Month: June 2008

  • Child Talk

    She had been visiting the park for years now, to watch the children play. So many years, that now some of the ‘children’ could be seen with toddlers oftheir own. And in the last couple of years, she’d made a new friend. A young girl, who also loved to watch the children play.
    There was something she wished to ask her new friend, she thought today would be a good day. So, after she came and they had dispensed with their usual small talk, she asked the girl about her plans to have children, now that it had been a few years since her marriage.
    “Well, tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine. Why didn’t you have any kids” asked the girl
    “My husband and i began seeing each other quite late, and by the time we married, we were too old to have children. So you see, we met too late. And that’s why i asked you, to advise you to not put it off for too long”, she said
    “Hmm, well, as you know, we met when we both were not even twenty. So its as though we have known each other forever, and know each other inside out. Perhaps that is the problem. You see, we’ve already started our divorce proceedings. Maybe we met too early”

    until next time, not just a matter of time

  • Tangerine

    The disclaimer is that this is by far our favourite sizzler joint in bangalore, and while the review might be dripping with this enthusiasm and affection, most of it is justified. šŸ™‚

    Its located on 100 ft road In Indiranagar towards its Old Madras Road end, the place where the metro construction is happening. When coming from the CMH road side, you’ll find it on the left, after Domino’s Pizza, and in the same building as Cafe Beanstalk. Parking of 4 wheelers might be a small problem, you might have to walk a bit, but 2 wheeler parking can be found right in front.

    Its not usually very crowded till about 8.30, so you can choose to reserve accordingly. The windy outside we came in from prompted us to go for a soup rather than a starter, though there are enough options for the latter too. We ordered a Spicy Chicken and Corriander soup, and that’s how I now have a new favourite soup.Ā Its a thick soup, and as the name goes, itĀ is spicy and has chicken and corriander,Ā but what brings in the real flavour are the green chillies and the coconut cream. Its absolutely scrumptious and highly recommended.

    The extensive menu spoils us for choice, as far as the main course goes. After rounds of discussion, we finally settled on a Chicken Torreon and a Sliced Chicken Citronelle. It has to be mentioned that there are some excellent options in fish, lamb and beef as well. The Chicken Torreon is diced chicken, done in a mexican style and served on a bed of rice. As with everything else I have eaten here, it has a unique flavour, this one, a tangy, spicy mix. The Sliced Chicken Citronelle is chicken in an unusual lemon, chilly and coconut milk sauce, and served on a bed of rice. This one would’ve been bland but the excellent sauce gives it an absolutely awesome flavor. Another absolute must have.

    The unfortunate part is that all of the above left us no room for dessert, for which again, there are lots of options. From an earlier visit, I’d recommend the beer mousse. Its not something I’ve seen anywhere else, and is worth a try.

    All of the above cost us about Rs.650, and its a no brainer that we’ll continue to be regular visitors here. šŸ™‚

    Menu at Zomato

  • More Web 1.0 please

    WATBlog has a post today that gives details on the JuxtConsult India online report. Keeping in mind the ET report that I had quoted from yesterday, which stated that the usage of the internet was evenly spread across SEC categories, it is extremely interesting to note that most internet users have Televisions and Mobiles. Hmm, even SEC categories ain’t what they used to be, though that archaic system of classification is exactly that – archaic.

    The other interesting point is that around 51% of net users are from the corporate salaried class. Also, quoting from the ET article “The democratisation of the net continues, with higher SECs A and B now accounting for just over 50% of all users, down 6% from last yearā€™s figure of 56%. In contrast, lower SEC C, D and E in urban areas now account for around half of all users. Itā€™s same in rural areas too, with the top two rural SECs R1 and R2 accounting for just 41% with the rest coming in from the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer in SEC R3, R4 and R5.” Figure that out, so much forĀ even distribution across SECs.

    Out of the top 3 uses of the internet, 2 are based on communication. Job search is the only exception. I’ll add one more info from the post before i discuss what I’m getting at. A large number of users have a bank account but only about 1/3rd of those users have a credit card.

