The FOMO Economy

 

There has been quite a hullabaloo about the growing Concert Economy in India. A few music concerts in the past few weeks have been extremely popular and have raked in good moolah for the organizers. Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Bryan Adams, Dua Lipa, and our own singers like Dilit Dosanjh and many others performed to an overflowing crowd. A few analysts, however, have attributed this to the FOMO (Fear of missing out) factor.

There are legions of genuine music enthusiasts who live and breathe these artists.  At the same time, there also are many piled-on audiences who have little or no interest in music. They are there just to enjoy the extravaganza and experience the other surrounding fun and frolic associated with these events. The investment of time and money is worth the Instagram-worthy moments that it offers.  Over the last few years, enough has been spoken and written about the experiential holidays and experiential gifts. This is just a part of such an experiential event that no one wants to miss out.

The current craze of experiencing the mega mahakumbh event is another such example. Yes, there is a religious sanctity attached to the event. Yes, some devout believers would have never missed even the 12-year occurrences over their lifetime and this was a rare 144-year event.  But going by the current number of devotees who have already taken a dip in the holy confluence of rivers over the last one month, it is much beyond that. Many are otherwise faith agnostic but have not missed this opportunity to be part of this. Just because they wanted to be in the count and didn’t want to miss an opportunity to secure social media hits.  And then more followed, perhaps, due to the same FOMO factor.

Last week, another familiar event took place. The delightful spectacle of state elections in the national capital. And as it happens, the media circus of the counting of votes and the announcement of results was no less than a gala event. From high-decibel anchors to mild-mannered philosophical experts and from sagacious psephologists to political rivals at each other’s throats – they were all there on the TV to make their points. For some, it was an intellectual feast and for others, it was pure entertainment. In India, we carry strong opinions on our cricketers and the judgment of the selection committee as also on the polity and the broader voter response during elections. Therefore, an election doesn’t pass off merely as a process, it evokes emotions for some and provides validation of stand for others.

I was wondering, if there will be a time when even the election result analysis will not be limited to the TV audience, it may well become another extravaganza hosted by these anchors in large arenas. The euphoria involving such detailed analysis, the leads, the ups and downs, and the results will all be watched live by the audience. Like the award functions, the event will blend politics with other fun, frolic, food, and drinks to keep everyone engaged. Social media posts and the relentless FOMO will ensure the cash registers keep ringing. Who said democracy couldn’t be entertaining?

O Marketing!

The other day, while driving, I was trying to change the channels on my car stereo to listen to some good songs but all that I got was the standard FM channels that mostly played the latest sponsored songs and tunes. Not to take away anything from the new tracks and their composers but listening to the same tunes the entire day, across different channels, was too overwhelming. I longed for the old Vivid Bharati kind of broadcast that played popular songs on listeners’ requests. Unfortunately, the Vivid Bharati channel was playing a talk show then. 

Branding and Advertising always existed in my childhood but Marketing as a skill and a critical function emerged more prominently in the post-Manmohan era. Over the years, corporate marketing has moved from a tentative experiment to assuming a CXO-level function across organizations. Be it an everyday selling of consumer goods or a niche software product, the marketing function plays an important strategic role. 

In the current digital era, however, the lines between marketing, influencing, and lobbying have kind of blurred. The marketeers today seem to be taking an easier path by relying heavily on influencers and lobbyists – who seem to be playing a larger role than the pure marketeers. Do a Google search on any product or service, you invariably find a few sponsored offerings matching your search. The social media influencers have created such an aura around them that the otherwise well-educated and skilled youth also consider switching their careers to this new-found profession that gets them a much higher and seemingly easy buck. 

