Jumbo King takes on Mcdonalds

I came across this print ad over the window pane in a Churchgate fast the other day.
The print ad is from Jumbo King. The branded vada pav vendor seems to have rolled up his sleeve to match it up with Ray Croc's networking burger franchisee. I had once spoken to Ms Gupta (founder of Jumbo King) regarding an event sponsorship and she politely declined, emphasising that they target the railway commuters and promote their brand much in and around the railway stations. I can say , they have lived upto the claim , but branded themselves around the Mcdonald's theme.

Looking at the red and yellow theme of the print ad above very few would be reminded of McDonald's, but moving ahead to the tag line "always loved it!" with an inverted "M" from McDonalds; there would be very few who would not be reminded of the burger brand that is currently using the tag line "I'm loving it!"
After 4 crore vada paavs (burp!) being sold, do we get to see another desi -multinational acquisition?

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

Mean Machines are passe now.

TOYOTA PRIUS

I really can't say whether it is Just in Time manufacturing or sheer brilliance that gets Toyota another hit : PRIUS .
Prius is a hybrid built from scratch unlike most other cars which have hybrids as evolved models.
NYT reports that Toyota has already recorded a sale of more than 400,000 in such a short span of time.
It is such a phenomenon that its brand value is metaphoric with the yellow, blue , white "Live Strong" rubber wrist bands.
Currently the PRIUS is priced at approximately $22k and is poised to give a mileage of approximately 50 gallons per litre.

THE iPOD OF CARS

The FIAT Cinquecento is coming back!
The Cinquecento was the Elvis of its times and if it FIAT has its way, the new version of this three-door car to be launched at its 50th birthday will be the ipod of cars (are you there Mr Ghosn? And yes Mr. Jobs, you can certainly stick the feather)
Cinquecento (earlier , the FIAT 500) was akin to MUL's 800 in terms of bringing about a market transition from two-wheelers to affordable 4-wheelers. If rumours have it, its going to be priced at approximately $ 13.5k
Well if its gotta be the ipod of cars the it needs to be presented atleast like a Yashraj flick and Fiat knows how to do this well and beyond.In addition to the exterior design of the Cinquicento ,they've come up with this uber cool portal that boasts not only of a chic and sexy look but is also loaded heavily with stuff that'll get the ooohs and aahs out of the first time clicker.
So heres me signing off quoting the website punch-header : "500 wants you"
(I want her too, 500 times :P)

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

CAMPUS PLACEMENTS and the SOFTIES

The sixth semester ends and there starts the official drive for on campus placements for the engineers : a part of the promising future of our country.
Talk about placements and the first thing that comes to your mind is the Top Five Software conglomerates : TCS, WIPRO, INFOSYS etc. often nicked as 'bulk recruiters'
I'd been for one of their Pre placement talks (PPT), but before going in for that lets talk about Pre PPT scenario.

These Software giants are perceived differently by different people:

a) If you are from an IIT, then you'll give the "huh?- I-dint-get-you reaction when asked about placements in these companies.
b) If you are from an NIT, then you'll get the question, but promptly reply that its not prestigious for you to get in there (you know better)
c)If you are from any other local engineering college, then this is mostly going to be your first job (and probably your final one,on campus) taken from job-security point of view.
d) If you are a parent, then its a prestige issue that your lad works in here (you certainly have the following facts & figures:turnover,employee base,business verticals,presence in different countries et all.

Coming back to the PPT, since I'm from a non-IIT/NIT institute, this company was confident of getting a wholesale deal struck here (offcourse with bulk discounts and other perks). When you know you have the market then you tend to loosen up a bit and so was this one , a bit unorganised in their presentation skills.
A confident bloke tried to challege them and asked the golden question' why do you recruit such masses?' He got back:" Well, we have an ever expanding business and we are always in need of freshers" -Thanks to the ever increasing attrition rate and headhunters.THis explains the reason why he made two contradictory statements:
a)"You all have the freedom of choosing your career paths: be it a domain or a vertical of your choice"
b) you'll be able to chose your domain/vertical after establishing considerable (4-5years) time in the organisation."
I say he was a smart guy: he knew the folks were dozing untill he reached the 'compensation' slide.
I liked their attention seeking technique of starting off with an audio visual ad campaign and winding up with a 'this-is -the kewlest-place-to-be' movie ; for which almost 75% of the junta fell in.
But I did not, as i constantly told myself: "You are here just for the PPT. Not to get placed!"

