drama..a BORING one at that

I was walking with one of my friends in the hostel garden when suddenly my eyes stopped at a peculiar looking bee sitting on a very pretty red rose. The bee had a very small face and a very huge butt (body or whatever you call it) and it looked awfully ugly on that beautiful rose. No I don’t hate bees but I don’t love them either and this bee wasn’t even flying out of my sight. It was relaxing but not exactly the way we relax, bees have a strange and irritating habit of rubbing their feet against each other. Most people say that’s how they transfer pollen grains but in my opinion, it looks really bad especially when people are staring at you. I wondered if the bee would look cool if it could lie down on its back on the rose , stretch a little bit and place one leg over the other and gulp ginger beer while listening to bee rock music! The bee, I thought , looked at me for a second and asked me to fuck off. Shit! I could actually ‘get lost’ in bee dreams?!

The beep on my mobile brought me back to reality, rather senses. I don’t know how I keep losing myself to things like this, out of all things this time it was a BEE! I could see Jaanvi’s name flash on the screen. The message read- Bitch! Where are you? Are you in the hostel? Come to room 265... YOU CANNOT MISS THIS… Did Jaanvi actually type this? She never said things like ‘bitch’. Focus. I had to stop thinking about stupid things for some time now and rush towards room 265; something was definitely brewing in there.

I, along with this friend of mine who could never stop chewing her nails, in spite of politely asking her not to more than a thousand times, refusing food from her and umpteen number of things that constantly hinted at the disgust that one feels when someone chews their nails . Whatever, some people can never change. I walked towards the second floor maintaining distance from this female. No I am not a hygiene freak but it’s repelling when someone does something even remotely related to chewing nails, picking their nose etc. etc.

I saw atleast 30 girls standing in a group and whispering to each other outside 265. Moving closer, I could see that someone had locked the room from inside. Standing on the door were Jaanvi and Shonali kicking hard at it. I could see the tension building on Jaanvi’s face but as soon as Shonali looked at me she grinned widely; instantly I knew that the text was sent by her and Shonali did not care if Kamini killed herself inside. Kamini!! Ahh Kamini, the ‘hostel BITCH’ had locked herself up. But why? Apparently, the eighth guy that she was ‘supposedly’ dating in the third week of the second semester had developed feelings for another girl in his class! Lol big deal! I had not seen this other girl but I could bet on my life that she was far better to look at than Kamini. This female was certainly testing everyone’s patience…okay if not everyone’s Jaanvi’s. She was bloody cajoling her to get out of the room and all that we could hear were sobs and filmy dialogues. Main mar jaungi…nai jeena.. kaise rahungi main uske bina… Shonali and I were looking blankly at a crow perched on a skirt hanging loosely from an elastic rope. Shonali could no longer take this shit. She got up and started hurling abusive words at Kamini. I was stunned at the choicest of the gaalis that flowed incessantly from her mouth. She could actually own the urban dictionary! Within 5 minutes, Kamini stepped out with her make-up flowing from her cheeks. Yuck! She looked pathetic (not that sympathetic pathetic, it was that sad pathetic) rather dangerous. She had an all-out in one hand and a thin and sharp looking thing in the other. Someone told me that it was a pencil ‘cutter’. Lol who on earth used pencil ‘cutter’ anymore and could a pencil cutter kill anyone? Well, we were yet to discover.

Kamini threatened that she would kill herself and people were trying to stop her. She opened the nozzle of all-out ,put it to her lips and from the corner of her eyes checked if someone was advancing towards her. Fuck ! Why isn’t she drinking. I wanted to see what happens when someone drinks all-out, the first reaction on their face when they taste that liquid…

Jaanvi, great jaanvi , steeped forward slapped her and threw the bottle away from her hands. Kamini held her and started weeping and the usual bolly stuff continued. I lost interest and walked away. Eh! I wanted real drama and Jaanvi had to end it like this? Shonali knew what I was thinking and grinned at me again. I still would like to know what happens when someone drinks all the contents of an all-out bottle in one go and can you kill people with a pencil cutter….?!

KGOY

Decades ago David Ogilvy preached that “the customer is not a moron, she is your wife”. Today, looking at millions of Indian customers one is tempted to rewrite the ad legend’s ode to, ‘the customer is not a moron, she is your kid!’ I so wish I was born 20 years later. I never had a room dedicated to dolls and games of all kinds, my niece has and whenever I see that I go green with envy. My four year old niece has a bevy of barbies, hanna montanna look-alike dolls, huggables in her doll-house and yet she wants more! Her favorite place to hang-out with her parents is the mall, to be specific the Zara store and the Barbie store which now sells shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers and a whole range of cosmetics for kids! Saaaaaaad, I didn’t know the difference between a conditioner and a moisturizer till…mmm…not that early at least. Okay, so this kid like many other kids that we see these days will not return from any store empty handed. Is she stubborn? Hell, yes she is (doesn’t look like a monster though) and she will not take a NO for an answer! Kids are so smart these days; they are maturing fast and it doesn’t take them very long to get in tune with the world around them. They aren’t confused about their likes, dislikes and preferences and don’t turn to anyone but google for advice. They are well informed and can apply all the tactics under the sun to make their parents buy the latest gizmos or innumerable pairs of footwear or clothes or a whole range of consumer durables. While all this might not come as good news for parents, marketers around the world cannot help but rub their hands with glee. And, why not? It is a $100 billion market, which if tapped rightly could easily ensure their profitability for another century. Making kids act in ads isn’t a very new concept in India. They were mostly used as props to connect emotionally with the customers. All time favorites like Dhara oil’s ‘Jalebi’, Bajaj’s ‘jab main chota baccha tha’, UBI’s ‘Sone ka daant’ and the others of the sort have been replaced by ads that are desperate to sell their products to the kids, kids and kids alone. L’oreal whose primary target market was the adults’ segment, is now marketing Garnier kids to the tykes to boost its revenues. The children’s segment is a big and serious biz for brands of all hues. Kellogs, Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mars International, Zara, Burberry Kids, Nautica Kids, Lilliput, Tommy Hilfiger, Chicco, Hamleys and a host of other brands (would you believe if I told you that this includes the paint, furniture and sanitary ware sellers too? ) are eyeing the great Indian baby consumer market. What led to this buying frenzy on the first hand? ‘India is a growing economy, things are changing …’ has probably become very clichéd; nevertheless this is the fact that has changed the way Indians think and most importantly, manage their lives. People’s outlook towards their jobs, money management, family ties has all undergone a massive change. The gen-new parents earn a lot and do not have much time to spend with their kids. The maximum that they can do for them is give them whatever they demand for and this is a trend that is catching up very fast. Kids do not have to fight with their parents to get anything these days; they know how to pester their parents and still not make themselves look like trouble-mongers. At the moment this market is definitely growing and it is the right time for the marketers to seed their brand and logo in the minds of the children who would become customers of the product’s adult lines in the future. After this, brand recall is everything that would matter. “Kellog’s Chocos “is the first thing that my niece says in the morning and that’s the only thing that she would have for breakfast. That’s brand loyalty! Imagine when these kids grow up it would just have to be a pull, no push required. Yeah I know I am being over optimistic. After all, these kids are growing older younger ( kgyo) and we never know what opportunities they would open for us when they enter 'adulthood'. Till then let’s make sure that our products are off the shelf before they turn back and start marketing their products to us.