The lobbyists have existed for long – to influence the policymakers at corporate levels. It is legal in some countries, while in others it is a covert operation. But social media influencers are all in open. Be it page-3 of a local daily, a book review, a health column, a new launch brand, a new-found super food, a new restaurant in your neighborhood, a new fashion trend or a new weekend tourist destination – all of these are pushed by a bunch of social media influencers. The new term for them is ‘content creator’ and I read somewhere that we have 2.5 to 3.5 million of these content creators in the country now.  And you don't even take it with a ‘pinch of salt’ as another influencer told you that it was not good for your BP.  While genuine marketing is like going to a well-stocked and attractively colourful fresh vegetable market in the morning, the influencer-led business is like going to a dimly lit vegetable vendor at night and getting a few rotten pieces passed on with your buy.  There is no accountability whatsoever. The influencers don’t overtly represent their recommendations but they do have a vested interest most of the time. 

As late as this morning, a cousin of mine shared in the family whatsapp group, the details about a temple in Bithoor – an obscure little town near my birthplace Kanpur – and asked me if I knew about it. Frankly, in my 20 years of childhood and schooling days, I had heard of Bithoor only in the context of Nana Sahib and Rani Laxmi Bai. But surely, it is the social media influencers who had pulled out ostensibly an architectural and religious gem from the hinterland up north and presented that to my cousin down south in Chennai. So, it is not all bad with the social content creators, perhaps. Building a base of followers is the stepping stone of an influencer – and that’s where, possibly, some genuine knowledge sharing or marketing happens. 

Like the might of a crowd-pulling politician or a movement, the power of an influencer with millions of followership cannot be undermined. And, like the dread of a hafta-seeking local goon, the million-followed influencer shouldn’t become an all-powerful hafta-seeking digital goon. The authorities need to streamline this new skillset of influencers before it becomes a menace, and the genuine marketeers should draw their territory to stay clear of the thin bordering line.

The 100-gram Conundrum

 

The 100-gram Conundrum

 

My very first memory of ‘100 grams’ is that of my childhood. In the extreme winter climate of Kanpur, it was those 100 grams of roasted peanuts, bought for just 1 rupee,  that worked as an elixir to beat the severe cold. On a winter afternoon, the 100 grams of shell peanuts were a cozy companion for me and my friends on my terrace or in the school playground.

It may sound politically incorrect in the current context to say that the 100 grams was a large quantity to last over an hour’s gossip. In today’s context, we strongly believe that 100 grams is too small a quantity to deny a medal to our own Vinesh Phogat. Reams of arguments have been written across newspapers, magazines and social media raising enough hullabaloo over the actual weight of 100 grams, just short of challenging even the MKS system. The proponents of the conspiracy theory have just missed quoting one important caveat of the definition of a gram. As the definition says - for greater precision, the mass may be weighed at a point at which the acceleration due to gravity is 980.655 cm/sec2. Now, that is something our attorneys should also check.

I have always been classified as an underweight since the time I first heard about the term BMI. Despite that, my weight has never been 50 KG as far as I remember. Therefore, it surprises me no end to know that a well-built wrestler could also fall into this category of weight.  To top it all, the act of shredding 2 Kilos of weight overnight also amazes me. My close friend Upadhyay had recently published a screen-shot of his weighing machine proudly claiming a 5 KG drop in his weight over 5 months of hard work. Or, is that only a girlie thing to fret over 100 grams? My wife, who maintains is healthy BMI, too gets hyper over a 100 gram increase in weight whenever she checks it on a Sunday morning. And then she moves the weighing machine to every room to recheck the weight – she seems to remember her school science very well and is always doubting the exact gravity and the variance of that across rooms.

But this 100 gram of weight,  in the current context,  is just not equal to the roasted peanuts. It is worth a real metal. For a Haryanvi Olympian to return without a medal is like a Malayali returning from Gulf without gold. Both will be looked down upon in their respective states.

