The Daily Observer

Advertising has sharpened my vision, but hasn't reduced the power of the glasses I wear. What it has increased is my ability to stand back and take notice of the environment and observe. In the past few weeks, certain observations of the my habits and that of others has found it's way to my attention:

The Favourite Spot:
Don't know if this is just me or with others too but I always have my favourite pee spot in the men's urinal in my office. I notice a lot others too, and see them at the same spot several times. I, for one, love the extremes. At least one side is well hidden. Others seem to prefer the centre. Now I haven't studied this intensely enough to derive things but probably someone could help me conclude the interconnection between one's emotional identity vis-a-vis the persons choice of spot. I am an introvert and probably hence, choose the extreme one which has a wall on either side of me. Those who are extrovert and love to be surrounded my people might prefer the centre ones.

The MumGaikar:
This took me a little while to notice from my hectic schedule, but grown men/adults walking hand in hand is something that my eyes aught to have noticed. It's not every city that boasts of such gay men, who after years of holding their mothers hands, let go just to hold another man's. This hit me like a wind in the desert and all of a sudden, I started seeing it everywhere!!! Suddenly, all around me, i began seeing men walking around holding another man's hand or worse, his little index finger. Is this the financial capital? Is this the city that is the crux of Indian economical growth? No wonder then, this is the safest metropolitan city!!!

The train friends:
It's not until I too started taking the regular trains that I realised how friendly some people get. From a guy who would take just any train to trying to catch a particular train at a particular time and mount the particular bogey, it was quite revealing. Not only do they fight for the seats for each other but also end up taking them on their lap at times in case the seat is taken. What astonished me was their respect for the seniors... The youngsters fight their way into the crowd while the train slowly stops at the platform, and throw themselves at the benches to reserve the seats for those oldies who walk in later. Upon a little questioning one day, I realised this is not a phenomenon of the present day but youngster doing what these old men did not too long ago.
These men are a bunch of "wolf pack" of the local train journeys. In the 40 odd minute journey, they speak about fluctuating economics, the sad state of politics, the absence and presence of their fellow friends and also, their recent weekend getaways or vacations. What's strange is that they seem to know almost everything about each other, where they work, about their family, background, financial condition and even know where and when some friends are transferred too, but do not go beyind their train journey conversations. When I asked my regular neighbour if he chats with these friends on phone occasionally he sternly said no. This is a train-friendship and mutually so. Every morning they greet each other with the same zeal. Every evening, if they do return together, the goodbyes are equally happy.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The unforgettable evening with Hari

I fell on to the ground with a droning sound reverberating in my left ear. I was slowly losing sight of my surrounding. I was breathing hard and fast and could feel my breathing on my stomach, but slowly, even that began to fade away. And then... silence. I awoke with the noise of the small crowd gradually getting louder and louder and nearer and nearer. My eyes were open and were having difficulty adjusting to the bright light. I could feel my breathing again but this time - slow and controlled and now, my chest was heaving rather than my stomach. I was sweating profusely and the sudden lack of action was generating immense heat within me and I could feel it on my feet and hands. I felt like an ember emanating heat all over. I could feel the warm floor below me, even though it was wet. I also began to feel the heat below my, on my back, even though I was sweating and my banyan drenched. I moved my arms closer to my hips, folded them to help myself up but somehow, all I could do was th
Read more

Strategic planners, lateral thinking and stand up comedy

 Strategic planners have this innate habit and drive to connect seemingly unrelated dots and try to make sense of the world around them. No wonder that they immerse themselves into so many different kinds of things - and each will find its way into the work they do. Either it's in the brief, in the strategy deck, in the consumer insight, in the quest to simplify complicated thoughts and behaviours, anything. It's almost as if this constant need to connect dots and look for patterns is our coping mechanism to find meaning in chaos. It helps us understand the world better. And we do this so often that most often - it's on auto mode and spontaneous.  While we do this daily with the knowledge we assimilate along the way, we rarely utilize it to generate newer ideas when required. And then, I chanced upon a wonderful video by Mark Pollard, that showed me a new way to leverage this connection seeking behaviour of planners. It was used to showcase the power of lateral thinking, wi
Read more

Planners need to write BRIEFS not A creative brief

I was reading BBH Lab's list of 100 things planners should know, brilliantly captures by Chaz Wigley, Chairman of BBH Asia. (https://www.bbh-labs.com/chazs-100-things-a-planner-should-know/ ) The 10th point in that list is an interesting one. He says - "If you expect creative people to present you with multiple options then you should be ready to write multiple strategies to tackle the problem." I completely subscribe to this point of view. In fact, I think it should be the way we tackle creative briefs. But any look at a creative brief format of most agencies, you'll notice that it strips one of the ability to write multiple ones. The process is tedious, a lot of the columns are unnecessary that makes one question why it was called BRIEF in the first place. I feel a lot of them have too many unnecessary information points for the creative. They, in any case, rarely read it. They don't like briefs, they prefer the BRIEFING. To delve into the difference between the
Read more