Kanupriya Sindhu

– Dreamer, Doer, Mother, Marketeer

My wishlist for some more DAYs

March 28, 2010

Ok, so few days back it was “save water day” & few days later it will be “lake restoration day”. Today it is actually “hot tub day” (time to soak yourself in a steaming hot tub and bust the stress!!!) & on 30th March it is gonna be “doctor’s day” (time to thank the doctors in your lives!!!). Well, earlier also I had wondered and expressed my bewilderment on these millions & zillions of days in a calendar year of just 365 days! Thanks to some authorities, marketers & creators that we have even days for “temporary insanity” (this year it was on 19th Feb) & “teddy-bears” (this year it’s on 9th Sept’10). Well, being a marketer I can’t crib about these weird and incomprehensible number of days as I’ve myself being into situations where I was supposed to come out with some such days just to promote the product / service in a different way! So, as far the concept of these days are concerned, I think whether I like it or hate it, I have sort of done truce with it now. Only wondering why don’t people come out with some more meaningful days which can make our lives bit easier, you know even it is just for a day. And on a vella Sunday evening, here I come with a wish list of my preferable days which I would love to be added in this never ending list of special days. So, here goes my proposed memo from the top 5 in my wishlist, of course if I will have more such free Sundays, I don’t mind adding more to this:

  • Well-behaved auto driver day: Now this is self-explanatory, isn’t it? Imagine you walk out of your home / office and an auto guy is just standing in front of you with a big grin on his face, he bows down and asks you absolutely politely – “madam, aap kaha jana chahengi”? When I say X road, he obeys with another big smile and says – “sure madam, please baithiye”. He starts the auto and starts his meter too, drops you to your destination and charges you exactly as per the meter. If the meter reads Rs. 99, he actually returns Rs. 1 from the 100 rupee note given to him. Ah bliss!!! The imagination itself of even one such day in our life is just so comforting. I’m sure people from metro at least from Bangalore, Delhi & Chennai will vouch for starting one such day.
  • Maid behaving as a maid day: OK, this might be more desired by women but so what, after all a maid is the most important person (ummm, maybe second most important person after the husband) in a woman’s life! Imagine one such day when a maid behaves like a maid and we can ask them to do any number of work without the terror of them leaving our job! Kaash ek, sirf ek din bhi aisa ho paata humare life mein 🙁
  • Negative calorie day: Yes, yes by this I very much mean one such day where whatever we eat (of course, chocolates, ice creams and all desserts included) gets converted into negative calries by some miracle of God. Science has advanced so much, but why on earth some such invention has not happened till now! On this negative calorie day, eat all your favorite calorie laden food absolutely guilt free 😛
  • Cello tape day: One day where you have the power to just shut-up or mute the LOUD persons in your life by officially pasting a cello tape on his / her mouth. And this has to be applicable to anybody whom you hate – be it your Boss, your MIL, that really LOUD colleague of yours, your very irritating neighbor or this person who is so self obsessed that all he/she knows is to speak about “me & myself”. (Well, be careful about this day though, maybe even you would be on hitlist of someone for putting a cello tape on your mouth, but if this happens my advice will be to take it sportingly as even you are getting a chance to zip so many mouths this day

And last but not the least,

  • Sleep in Office Day: One day (some week day of course) where we are allowed to officially sleep in office for as long as we want. Reach office, switch on your laptop and go to zzzzzzzzzzzz…., Boss comes, wakes you up, asks you to do something and you look at him with sleepy eyes and without listening to him completely go to zzzzzzzzzz again…wow!

So, anything on your wishlist? Feel free to add more it in comment section…

Karthik Calling Karthik

March 3, 2010
Get-togethers, Karthik Calling Karthik, Holi and lo the weekend disappeared just like that :(. It was surely an action packed weekend with main highlight being the festival of colors. In fact I got to celebrate holi after a looong time. It must have been years now that I had such great fun on any festival like this. Thank god, for a nice day in my life. But coming down to the main topic of the post, I think again it’s quite some time that I’ve posted review of any movie on this blog. Not that I’ve not seen any movies of late, as usual my minimum one movie a weekend quota is still going on 😛 but the lazy as well as busy me has just not managed to get time to write a post on recently watched movies. But you know I’ve to do a post on Karthik Calling Karthik and this amazing talent known as Farhan Akhtar.

