Sector 15 Market

"Grahak Devo Bhavah" - Anuved Soap. Pavitra Snan ka Anand. (the customer is like god - New Veda Soap. The happiness of a holy bath)


The customer isn’t just the king or queen. The customer is almighty god.



After several years of writing advertising copy that usually fails to make people open their wallets or writing a line that is without a spelling mistake, I’m the wrong person to claim that I understand consumer behavior.

Luckily, I have a longer experience shopping, so this observation is based on that.

It is common knowledge that the choice that the consumer makes (according to Indian advertising, it’s usually for the sake of the health of that easily susceptible child at home or to look and feel like a filmstar) is what affects a lot of things across the world. Looking around, we are making a lot of wrong choices because of the lifestyle we are increasingly adopting. It’s usually for convenience and we bite the hooks that dangle with little emotional words or a minuscule saving that we are led to believe, will add up to a lot.

Caveat Emptor. Buyer’s beware.

 Rabindranath Tagore , when he spoke about Zarathustra had these wise words to say, that I will twist to serve my purpose of throwing cowdung on the face of the Indian consumer, including me

“Everywhere in the world, the unrealized ideal is a force of disaster.

It gathers its strength in secret even in the heart of prosperity kills the soul first and drives men to their utter ruin.

When the aggressive activity of will, which naturally accompanies physical vigour, fails to accept the responsibility of the ideal, it breeds unappeasable greed for material gain, leads to unmeaning slavery of things, till amidst a raging conflagration of clashing interests the tower of ambition topples down to the dust.”

 “and for this, the prophetic voice of Zarathustra reminds us that all human activities must have an ideal goal, which is an end to itself, and therefore in peace is immortality.”


I know it’s too serious a thing to say after seeing a sticker for a soap brand that the shop keeper thought would serve as a nice welcome message outside his kirana store. But the truth is that every single paisa we spend adds up and through the choices we make, let’s use it make a better world through the choices we make.

The customer is like God. behave like one.

Palm Beach Road

The second summer kicks-in in a few days :(

Sassoon Dock

Monsoon 2012.
Working in the rain.

Like the annual MRF Rain Day ads that never gets the day of arrival of monsoon in Mumbai right, we never tire of predicting the rainfall patterns every monsoon. Every year tonnes of newsprint and conversation time goes into the minute details of rainfall in the city and the suburbs.

Every year, without fail, there comes a day when the rains hit the railway network. The only difference is the amount of noise people have started making about the annual event. While we used to patiently walk home in the rain, wading though water and cracking jokes with new found friends on the streets, now we whine and scream and shout.

I think the newspapers in Mumbai survive by scaring people who do not step outside their homes or comfort zones. They love to be frightened with stories of crazy people, bollywood extras turned killers, autowallas, taxiwalla, leopards, etc.

I feel sorry for the school children, college kids, and the men and women who venture out to work because these frightened people are frightened to their bones by the daily dose of news. They always call you when something that they read in the news will surface from their subconscious, ask you how you are and slowly slip in the dreaded line - did you read about Xxxx incident in the newspaper?

If they hear about a train jumping tracks  in Neral, they will immediately call the poor girl sitting in a classroom in Bandra and ask her to skip classes and head home right away because they now have the power to stay in touch always and with the power to scare a person they love, anytime of the day.

The frightened ones who have discovered twitter and facebook are even more frightening. If it rains a little more than usual, their screams now reach every corner of the world and you will have relatives selling alochol to igloo dwellers in North Canada in a blizzard calling you to ask if you have left office yet because there's likely to be a signal breakdown in the Sanpada yard.

I tell you, these people are the ones who cause wars.

And if you are my kind, you will read newspapers and feel angry. It's a great high too. However, anger is best enjoyed online, when you have a news outlet that is designed to provoke you to feel angry. Like thus one called First Post. Indian Hulks reads it.