room: 2 insomaniacs ;-) )

Types of Changes

• October to December
  
• Letters to emails
• Landline to cell phones
• Emails to chats
• Taslima Nasreen to Tom Peters
• Writing love stories to arbit blogging
• BE to MBA
• Engineer to Marketer
• Notting Hills to Erin Brockowich
• Innocent friendships to those 3 words
  
• Cigarettes to Ciggi
• Wine to Tequila shots
• The Goal to Five point someone
• Friends to best friends
• Cappuccino to Espresso
• Anjani to Annie
• Lalitpur to Bhaktapur
• Junk jewelry to De Beers
• Eric Clapton to Creed
• College to workplace
• Infosys to IBM
• Coffee to coconut water
• Loud laughter to quiet chuckles
• Sneakers to high heels
• Disheveled hair to a decent hair cut
• No earings to long earings
• Jeans to Salwaar Kameez
• No boyfriend to fiancé
• Girlhood to womanhood
• Nepali to Bengoli
• Kathmandu to Kolkata …

Ram Dai Vs Rituz (nothing personal)

As marketing students, we all value customers like GOD. But is it all limited to theory alone. When one of us, will get to the market, and open a shop, what are we going to be like. Like Ram Dai or like Rituz.

Ram Dai :

He operates a modest Cafe, in our School's campus. With Marketing students sipping his coffee, some of marketing fundas seem to have rubbed well on him. One of them is definitely - customer satisfaction.

Tell Ram Dai, that the poori , he served was not well cooked. The CEO of KU Canteen, will see to it that you get a replacement. Make noise, if you are getting late for class and he will deliver your tea, on second floor where your class is due. Tell him, you need a 'real' coffee and he will whip up Nescafe like there never was something called an instant coffee. Moreover, he offers, long term credits, keeps smiling at his customers and doesnt refuse if you ask him to heat a little lunch you carried from home. Well how much would you give this guy out of 10 points?

Rituz, the Designer's stitch: (or glitch!)

Situated in the main road of Kupondole, Rituz is a moderately upscale boutique. My first time experience with them was wonderful. They stitched a pink chooridar salwaar kameez (this dress got me rare reviews from my six footer). You wonder, they got a repeat purchase. Yes, I went to them again. Now my question is, how many times do you need to satisfy a customer? Isn't once enought? Turns out, you need to satisfy a customer every time , so that you retain her for a life time. Hmm, i am getting to the designer's stitch, a stitch too tight. They make it lose, they make it tight, they delay it, they don't make it right! And they tell me, the flaw is in the cloth that I purchased (not from them). After 15 days late delivery, and more than 4 visits to their store, I finally paid the bill, took my dress, which I noted was slightly damaged at an edge. No prizes for guessing that I promised myself I would never ever get back to that shop again.

Does losing a teeny meeny customer like me (since I was visiting Rituz second time in a years time) mean anything? Why should they care really? What business opportunity are they missing, in any case. There are many other customers who will continue to breeze in. An unsatisfied customer, is no big deal, as long as you have few satisfied ones..or few who don't complain. Anyways, it must be good to rid, a customer who would go and spread the word online. If Bakery hasn't earned any leverage through my electronic word of mouth, why would Rituz worry about anything. Anyways this is nothing personal, still how many points would you give to this store?

It's a new day

It's November. Cold and sleepy. Here is something on an ordinary Nov. morning. And something that tells me early to bed and early to rise is after all a worthwhile practice.

Just follow the link : It's a new day

Kathmandu to Kolkata

It will be interesting to update you on my recent Kolkata visit. I have been to this city thrice before. Once when I was 4 at my Aunty's wedding, next time when I was 10, on a winter vacation and the third time, I was actually going to Mumbai to attend someone's wedding and had to come to Kolkata and join people going to same wedding from there.

Now, I don't remember anything about my first trip. BUt the second trip was memorable. Me and my sister had good time. First of all, the whole fly to Cal was interesting. Aeroplane, sky and chocolates that the air hostess willingly gives you without telling you about cavities! What else would kids look forward to?

We stared at flyovers with disbelief, we wandered in Niko park amused and we kept pushing the puchkas ( Indian delicacy, aka paani puri) till our little tummies could not accomodate any more of the crispy puris filled with delicously sour water.

However, one thing that intrigued us both was, there was no garden infront of houses. Wait, there were no houses. It was tall buildings and some more tall buildings. Looking out of the windows of Burra Bajar flat (where my mama lives) I could not see anything... Look out from the window back home, and you would see trees and other houses and people. We wondered how people could live in such match box kind houses for a long time. BUt there were good things about Calcutta, you kept the fan on during winters :D And there was such an amazingly large zoo.