But the truth is that sooner or later, I'll be placed within one of it's competitors and you might just hear my mom say 'Mera beta ABCDeeeee mein job kartaa hai'

Dear mom. And dear me.


copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

ROBO-KAAND

Whiling away my precious PL(prep leave) morning over the myriad newspapers I have subscribed to, I came across a little piece :a pseudonorm that said ”South Korea plans Code of Ethics for Robots” : The scarcely populated country which comprises of old people (unlike ours which is heavily populated with a good proportion of young blood) would have new citizens 10 years down the line. These robots would also be guarding the delicate border separating the nation with North Korea.

Recently Prof Warwick (the first man to have a chip implanted in his body) had come down to India giving a series of lectures on the importance of implanting these chips .Prof. Warwick predicts that the world will be full of robots in the next 25-50 years and so to survive , one definitely requires these chips that could keep man still superior over his creation.

So, the next-gen cool kids won’t be the one’s who’ve got pierced at odd places, but the one’s who’ll have implants at maybe even places. To add to it, they might even carry tags saying “Powered by XYZ Corp.” This seems to be an excellent brand building tool complimenting the much sought after evolution of mankind. Especially when R&D work is being done on building intelligent robots who can take their own decisions, there’s a lot more to see for the current young guns and off course their kids (that’s if they reproduce humans instead of bots)

If you haven’t sensed the sarcasm above, let me brief you about the preventive measures proposed to the much dreaded future (only witnessed in Sci-Fis): Coming back to the South Korea article, they’ve set up a team of esteemed scientists, lawyers and doctors to come up with a set of rules that would prevent android (human look alike robot) abuse and define the relationship between man and these machines. They might even consider Issac Asimov’s (sci-fi author,”I,robot”) laws laid 60 years back:
a) Robots may not injure humans or allow harm to come to them
b) Should obey orders given by humans (not overriding the above law)
c) Must protect their own existence (not overriding the above 2 laws)

It is difficult to understand how exactly these laws might be inherited if these robots are to guard a country’s border, however, I give the benefit of doubt and wait for them to come up with their set of laws.
Laws made would possibly differ among nations and might lead to the setting up of an international federation of Robotic rights and proliferation (I’d prefer a kewler name though) and the then superpower would decide the fate of this creation that may have just evolved out of the human fetish for owning slaves.

I feel I’m virtually on my way to build my first work of fiction and eventually perform a fast Fourier transform of the nightmarius-producto-hormones in side your cerebrum (or is it cerebellum?) , so preventing any further deflection on my guilt-o-meter ,I take your leave ; but do ponder.

Pseudonormicks copyright 2007
The views and opinions expressed are solely the authors's and are subjective.

OF NEW YEARS AND MORE

Come 31st of December and it’s a boom time in the economy as the junta is all geared up to rock their way into the new year .The streets are full of banners speaking more about the coming parties than the new IPO or the sale at Shopper’s Stop. Every one has plans to make up or speak up and “What’s on the 31st?” is the talk of the town. Whatever be the logic or let there be none, its simply a PARTY TIME !!
So lets chk out some more popular kinds of parties on the New years eve:

1)The crowd racker party (CRP)
This is the most popular one among the typical folks who want their stuff on the platter. From 5-star hotels to the gully pubs everyone wants a year-end bonus so each one of them has something in store for you. Belly dancers from Yugoslavia ,a hot gal DJ, cuties doing flair at the bar you name it and they have it for you. They’ll charge you prices proportional to their brand values and you pay just to get into an over-crowded neon lit place short of food but overflowing with vodka!! And here is where the people booze their way into the new year.

2)The private house party (PHP):
This one is more often done by the folks who prefer having a ball and holding it too :) . They book a bungalow by the beach or have it at their place if its big enough. Only close friends/family invited. Make sure to be there as these parties always treat you big without burning a hole down your pockets (unless off course if you’re hosting it). In certain places friends go dutch to host such parties and customize every aspect of it.