To start with I think Farhan Akhtar is simple the best in Bollywood these days. I was so mesmerized by his multi-faceted performance in Rock-On; then came Luck By Chance where Farhan was again in a lead role. Despite the movie not being a huge commercial hit, personally I had loved it. And now with KCK (Karthik Calling Karthik), I’m in total awe of this actor. I know the movie has its own flaws and so is the storyline which gets bit too filmy at end, but overall if I have to rate this movie then my pointer will surely tilt towards “I like it” side. This movie is about a diffident guy Karthik who is being bullied by everybody around him, be it his landowner, his boss (Ram Kapoor), colleagues or his love of life Shonali (Deepika Padukone) who has not even noticed him despite spending four years in the same office. Then one day Karthik gets a call on his landline number which changes his life forever… No more details about the movie in the interest of those who have not watched it till now. It’s a thriller different from other Bollywood movies though I agree that the ending could have been a better one. After an entertaining first half and the gripping second half, the way in which the movie finally unfolded its main suspense was just too literal and dramatic. But nevertheless it was one of those intriguing movies which manages to keep your attention till end. Deepika Padukone was good, rather I should say better than some of her earlier dumb performances (me didn’t like her in Love Aaj Kal :I ). Writer-director Vijay Lalwani definitely deserves some accolades for trying out something different and Farhan as I said earlier was awesome! I especially liked the way this movie has been shot, the scene where the sun rises while the screen shows back of Karthik & Shonali sitting together on bench emphasizing their start of relation in a beautiful way – neither too loud like a typical movie nor too subtle to be missed out; or the last scene where Karthik falls down and the camera captures his expressions underneath the bed. Even the use of Rubik Cube at different stages to demonstrate the different states of Karthik’s life was interesting. Overall a nice and experimentive movie which gets a thumbs-up from a viewer like me.

Bad product & worse marketing : IBIBO social games

February 22, 2010
The worst thing that can happen to a bad product is good marketing…but what about the case where the product is bad and the marketing is even worse? Hmmm…then I guess it becomes a case study on brands like IBIBO with title – “how not to market a product”. No, seriously wasn’t balti ad enough that IBIBO has come out with yet another innovative campaign “why play akele”? Not one, not two, rather they have a whole series of creatives for this campaign but what is interesting is to decide which one of these can be crowned as the worst of the lot? This or this or OMG this i.e., the aunty ad on radio, well my vote clearly goes to aunty ad on radio! Every time I listen to this one on 94.3, I can’t resist myself from changing the channel, even if it means listening to kannada songs for a while on mirchi. I detest this ad so very much!

On a serious note, I’m wondering what exactly could be the reason for IBIBO to go ahead with such a crappy campaign? Millions of money spent just like that, effort wasted without any thought on promoting a product which by nature should have been actually promoted through a viral route. A copied concept which due to lack of any innovativeness decided to take the paid marketing path only leading to further disasters enroute. Neither the messaging is right, nor is the execution. To add to that the overall tone of the creatives is so suggestive & absolutely repulsive for the relevant TG of the campaign. I’m wondering is it me or is it everyone who finds these creatives to be totally absurd and disgusting? I think it won’t be a bad idea to do a quick survey on general reaction towards this campaign & send the results to IBIBO marketing team…maybe it can save us from further tortures of “why play akele” kinda campaigns in future.

Public service initiative🙂 : May I please request all of you to take out few seconds and just give your opinion below? It would be interesting to observe the results, though I don’t have any doubts on the outcome.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in my post are personal & I request readers to express their own judgements & take their own call.

[polldaddy poll=2740294]

Update on 8th Mar’ 2010: This poll is closed now for voting as per the expiry timeline of the poll. I will be publishing the result of it in my next post, for now you can just see the % of results by clicking “view results”

Isn’t optimism overrated?