My third visit was confined to some shopping. I was buying salwaar suits for the wedding in Mumbai that I was supposed to attend. This time, it was June. The hot and sultry Cal greeted me. I kept puttting ice on my face, drinking coconut water and taking a nap in the sofa below the window whenever there was load shedding (and i managed more than 2 naps in my weeklong stay.)

The latest visit to Cal, is something I have been actually meaning to talk of. I was not too keen on going ...and I was not particularly keen to come back :D

Hmm... you know how one trip can change your life. Well, I reached Cal on 9th of October and met a guy on 11th. NOw what's special about meeting a guy in Cal on 11th?? Turned out, that I and this person were going to meet again and again and again... Until we finally get together. Folks, for a change, in this post there is nothing about customer loyalty, branding, or word of mouth. It is about me and someone special in my life. I am engaged !!!

Kolkata now is going to be home, like Kathmandu still is! I am going to know more of this city of paanipuri, rikshawawallahs of Burra bazar, the malls, the coconut water and my life part II, as Vidwata Mohta!

I promise this blog is not going to be neglected, inspite that Vid is engaged... :)) and writing much of her thoughts to him ;) ... though i have not been really regular, as Annie reminded me today...I promise the posts will keep coming... and so will you ( i hope!!)

Lost and Found & marketing Bakery Cafe :)

In some ways I think I am helping create a lot of electronic WOM (word of mouth) for the Jawlakhel Bakery Café. As it happens to be close to my school, and as it happens that me and Annie (my best friend) are avid coffee lovers, we have been frequenting this café. So I was there last week, Annie and me too engrossed in our girl talk waiting for someone to take our order. I was over the moon talking of my new found love (I will post a blog about my trip to Calcutta and what treasure I have finally found there).

The waiter came, and he asked us to move to some other table since a bigger group was coming in few minutes, we obliged. We looked around and then walked downstairs, made ourselves comfortable and ordered. My regular tall Cappuccino arrived , while Annie had her shot of Espresso. Espresso tasted terrible that day. We talked to the Floor Incharge and he replaced the coffee.

So in an hour, the twittering girls left, and left behind a new blue water bottle. I have been hooked to this water bottle since I am back from Cal. For one whole day I looked for the missing bottle. Looked everywhere at home, asked the attendants at college to check if there was any bottle, wailing to get home… finally it dawned on me, Bakery!

Day after, we walked in Bakery again, this time to discuss about our MIS project. I immediately cornered the first waiter I saw and elaborated about my 1Litre, blue capped, transparent bottle with Spirit written on the body. The guy shuffled few drawers and gave me a blank look. I asked him to go down and check, since I had shifted downstairs last time and had coffee there. This guy in turn asked me to do myself the favor and go down and check. So, I said, ‘ I am going to be upstairs and get some coffee, and I would like to get my bottle back when you get the check’. He got the message. I got the bottle.

Hmm… two important things…. the coffee replacement, and the bottle I found back. Makes me feel good about Bakery. However, why aren’t the staff a little more polite, concerned and at your service????? Restaurants are frequented not just because the food there is good, or the coffee is awesome… the whole point is the experience.. Here in Nepal I think we are missing in selling experience while we keep serving the creamy Cappuccinos in not very tall mugs!

Brand new!

Philip Kotler says, ‘a brand is an offering from a known source’. We generally trust things of which we know something about. Like, when I went to the FSA (Festival South Asia, film fest), I chose to watch films that were about Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka etc, because I know these countries. My high school geography lessons make it easier for me to a point on the map and tell , there is Srilanka. No wonder, we humans tend to relate to things, people or places that we have heard of or known much easily than of things we do not know about.

But is it essential that we just believe if we know ! Well, people believe in branded products, because the product as a brand has made a promise and strives to keep it.
Is it this promise that makes us go brand crazy? I wonder what my four year old cousin means when we pesters his parents to get him a ‘Hot wheels’ car or a ‘Kurkure’ or ‘Junior Horlicks’!

While on my small shopping trip, I noticed bill boards, Romanson, Rado, Christian Dior, I wondered what was so appealing, the way the names were written, their logos or how the name sounded. My father would probably swear by Titan, my uncle would be all for Rado and my mother would covet her Rolex. All these watches have been giving them the right time so far. As I wonder the satisfaction beyond quality that a brand actually gives comes from where, I take a call from my Nokia cell, look at my Longines wrist watch and drive back home in my Maruti 800, still wondering what charm brands hold!

