ATM blues

India got its first ATM when the HSBC introduced the concept in 1987.

I saw an ATM for first time in 1995, it was December in Mumbai landing at around 10 in night at VT now called as CST(I think it was called CST back than as well) straight from Lucknow with an address in hand looking for my Buddy Alok Jain although I had sent speed post in advance of my arrival date it’s a mystery still where that post went.Out of train Frantically I looked everywhere for Mr jain..not a trace of him.I summoned all the courage and went out of station. Irani restaurant on the front street was full of crowd doing brisk business ….being a simpleton I told the owner guy the predicament I was in and told him I was looking for no of Colaba YMCA,guy was point blank and told me it would cost INR 5/- extra and than pushed thick yellow directory in front of me..one full page of YMCA nos!!! , this was a coin propelled phone and I was able to connect to manager of YMCA Colaba, I was speaking english as if everyone in Mumbai breathed only that language(assumed fears of a small town guy) he guided me to a phone no of the hostel and lucky me that Mr Jain was somehow was in his room awake still and was called instantly , for first time I felt oxygen in my lungs.My saviour the Irani the eatery owner never took that 5 from me I feel indebted to him still.

Mr Jain was prompt in coming and out we went for night of adventure( would recap that in some later post or maybe Alok recaps that) but first Mr jain went into kiosk sort of the thing pulled out card and extracted money out of the metallic box.

I had seen working of first ATM in my life.

My First Post- sending on behalf of Joshita recapped verbatim

Welham is the most enjoyable and the best school I have been to.It is a nice experience to live in a boarding school. I like many things about welhams and one of the best and the funniest is it's fire proof puris . They are not actually fire proof but as they are quite hard but tasty all the girl's (INCLUDING ME ) call them fire proof. A lot of things happen there,In the past two months (when I had gone there for my first term )we had two Spic Macay shows , one Basket Ball tournament and the annualinter house music and dance competition.The studies are also quite tough than in Gurgoan ,There is a lot to do here. and they keep us very busy .

So altogether it is fun.

Of Jasmine and beetles

The editorial i put up in 3rd edition, maybe something incomprehensible to you more so about insects and FMD outbreak but this is truly internationale article to be enjoyed by people whose playground is world :

As third edition of the newsletter rolls out we reflect back pleasantly sipping our Jasmine tea without brewing up any storm in our tea cup whilst another boiling of ‘Jasmine’ is taking place in Middle East this time a real storm blowing away entrenched ones packing off them as tourists to distant lands wanted or unwanted by hosts but meanwhile Vietnam has some unwanted tourists these days, they come without visa or passport and do not sport any kind of shades or even khaki shorts, no..no not at all they are not even illegal migrants in strict sense, ‘Khapra beetles’ those innocent looking insects severly challenging entomologists somehow went piggy riding on corn’s back but not everyone is as visitor friendly and were turned unceremoniously back, talking of piggy riding, hog’s are having quite tough sailing in Far East with everyone suddenly interested in their pedicures/ manicures and which does not stop with checking of ‘foot and mouth’ only.
All in all eventful three editions and three quarters more to come ,end of this quarter is a major customer event for all of us and being sharp as always we know which side of our bread is buttered although never would we admit treating customer as cash cow still all are ready to milk the opportunity to fullest.

Rama Maam

Some of my finest memories come from my SGRR days. The school may have lost some reputation now, but in those days it used to be just fine. There were many a fine teachers, each one unique in their character. Their voices and faces are still stuck in my mind as if I saw them yesterday.

Even though Rama maam never took a class for me, or at least I don't remember she did, there was something about her that made me admire her. I think it was her strong personality. Middle aged, she had a habit of supari chewing. She always carried a reshmi supari pouch with her, the one thats round and has a string at the rim so you can pull and close it. I don't think I ever saw her empty mouthed. As soon as she finished, she would open her pouch and ate a small helping. Because of this her teeth had become tinted, and there was big gap between teeth as well. For some reason, she also always limped while walking. One of my distinct memories also is that she used to wear dark green sari always. Sticking out from the short blouse, her extremely fair flesh always shone on the sunny days making her even more attractive.

When a new principal was once hired at the school, he tried to bring about a few changes, one of them being each one of us would bring the news highlights from last night's news or from the morning newspaper and read them to the whole school during the morning prayer gathering. Also, for the prayers, it was decided to make it more musical. It turned out that Rama maam actually knew how to play harmonium. So, then every morning from then on we sung different prayers like itni shakti hame dena maata or ae maalik tere bande hum with her harmonium and her strong voice took prominence over all other voices. Of course once the prayer was over, she took supari from her pouch for a fresh helping and sooth her dried mouth from all the singing. Such was Rama maam.

Link to Jaya Bhaduri's video for a morning prayer session at school, singing hum ko man ki shakti dena: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbchuCfqBls&feature=related

Confessions of born Merchandisers

An article in yet to be published editorial in newsletter, it talks of confessions of one my colleague and is apt for sales personnals:

Fine day god gifted us to this earth we immediately put up a simple structured solutions for our parents….mom lovingly fed us while dad became our most willing cleaner and never have we seen again customers so happy ever. Growing up trial and error further honed up our marketing skills, initially fleecing grandparents for the pocket money on way to the school leaving behind again a set of well satisfied and adoring customers, still in college increased complexity of ‘Growing up’ business threw up challenges which certainly tingled our boiling hormones and growing grey cells, this time as complex as it can get..latest flames’ father finances the happiness of his child in turn feeling good whilst the child finances the surreptitious meetings again fueling the happiness all over….certainly we did get a engaged customers family.
Finally getting hired by Cargill to be paid for a job which came as naturally to us as honking comes to a donkey but never making an ass of ourselves always leaving a trail of devotionally singing customers behind the pied piper

Twinkle! , twinkle! Cargill star,
sometimes we wonder what you are !
making us feel good and high,
Like a fly caught in sweet pie!

OSAMA

Had Seen this pic somewhere in a magazine earlier saw again.

No virus in this.... :-)

News letter

These were the cartoons i has posted in my marketing news letter under new head of 'Out of frame" all these are real people, i am making more foes than friends.