3)The lukha party (LP)
Don’t feel like getting into the crowd? No invites for PHP either? Hey get your bike out on the road (but make sure only after 11pm) and vroom your way through .
These parties are the ones that add to the chaos on New years eve with increasing traffic every year. Well its usually full of stags and some cozy couples in search of that privacy.

4)The spiritual party (SP):
These ones comprised of those grown up above boozing and more into the new year. These types of parties are meant for ppl who believe that a new year is a new beginning. They enter the new year meditating/singing bhajans/chanting hymns et all.

Now that we’ve talked about the new year parties lets get in to the numerous new years that we celebrate. Surprised!! Hey Im not talking crap but its just a fact that in a single year (according to any calendar) we do celebrate more than one NEW YEAR.

1)The English New YEAR:
Celebrated universally on the 1st JANUARY. This year the new year arrived a second late (GOOD LORD !!))

2) Your Birthday:
Many treat their birthdays as a new beginning and so this is like a new year again. People make resolutions just to put them away (you’ll know why later).

3)The Regional New Year:
Various religions/castes have their own traditional new year. For Eg: The Guddi Padwa for the Maharashtrians, Cheti Chand for the Sindhis, Baisakhi for the Sikhs et all.

4)The Diwali New Year:
Popular among the Indians, this New year is marked a day or two after Diwali , which is celebrated by one and all in India and also by some folks abroad.

To sum it up there are four major NEW YEARS in a year with four different popular ways to party it out. So if you’re weak enough in math you’ll find a minimum of 16 reasons to party out . Another peculiar point is that on an average, a new year arrives in 1-4 months time . So, if one makes a new year resolution one has to compulsorily break it to make a new one for the next new year and that’s why the adage goes ”Resolutions are made to be broken up”

Hmm if you’ve observed carefully, I’ve answered an important question asked by many across the globe. So what say ? Feel free to name the award that comes to your mind.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT... SLURP !!

Heard of Jumbo King??
Ok what about Yellow’s ??
Jay Sandwich ??
If these names sound bizarre, then probably you’re of the kind that hogs at no less than a 7-star (he he then why would you be reading this dumb blog of mine???)

# Well Vada Pav is a popular Maharashtrian fast food delicacy : the Indian counterpart of the burger. Jumbo King is a local Mumbai firm started by an MBA duo(The Guptas) who, well as they say ,”have branded Vada Pavs”

# Now Yellow’s is a chip maker (not the logic base you nerd !!) .It indeed manufactures banana chips and have named themselves probably on the color of the chips. This enterprise was started by an IIM –L duo somewhere in the southern parts of India and have literally branded banana chips –a widely popular choice amongst majority of the living human taste buds was sadly left for the roadside vendors to sell until Yellow’s took form.

# The students of RD National college, Bandra, Mumbai always envied a “JAY SANDWICH”, which was once started by a college student (of course JAY) and still is counted among the most popular sandwich vendors in the city.Many students of the neighboring colleges have been inspired and many vowed to open a”Karthik Samosa (KS)” or a “Karan bhajiya (KB)” or a ”Shreepad Vada pav(SVP)” on the lines of ‘Jay Sandwich’.

So what’s the whole fuss about ??

Three dazzling examples, the first two being laid by book smarts and the third by a street-smart who inspired several book smarts. All three examples have one thing in common (apart from the’ smartness’ and the fact that they are featured on the same blog)…
FOOD !!!
Food to satisfy hunger .. yes definitely, but also..
FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Well the likes of Karthik Samosas , Karan Bhajiyaas and Shreepad Vada Pavs just don’t come into existence is because these things begin to seem very petty as one gains more education and thinks about the ROI and the fame-factor of being associated with plush offices and so on. Why the fuss in this?? . Many would give an economists point of view saying that we need to grow up to get our economy big, the era of globalization has taken up, the world is shrinking where is India? Blah blah blah.