Kite Festival and Customer Orientation

Yesterday, a few of us sat down for a cuppa at the Cyber Kitchen (Jawalakhel). We ordered our coffee and began our chitchat. Our talks steered to one of the recent issues,that of 'changa chet'. Changa meaning KITE and changa chet meaning, someone cuts another person's kite up in the sky. As you see, Dashain is round the corner, so kites are on mind and sky, both! We looked around at the decor of the Cyber Kitchen, which like every year, marks the Kite Festival with a festive gaiety of its own. There were lovely kites hung all around.

After hanging out for a while, as we made our ways out of the cafe, Shalin smiled to me and said, if we could take one of the kites as a souvenier. These kites with Cyber kitchen's signature!

THe marketer in me sprang up, lets test these folks... how customer-oriented are they? lets see their culture? or lets find out how deep customer runs in their veins!! So, Bravo, I ask one of the guys there, if I could take a kite.... Hmm...'sorry mam but we dont have permission to give you one!'....

Hmm...now if you were this guy, what would you have done....

On Consumer Behavior and Communicative Scent

Women want to be desirable ?

During one of the lectures in the Consumer Behavior class in my grad school, we had a short discussion on what women really want? I will give you a short background on what brought forth this topic. We were dealing with a case of marketing communicative perfumes to both men and women. Communicative scents are basically scents that will attract the attention of the opposite sex. The product was called Sexette. The group presenting the case, positioned Sextte, as a ‘Groom yourself’ for men. While they suggested a slogan that read, ‘Feel special and make yourself special for him’, for the perfume targeted at women.

I was slightly skeptical (to put it mildly), here were a bunch of will-be marketers, who thought that a woman would like nothing less, but to be desirable to men. While men had other things on mind. Women were invariably one of them. I drew their attention to a popular tv commercial of Axe deodorant, that is currently giving fundas on seducing women. Call it my prejudiced thinking, but I feel women are always very interesting to men. Artists paint beautiful women, poets sing odes to them, and Shakespearean geniuses write on them! Now before I digress, let me throw few questions, to ponder upon.

Sexette, as the name suggests is about sexuality, how come a man would respond differently to it than a woman?

Would not the whole purpose of Sexette as a communicative scent be defeated it for men it meant becoming moisturiesed men, while for women it would do wonders?

How can we judge the natural instincts of men vs women?

Don’t men worry about being attractive to women? Not all men are gays!

Let’s spread the word!

Now that I have taken the blogger’s oath to regularly come up with (hopefully) interesting accounts, what comes to my mind is who are my readers. Like a good marketing student, let me chart out my marketing program. WOM ‘word of mouth’ stands first in the list. And Melanese must have done his worth of job :-)

I have recently noted with some amount of interest the opening of a branch of Rameshwar at New Baneswor. This eatery has not had to spread the word, possibly because fragrance travels faster. The ever busy road, where you need to honk the horns to travel through the maze of pedestrians seems ideal location for this eatery. It is just next doors to a local cinema hall, and I presume, it offers its delicacies to movie viewers before and after the movies! Now, if I were to model my advertising based on this eatery, I should have someone put up the link to my blog in someone’s site which sees a lot of traffic. Or shouldn’t I?

But for now, spread the word. I would be surprised if I see new slogans on tshirts that look something like, Log on to http://vidwata.blogspot.com. (just kidding!!!!)

We are open!

It has been long since I wrote something. Well, last night when I was about to fall asleep, I wondered if it were possible that thoughts that ran wild in my mind could be translated into words digitally, such that when I woke up I would find a nice mess of a story, which I would gleefully edit.

However this is not to be. I read it somewhere that like a shopkeeper must open his shop daily and wait for his customers, a writer must sit down and muse while waiting for words that would come out to become stories. So, let me open my shop!

Well, since I suffer from a disease called unpunctuality, I wonder how regularly will I be opening this shop of mine. But as they say there is lots of power in motivation, I hope Annie’s frequent inspirational notes and Melanese’s bickering will keep this business an ongoing concern.

So, let me take an oath, that next time I read a book as stirring as ‘Tin Ghumti” (by BP Koirala), watch a movie as engaging as ‘Monalisa Smile’ (starring Julia Roberts) or draw out philosophical meanings while attending MIS or TQM lectures I will share my musings with you.

KIT and Keep reading, the shop is going to stay open now!

Coming Soon!

Vid is getting up and started with the new blog business....