Our cricketers, however, find all this noise around 100 grams of weight and thereby denial of the metal quite nonsensical. They have always exceeded the expected weight of a sportsperson and still have been able to carry loads of golden metal whenever they went abroad. And they never had to wait for 4 years to get their next chance for the metal. They are also equally intrigued by the inability of Vinesh to drop her weight by 100 grams. They have a very simplistic solution for the same – she should have just removed her gold chain which would have dropped the weight by more than 100 grams. They just don’t comprehend the difference between the gold they buy on every foreign trip and the gold that our athletes get a chance to compete for, once in 4 years.

The arbitration appeal may go either way. Our heavyweight attorney, to our delight,  may end up making light of the contentiously heavy 100 grams. But Vinesh is going to carry this weight of 100 grams all her life and that could feel heavier than the biblical cross for her.

A Forced Lefty

 As I was handing over the keys of my car to a valet at a hotel, I realized that I had gradually become a left-hander over the last two months. I was, otherwise, a compulsive right-hander as far as a physical exchange transaction was concerned. I would unfailingly check others and shamelessly point out to shift to the ‘right’ hand from the ‘wrong’ one.  You don’t forget some of the rules ingrained into your psyche by your orthodox upbringing.

I have been going through an excruciatingly painful bout of ‘frozen shoulder’, that had only worsened over the last two months. And all this while, how and when I have unknowingly and seamlessly shifted from being a northpaw to a southpaw – I have not noticed.

Being a keen student of behaviorism, I wanted to see if this motorial malfunction of my right arm and thereby the renewed activism of my left hand has brought about any cognitive change in my personality. Enough reams have been printed by the research scholars on the intellectual primacy of the left handers. Some of these studies have concluded that the left handers do well in mathematics and in sports as well. 

To check the impact of my renewed status of handedness, I challenged my daughter to play a game of table-tennis with me. While I could never match her TT skills with my right hand, I thought with a transformed hand orientation, I should be able to beat her. But the result was much worse. I consoled myself that such a change required some practice to adjust and get some expertise and hence would need time and moved on.

Next morning, there was a big news about the hefty fines introduced on traffic violations. The whole social media was full of memes around this topic. Some carried a chart of fines and penalties imposed on different kinds of violations, a few others painted scenarios and asked one to guess the total amount of fine chargeable as per the new rules. This was pretty straight forward, I thought.  But every time I tested my mathematical prowess, it proved otherwise. I misjudged a penalty or overlooked some compounding.  My new found left handedness did not add to my proficiency here either.

As I entered the kitchen I saw my wife struggling to take out a bottle from the top shelf. I stretched my left hand to reach out and said – I may not be able to lift my right hand Honey but my left hand is always there for you. She smiled and a silly me went on to say – or you get a home slipper with high heels. She never liked commenting on her height and snarled at me – you are getting too lefty with your comments these days. Better do your physio more seriously and get back to the right sooner. And I retracted immediately, realizing that the cognitive change had indeed happened but on the ‘wrong’ side. 

Panchatantra 2020

 

Sundervan was an ideal, self-governed reserve forest that was completely at peace with itself. Here all the animals lived in absolute harmony that would have put to shame the person who gave a negative connotation to the term ‘Jungle Raj’.  A few incidents in the past few weeks, however, had disheveled this fine equilibrium at Sundervan and it was chaos everywhere.

In the past few weeks, the inhabitants of the forest had found many of their friends and family members killed by some other animals. A few others disappeared mysteriously.  Some inhabitants had accused the members of the Tiger family responsible for these crimes as they claimed to have seen them carrying out these killings. Tigers, on the other hand, claimed innocence.

Bholu Bear and his trusted troops, who were responsible to maintain law and order in the jungle, had meanwhile used their spy network to keep an eye on the movements of the suspected animals. And on one of their pursuits, they captured a Tiger red handed while committing the crime. But during the course of their investigation, they realized that what they had captured was, in fact, not a Tiger but a Hyena wearing the skin of a Tiger.  The Hyena further revealed that over the past few months, a few hundreds of Hyenas had crossed over from the adjacent forest and had penetrated into the various jungle colonies masquerading as Tigers. The tiger skin was so well stuck to the Hyena skin that it was not easy for a common jungle inhabitant to identify.