Sounds pretty cool to be concerned about one’s motherland (if not the fake patriotism then for the sake of proving that Value Education was pretty useful in school huh?) Heh!! if we really want to do something good to get our economy shaken , then it is to look into ourselves and see what the heck is our USP?? That is exactly what the 3 guys in example above did.

We indeed need to feed our minds to generate the logic that these entrepreneurs created. India’s biggest and probably the most unexplored asset is mother India itself-(the soil that these folks in Rang De Basanti wail about in the title track) Agriculture and correspondingly the opportunities in the food industry is what India is looked upon for a long period of time and it doesn’t require geniuses to explore this field. And as far as those with an urge to work in plush offices are concerned : make up something to give Frito-Lay a tough time and believe me it’d take you lesser hassles than building up a chip-manufacturing (this time it’s the logic chip mate) plant, which you’ve been dreaming off since ages.

The crème de la crème of the sound thinkers , another of India’s assets , have done enough to bring about a software revolution in the country and so have the one’s who’ve been noisy about the availability of “cheap” (I prefer cost-effective) “labor” in the country- as this has led to the rise of the BPO world off late.

If you still reading in full consciousness,(give yourself a pat on your back) and get some food- FOOD FOR THOUGHT and then go in front of the mirror to hunt for your USP !!

MULTIPLEX MANIA

A visit to the dome at IMAX ADLABS, Wadala, Mumbai makes you feel heavily expressive and also a bit lighter on the pockets. The worlds largest dome theatre is huge enough to overwhelm your stress transforming it into ‘a high’. Just when I got this sought after ‘kick’ , I realized the lack of something – an interval !!. The 2.5 hours of non-stop “Goblet of fire” ( the latest in the Harry Potter series) at times made me feel as if I were under the ‘Cruciatus’ curse being tortured without food ( as I had missed my lunch to attend a meet before the movie)
Yet ,the experience was worth a thousand burgers. The quidditch world cup, the first task where Harry flew on his broomstick dodging the dragon, the scene over the lakes where the owls flew, the task under water surrounded by ‘not –so -pretty’ mermaids are some scenes I distinctly remember being ‘carried by’ with the movie( and literally so). Such was the 3-dimensional effect of the dome , although it used only 75% of the screen for this movie (it not being an original DMR format movie). Even after stretching and twisting my neck for the entire length, it wasn’t a ‘pain in the neck’ – thanks to JK Rowling(the author), (the director), the engineers who’ve created one helluva place somewhere in the remotes of Mumbai.
The government started promoting multiplexes around three years ago in a drive to cut short the space occupied by single screens. They offered them a tax-free regime till about five years ( which aren’t yet over) .This ‘tax-free’ offer enables the developers/owners to make up for their investment i.e. in a way guarantees the multiplex creators a sure-shot ROI (Return On Investment), which implies that these multiplexes can make enough money even if they charge the folks with the ordinary ‘single-screen’ rates. The junta wouldn’t have minded even if they charged a little over the standard prices, but what they do charge us is approximately twice the amount. But 3 yrs is a lot of time and now people are pretty used to these charges and even pocket-money clad students find it pretty normal (except on weekends). Why and How?---- Thanks to the Chalta hai attitude.
A post show survey at many multiplexes (which supposedly helps them relate to the masses better) consists primarily of a questionnaire (which requires you to have a pen) asks you about various facets such as service ,security, ambience, cleanliness, sound quality, seating, food, and other likes and dislikes generally gets a hats off salute from majority of the folks filling the questionnaire (although some of this majority like the others of the minority have issues with the prices , it being the only debatable facet in a multiplex). Overhearing several discussions and being a part of many entitles me to say that although the folks aren’t really satisfied they would show-off as if things are pretty mundane. HOW and WHY? –The same Chalta hai attitude.
As a matter of fact these are the people who took over the ‘baniyas’ when they started charging a buck extra for serving a chilled soft-drink, and even more some dragged them to the consumer courts for that extra buck. HOW and WHY? Nahin Chalta hai- attitude.
Here is where the pseudonorm lies, the ‘Oh-so-cool’ “Chalta Hai” attitude is basically hypocorism metaphorised and exist in most of us.
If we carefully look inside each of us somewhere or the other, somehow or the other we are a ‘put-on’… A wannabe !!!