February 16, 2010
Have finally let go of it…had to do it. Evaluated the priorities of my life and finally took this call. At times I’m repenting my decision whereas at times I’m thinking, it was just another opportunity…when we can bear the loss of the most loved ones, what is there in a missed opportunity? Yes, it was a very lucrative one, something which was really-really nice but still I decided to let it go in a hope to fulfill some larger objectives of my life. Those objectives after which I’m running for months now but with no result! Those objectives which have made me miss some equally attractive opportunities in past few months but still I want to run after this one as somewhere I think in the long run this one is more important for life. I’ve no idea if I’m doing right or wrong, no idea if I will get similar kinda opportunities in future but still I’m missing these with a hope that my decisions will prove to be right someday & things will turn out better. “Hope for better” is all I can think of in such a state of mind. Yes I’m apprehensive, anxious, worried, confused, depressed, feeling low & negative too…you heard it right; I’m feeling negative and not positive towards things right now! I’m not sure how am I supposed to feel optimistic about life when despite all my efforts, things are just not turning the right way for years now. And for a change I don’t wanna follow the bandwagon of “pseudo-optimism”. I want to accept my real feelings and the realities they way they are right now.

The last two weeks of my decision making phase has made me more & more contemplative towards so many things. Be positive! Optimistic raho toh sab theek ho jayega! Don’t regret! Always look on the brighter side of life! Never repent your decisions in life! Whatever happens is for good, so always think positive in life! Indecisiveness and confusions are the traits of feeble minds, strong ones take a decision & move on! Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah….Every other person whom I meet these days speaks no less than any motivational guru and out of all, the crowns for the most used (or shall I say abused) buzzwords definitely go to…OPTIMISIM & DECISION MAKING. I’m also aware that there are some colleagues, relatives, formal friends and professional acquaintances who read my this blog now (thanks to Google, finding this link is quite a simple task) and somehow this realization had actually let me become conscious of topics to be posted on my blogs for past few months. Honestly speaking there are times when I’ve written a post but have not posted thinking, “oh, this post might make me sound like a negative person” or “am I the only one who is so indecisive in life, rest all seem to be so confident & positive.” But somehow today I don’t feel like restricting myself from posting this one even if I’m aware that this will project me as a confused personality who gets depressed at times in life. I don’t think there is anything wrong in that. In fact the recent mantra of “forever optimistic” or “assume a crap to be candy & it will turn into a candy” is something which I don’t buy in. I have had arguments with people on realism vs. optimism and the other side has always won saying, “positive sochne se achcha hota hai” or “go with the flow & life will be fine”…well, does it really? If you’re aware that the flow which you are going along with is going to end in pits, then why not change your course before hand, why optimistically wait for the pit to get converted in a straight road? If you’re on a crossroad where both directions seem to be equally appealing & both are sort of life changing directions for you, then how are you not supposed to be indecisive & confused about it? Positive thinking is fine but it DOES NOT & CAN NOT help you in all situations. I have so many case-in-points where I have seen my thinking getting true but somehow have not been able to voice it loudly as my concerns are generally being taken as unnecessary apprehensions. Call me cynical but I do think (& strongly so) that this term “optimism” & the theory of “prove the world that you’re confident” are just too overrated. I have enough case studies and examples to elaborate the same & I will definitely do so in one of my subsequent posts when I will have more time to write a long one for I do feel that terms like “optimism (prefix: pseudo)”, “confidence (prefix: forced)”, “decision making (prefix: irrational)” are doing more bad than good to many of us.