Sheru, the King of Sundervan was deeply concerned with the developments and had immediately ordered to identify all the Hyenas amongst the Tigers. A whole battalion of Bholu’s cadets were pressed into service to spot any Tiger and pull its skin to ensure it was not a Hyena.  While many Hyenas were identified and captured in the process, this had put the genuine Tigers into much inconvenience and pain. More than the physical discomfort, it was some sense of humiliation that was causing considerable consternation amongst the genuine Tigers and they were resenting the very idea of this exercise. A few other animals were also sympathetic to them.

After letting them to vent their emotions for some time, Sheru stood up from his seat. It took a little more time than the normal before all the animals took note of it and retreated to their seats, albeit a little reluctantly. The Sundervan tradition did not allow any animal to make a statement out of turn, while the King was standing on the dais.

To start with, Sheru made it clear to the animals that Bholu and his cadets were performing a duty as mandated by him and therefore, if there was any inconvenience to any of the inhabitants, he owned up the responsibility for the same. And then he turned towards Gaja, who was lost in his own deep thoughts, and sought his advice on the prevailing situation.

Gaja moved slowly to the center of the dais, all along lost in his thoughts, perhaps making up his mind as to what would be his messaging at this critical juncture.  He cleared his throat and provided a brief update on the sequence of events that had led to the current imbroglio. Then he looked towards the streak of Tigers sitting in a corner and chided them almost holding them responsible for the situation. He thought, if the Tigers were circumspect, if they were vigilant enough from the beginning, they could have avoided this ugly state. Were they just careless or was that a case of callousness. Given the fact that Tigers can smell their brethren from a distance, how come the presence of a set of imposters amongst them never raised a doubt in their minds. Gaja’s tone turned stern now - You could have smelt out those frauds, you didn’t. You could have observed their distinct mannerisms; you chose not to. You would have noticed their suspicious movements; you ignored. You thought they wore your colours, so their quirkiness would not harm you after all.  But they tainted your own colour.  And now they have entrenched themselves so deep into your lives that you have almost forgotten your own smell to be able to isolate them.

Sheru realized he had to step in now. He asked Gaja, almost pleadingly – Is there another way to insulate the real ones and still sieve out the imposters. One that would not cause pain to our genuine Tigers. Gaja looked at Sheru with a resigned gaze and said - There is too much negativity around. Weeding out harmful influences should be your priority now. Even a small chunk of negative stimulus could eat up the entire positive life for breakfast.

You are the King and we expect you to take tough decisions in the interest of this jungle. If that doesn't please all, so be it.  And to mitigate the pains of the Tigers, I would advise them to go to the cadets voluntarily at their convenience. That will speed up the process and will also lessen the pain for them - both physiological and the psychological. Faster they help us identify the fraudsters, quicker will be the relief. If it was an elephant skin instead of the tiger, I would have surely been keen to be the first to get myself cleared.

As the crowd dispersed – some looking happy, a few others looking dejected, Sheru asked Gaja – will this work? Gaja continued with his wisdom pearls -  I am under no illusion that all of them agree with me here. But I can guarantee you, if we do not recover from this fast, this will generate enough hatred amongst the jungle inhabitants and will spread like a fire that will engulf all of us. It will be a civil war that none of us would be able to stop. Most of us will die and those who survive will not have a good enough reason left to survive. You are the King for a reason. You need to think holistically and follow your ‘Raj-dharma’.

 

World is not a stage

 

The newspaper this morning carried an interesting piece of news on a certain standup comedian being barred from flying by a few Indian flyers.  The comedian, apparently, had repeatedly tried to provoke a news journalist into a confrontation that never happened but the standup act was not appreciated by the airline and was reported to the regulating authority.