    While the general complaint is that internet penetration is just not happening, I’m wondering if the net has given enough reason for the average Indian to go online. Before the advent of web 2.0 (whose users, in an Indian context, i consider advanced) the reason for me to get online was convenience – a faster way to communicate, a better way to gather news, and such uses that gave a tangible value add to my life scenario. Web 2.0 is a bit more involved process, whose tangible gains are yet to be correctly worked out. (at least as far as I am concerned)

    The average Indian, who relies on India Post and maybe courier companies and now the mobileĀ for communication, on brokers for marriages, on real life friends and relatives for social needs, whose news requirements are adequately met by newspapers, an average Indian who really doesnt need the web. The other entities he interacts with say, a state run bank, a local theatre, book or music store, bus services etcĀ may not be bothered enough to helpĀ him take the baby steps on to the internet. IRCTC is perhaps an exception in some respects. To state the obvious, the internet speeds up communication, hence thats the most popular usage. Tangible benefit.Ā  See the drift, thats also why only 1/3rd of the banking population has a credit card. They have no use for it.

    And so, we get back to the fact that there has been no ‘killer’ application that would force India to get online. And that perhaps is because most of the production and consumptionĀ is restricted toĀ the top of the pyramid. And we adopt the net because it is convenient. I still wouldn’t buy groceries online, or order food online, because to me, there is no reliable and convenient method to do it. (Yes, I know about hungrybangalore) I can imagine the mindset of the lesser priveleged sections of the society. So, I won’t even get into the infrastructure costs here, and at the risk of sounding regressive, all I’ll say is Web 2.0 is cool, but can India have some usable web too?

    until next time, imagine a billion net junkies šŸ™‚

  • Urban Yogi

    He couldnā€™t believe heā€™d reached a higher plane so fast. While Yoga was known to be effective, it took people years of practice to get there, but heā€™d briefly glimpsed it in his first session itself. He was safely brought back to earth, when his trainer told him that weakness had possibly caused his blackout.

    until next time, kickaasana

  • India and the Internet

    I read a report by Akamai recently on the state of the internet. Before i start on that, I have to share the wonderful experience I had with Akamai. It didnt start out very well, because iĀ was being sent around in loops of ‘check your email and click the link’. The link asked me to register, and sent me off to my mailbox. i stopped after some 5 attempts, and sent them a mail. Thankfully, got a reponse in an hour’s time, and not a link this time, but the report itself. And this level of service for a free download.

    India doesnt get mentioned in too many places, so the JuxtConsult report seems to be the best source of data. ET had an article on that a few days back. The urban penetration of the net has reached double figures finally. While the metros still account for a large portion of the net users, a staggering majority (70%) prefer to use the net in regional languages.

    As compared to the mass media that currently rule the roost in india, the net is a much more fragmented medium, even including TV, with its regional programming, and some niche channels. Perhaps because whileĀ language isĀ one paramenter of segmenting, the net offers segmentation basis interests and has a more long tail view on the content front.Ā That is unlikely to change, sinceĀ I would think the costs of running a channel, and running a site would differ hugely, which basically means that there is a minimum mass that a channel has to look at – it can’t go too niche, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem with a site.

    Even though internet penetration is still at a relatively nascent stage, does that 70% mentioned above clearly show the trend that the net is going to take in India. If so, India is again poised to change the way things function. I’m sure the global personnel of McDonalds would’ve asked ‘WTF is an aloo tikki and why should we have it in the menu anyway’. I’m also sure, there would be a case study on it by now. The answer is of course, is being implemented.

    While the figures do show tremendous potential, it threw up aĀ few questions for me. One, how soon will the numbers reach a critical mass for the niche players to emerge in large numbers and still be financially viable? Will these new consumers behave like a typical net consumer or a typical Indian customer or will we manage to create a typically new and uniqueĀ entity? In a well connected India, how will this affect brands and their communicationĀ – will the categorisation of brands offline (as niche vs mass) be retained on the net, or will the sheer numbers turn this on its head. Consider a small example – A Tommy Hilfiger can afford to communicate the same way across India, its TGĀ is comfortable with English as aĀ communication langauge.Ā In the offline space, it perhaps is a niche brand, but will the aggregation of users across the country on the net make it a ‘mass’ brand?Ā A mass brandĀ – Vodafone has two kinds of ads that I’ve seen for the ‘Dehradun didi’ – Irfan in Hindi and Prakash Raj in the South. Maybe it doesnt make sense for them to make one for each state now. But given the spectacular growth of mobile users, it might happen soon. Now look at it from an internet communication standpoint, in a later time when the net population is much more,Ā because of the regional usage of the internet, would the (say) Kannada version of Vodafone beĀ a ‘niche’ communication?

    I think it isĀ safe to say that the internet, its dynamics and its economics will get moulded to a uniquely Indian way of functioning. Considering India’s market size, the impact of this in the overall netscape remains to be seen.

    until next time, the elephant and the web