Long live Indian comic characters

February 8, 2010
Was off on a trip to different places up north in January & what a deadly weather it was this time! Chilling cold with dense fog leading to almost zero visibility on roads, did not see sunlight for the whole of 18 days during my trip and traveling to different cities was just so painful. Either flights / trains were canceled or were running abnormally late. One such trip was my return to Delhi from Varanasi via train. Though the train was running quite late but since I was traveling by train after a long time, I was sort of excited at the prospect of eating those station foods (esp. hot omelets & boiled eggs) and buying books from the station stalls. There is something very different about train journeys & buying books from railway strand stalls, it somehow makes me nostalgic about my childhood, hostel life, vacations when I used to go home by train and definitely – definitely used to buy books from station hawkers –comics, magazines, novels (of course only those which were affordable in my very limited budget then ;)) …aha loads of them which I used to devour on whole journey. And so when the train stopped at a small station during this trip in the morning, the first thing which my eyes started to search for was a magazine stall. Even with dense fog, it was not difficult to spot a vendor just outside my window and guess what! He was having Billoo! And Pinki! And Chacha Chowdhary too! Oh wow…ultimate delight I must say. After how long, I got to see those comics. I do get to buy Archies & Tintin while book browsing on Airports or during my occasional book shopping in Bangalore but then Billoo, Pinki and that too hindi versions are almost extinct from these big city book stores. If I’m not wrong today’s generation kids must not be even aware of these iconic Indian comic characters. In fact these kids esp. the ones from bigger cities are so Archified or Tintinised that they can’t even relate to the simple existence of a character like Billoo or Pinki. I remember few months back, one of my cousin’s son reading English Billoo and saying, “ yeh kya bakwaas hai,yeh bhi koi comic hai”! When my cousin tried to explain the fun part of it, the kiddoo replied, “Mom, I can’t laugh at these stupid jokes”. Slamming the book on table, that 9 year old kid logged onto his Orkut account and started chatting with his friends.
But for me reading those comics after soooo long was great fun. Read it at a stretch & then after seeing a Billoo in my hand, even pati ji got out of his deep sleep and grabbed the book immediately :-). Even after all these years, I didn’t get bored of even one single page. Yeah, at times did get the feeling of “did we actually read all these silly stuffs” but then honestly speaking I love such silliness till now. Long live Indian comic characters – Billoo Rocks, Pinki Rules & Chacha Chowdhary ka dimag abhi bhi computer se tez chalta hai 😛

Life goes on???

February 5, 2010
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, … 365. 365 days i.e., 1 full year without him. Its 5th February today, the fateful date when Kishu left us forever exactly an year back. Whole day today I’ve been trying to maintain my composure at work & divert my mind from thoughts of last year but as the day is drawing to an end, I can’t help myself from remembering that one phone call which came on 5th evening and changed our lives forever. I don’t think I can manage words to express my pain & angst against this day, the shock of last year and the agony since then… And what surprises me is the fact that we all are living without him, for last 27 years not even a single day used to go without talking to him and now its 365 days that I have not heard his voice but still I’m alive…life is going on…happily or unhappily, willingly or unwillingly… something which was unimaginable till last 5th, now is an accepted truth. An acceptance which has been enforced on us very brutally, how brutal it is can only be explained by the lonely eyes of my mom, the insecured eyes of Kaushik or the forever frightened and depressed heart of mine! As I write this post I feel strange, more than sadness, it’s perhaps anger against the unjust…

How selfish we human beings are, we learn to live without a person, without whom not even a single moment was imaginable. Yes, I do feel guilty whenever I have laughed in last one year, I do feel strange whenever I realize that our life is going on without Kishu but then I wonder did I have any other alternative than surviving through this? Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and now one year of his absence from our lives, the absence which can never be filled by anything or anyone ever again…with each moment we miss him more & more & more…for we know that now we will never be able to see him again…

The curious case of Jyoti Basu

January 6, 2010
Back after a nice weekend trip to Pondicherry. It was yet another impromptu trip which got finalized the same morning & what followed was the usual “dump clothes in car, google the directions, search for some hotel numbers & off you go“. Drive was awesome but getting hotel room was awful, seemed as if the whole world had come to Pondicherry for new-year celebration. If this was the state of Pondicherry, wondering how crowded it would have been in Goa. But nevertheless, once we got the room the trip was cool. These unplanned trips have fun of their own :-). Both me & N just hogged on those yummy sea food, delicious French desserts and not to forget all the organic stuffs which you get on Auroville road. It was a good start to the year and hoping twenty-ten to be better year for all of us.
Well 2010 has definitely started with some interesting internet updates. Earlier it was all the fiasco on FPS vs 3 Idiots & now Mr. Jyoti Basu. At around 1:30 pm, I get to read a tweet which said “Jyoti Basu passed away“. Shocked enough I started to browse through some news sites but none of them confirmed the news whereas on Twitter, people started flooding your timeline with RIP Jyoti Basu messages. Tweet pe tweet pe tweet and none of them based on any official confirmation; in fact some of them were quite ridiculous too. Have a look on the following snapshot.