I have often noticed that people who achieve success in one field are often enticed into expressing their views on subjects where they have no expertise. While some demonstrate utmost honesty and integrity by declining to comment there are others who unwittingly get drawn into a controversy.

One thing that people fail to appreciate is that they excel in one field and hence have a set of followers but that followership does not necessarily transcend into another field. A successful actor expressing views on society; a cricketer entering into politics with a certain ideology; another public figure with no background of history talking about historical facts or a politician with no understanding of finance commenting on the state of economy – often end up making a fool of themselves and lose their followership.

There have been very successful examples of many popular cine personalities successfully converting their followership into politics as well but very few have been able to sustain it. And they are exceptions.

Another aspect of such indulgence is to appreciate one’s domain and its canvas. You may be a news anchor but know that what you officially broadcast is different from what you say in private – those are leaks. You may be a humorist and can pull off by caricaturing an individual on a comedy show but when you do it in an open public place, it is a blatant violation of the person.

I support certain politicians on some specific work that they do; I love my favorite cricketers on the ground; and I love film personalities for their skills on the screen but that doesn’t stop me from caricaturing them in private (in a private circle of 4 people; never know when and where the sec 144 is in effect) and I enjoy it.  My friends like it and enjoy it. But that doesn’t give me the right to mock them in public or challenge them on those very topics. There is a thin line between humor and satire but there is a wide chasm between a humorist and an activist. We should know where to draw the line.

Shakespeare was a great playwright without doubt. But he was not a sage whose writings can be taken as a gospel truth. Else, only after a misadventure you may realize that the world is not a stage after all, where you can invade into someone’s personal space and get away with that.

Raju Alteration Shop

 

It was another Saturday when John was heading towards Jayanagar for his monthly ritual of carrying a load of Sharon’s new wardrobe, that she bought from Myntra, for the alterations. He could never understand the difference a half-an-inch tucking on sides could make to a beautiful new outfit. He would always tease Sharon that it was just to prove a point that she was still an inch slimmer than the standard ‘M’ size that she made him run to this Raju shop every now and then.

While John did not mind doing a few odd chores on a Saturday while Sharon was at work,  this visit to Raju was the one he abhorred the most. Five days a week, John would be the boss in office and would get through his way, whatever be the challenge. He used his gift of gab to navigate through the maze of bureaucracy in his organization and never got suck at any point. But this Raju guy was one who wouldn’t listen to any of his talks and would dismiss him disdainfully ordering him to return only after 45 minutes. At those moments, John found his CA-topper certificate and the IIM-A degree strewn all over the place by this ITI certificate holder. Every time John was at his shop, it watered down all his ego pumped up through the week in office.

As usual, he dumped the clothes at Raju’s shop and handed over the small chit that had some numbers mentioned against each dress identified with color – the code that he could never understand but there seemed absolute harmony on that between Sharon and Raju. He then moved to the coffee shop across the road and took to his favorite seat by the glass window and opened his unfinished book. The boy at the shop knew him well and within no time served him with his favorite espresso.

John was not able to concentrate on his book as the person sitting on the next table was continuously on call and his conversation was distracting John. He was talking to a subordinate apparently – it is already late and if this does not get delivered before Sunday night, I do not want to see you in office on Monday morning – and he disconnected the line. John looked at him and gave him a smile. The face looked familiar. 

Are you from Mantri Paradise – asked John and the person nodded. Tough Day? And what brings you here – asked John. Well, some work for my wife. It might take some time so I parked myself here. Oh, Raju Alteration by any chance – John asked mischievously. The person again nodded. Hmm, 45 minutes? – one more salvo from John. This time the gentleman sounded more despondent – nope, 1 hour. Now, that filled John with a fresh air of exhilaration. That Raju guy did not seem such a baddy after all. His 45-minute wait appeared like a frequent flyer privilege as against the 60 minutes of a commoner.  John now happily immersed himself into the book for the next 30 minutes. The coffee tasted much better now.