We always speak of media irresponsibility and sensationalism but in this case aren’t citizens responsible for this rumor? Yes, Mr. Basu is critical and is hospitalized too but the news of his death is not confirmed by any official sources yet. In fact as per the latest update from most of the official sources, he is still alive. But people are just going on & on with their ramblings for last 4 hours so much so that the keyword “Jyoti Basu” is already a trending topic on twitter & top search in Google today. Well, now I’m curiously waiting for any update from news sites to know if it is actually a rumor or twitter was the first platform to break this news…Till then the curious case of Mr. Basu continues…

Wish you a very happy new year!

December 30, 2009
Hmmm…last day of the year and last post for my blog in 2009…I remember writing a post on 31st Dec for this blog in 2008 as well. 2008 was bad, really bad as it was the year when Amitesh Bhaiya had left us forever but then the optimistic in me thought that next year will be fine. I had wished, prayed and hoped that 2009 would be better for us never to know that 2009 would actually turn out to be the worst year of our life till now as 2009 is the fateful year when fate snatched Kishu from us very brutally and callously! They say – all that happens is for good…well not really. I don’t think there can be any good in losing Kishu and Amitesh Bhaiya from our lives forever. Life will never be same after Kishu & Bhaiya. The days are passing on but certain losses are irrevocable and some pains can never be healed. You just somehow willingly or unwillingly learn to live with it. Some incidents do make you succumb to your fate and do break your belief towards so many aspects of life…now I don’t even know whether I should hope for a better 2010. Yes, the strong optimistic in me has slowly-slowly died with time; the staunch faith has faded away. Now I only know one thing – jo hona hai woh ho ke rahega.

Had read this beautiful poem by Shri Bachchan which describes my some of the thoughts so aptly now, we keep on hoping for something better, something new but then again hota wahi hai jo hona hota hai aur din beet hi jate hai jaise-taise…

लो दिन बीता, लो रात गई

लो दिन बीता, लो रात गई,
सूरज ढलकर पच्छिम पहुँचा,
डूबा, संध्या आई, छाई,
सौ संध्या-सी वह संध्या थी,
क्यों उठते-उठते सोचा था,
दिन में होगी कुछ बात नई।
लो दिन बीता, लो रात गई ।

धीमे-धीमे तारे निकले,
धीरे-धीरे नभ में फैले,
सौ रजनी-सी वह रजनी थी,
क्यों संध्या को यह सोचा था,
निशि में होगी कुछ बात नई।
लो दिन बीता, लो रात गई।

चिड़ियाँ चहकीं, कलियाँ महकी,
पूरब से फिर सूरज निकला,
जैसे होती थी सुबह हुई,
क्यों सोते-सोते सोचा था,
होगी प्रातः कुछ बात नई।
लो दिन बीता, लो रात गई,
– हरिवंश राय बच्चन

With these thoughts, I would end my post by wishing all my readers a very happy & prosperous new year. Hope the next year brings more sunshine to your lives, have a great year ahead! And please do pray for me and my family to have a peaceful 2010…

Blogging Journey Since 2003

About Me

Dreamer, Doer, Mother, Marketer - that’s how Kanupriya likes to describe herself and the order of these roles keeps on changing for her every hour of the day :-). Entrepreneurial in nature with strong product leadership skills, she has established brands and built products that have been industry differentiators in the Indian market. Digital media is her great passion and she is an active contributor to some of the country’s leading technology and marketing publications. Kanupriya currently lives in Bangalore with her husband and son. When not working, she loves to spend her time with books, oven or paint-brush.

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