• Kabul

    Continuing the Asian theme for this weekend (we saw CC2C on friday, a movie i strongly recommend you not 2 c, until it arrives free on TV), we decided to move on to Kabul yesterday. Kabul’s Bangalore version is on Residency Cross Road, the one way that goes up from Residency road and lands you next to Symphony on MG Road. You could park on Brigade road/ Bangalore Central and walk. Just adjacent to it is Malgudi (belongs to the same group), and that mortal enemy of anyone who even contemplates a diet – Corner House 🙂

    So, we reserved in advance, but actually, on hindsight, not at all necessary. We were alone when we started, and by the time we were through, there were about 3 other groups. The ambience is quite nice with comfortable seating, though from the music played, Afghans are huge fans of Pankaj Udhas and Jagjit Singh.

    As the name suggests, the place serves Frontier cuisine. Though we’d planned on starters, we ended up trying a shorba – Murg Kabuli Shorba, which was fine, except for a strange oily flavour it seemed to have. You could try out the Murg Jehangiri starter, sounded nice – chicken legs with minced mutton stuffing.

    For the main course, we ordered a Doodiya Murg, which is “boneless chicken cooked along with milk, cream, khova and topped with malai”, a Mirch machli Masala, “boneless seer fish dum cooked with tomato and topped with herbs”, and to go with that an aloo paratha and a makhini kulcha. The rotis werent sufficient, so we ended up ordering a Masala Kulcha too. There was so much potential in that damn description of the chicken dish, but… don’t fall for it!! It actually tasted like a dal curry (parippu curry, for those who know Kerala cusine). The fish curry wasn’t so great either, and for once I was complaining at the extravagant size of the portions. With Corner House nearby, the dessert menu is wasted, especially since it doesnt offer anything spectacular.

    The service, for what its worth, was quite good, attentive and there were no delays at all. All of the above (including a bottle of mineral water for Rs.45) cost us just under Rs.750.

    You’re advised to try out Sikandar (Garuda Mall) or Copper Chimney (Bangalore Central), both of which are in the vicinity and offer similar cuisine. The food is guaranteed to be better. (I realised I havent written about either place, shall do soon!!!)

    On our way back, we noticed Chung Wah (on the same road) Once upon a time (when we came to bangalore), we had to wait to get a seat there, and now, on a Saturday night, there were all of 3 tables occupied. The times, they are a changin. 😐

    Kabul, # 45/3, Residency Cross Road, Ph: 08025580440

  • Forsake

    And sometimes, in the strangest of places, you find food for thought. ‘The Peddler of Soaps’ by Anand Kurian, which I had expected to give me only some entertainment, and not points to ponder, did the former quite well, and tucked away in a page, a paragraph that provided the latter too.

    Because a group is always a compromise, an intellectual or an ethical compromise. And a compromise always involves the lowest common denominator

    I thought about it a bit, and found that I agreed. And it doesn’t even have to be a group. It can even be two individuals, and can involve any of the relationships we have with each other. Friendship, marriage, relatives, professional groups and so on.

    While in the case of close relationships, we might tend to agree with each other most of the time, there are several times when we reach a compromise, sometimes with the other person, but mostly with ourselves, for the sake of the relationship, and the value we attach to it. In fact this value is also the factor that makes us compromise in casual relationships, and larger groups, in which case, the value is perhaps social acceptance.

    Sometimes we forget these compromises, and at other times, they have a long shelf life, like open sores that never go away, as though to remind us that there was a choice, and a different decision might have led to the fulfillment of what we were meant to be. I wonder, by these compromises, do we forsake ourselves?

    until next time, for the sake of….

  • Electronic Social Responsibility

    Late last year, I remember reading this article that talked about a study by Havas Media, which “looks at the impact of climate change on business from the point of view of consumer”. From the study,

    With respect to India, the survey claims that 86% of Indians would rather buy from companies that are trying to reduce their contribution to global warming. Further, 50% of Indian respondents would be more likely to buy environmentally-friendly goods in the next 12 months, if they were at the same price and standard as their usual brands. 43% would be willing to pay a little extra for those goods.

    Somebody has been listening, or more likely, had been listening for quite a while, for earlier this month, I read about Nokia India’s efforts though its ‘Take Back’ campaign, which aims to educate consumers about the recycling and re-use of old handsets and accessories. In addition to this contribution, Nokia will also plant a tree for every handset dropped at the recycling bins. I was extremely impressed by Nokia’s official notes on their efforts. As a market leader, Nokia has done a great job.

    Meanwhile, another key player has also been doing its bit for a better planet. I remember writing about Motorola last year – the Motopower project, that has 55 solar powered kiosks in Uganda offering free mobile charging to consumers. Motorola also has its share of recycling efforts, and I found its latest effort – the W233 Renew, very refreshing. This handset is the world’s first mobile phone made with plastics comprised of recycled water bottles., and is also the world’s first Carbonfree cell phone on the market.  The site also says that through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the energy used to manufacture, distribute and operate of the phone. (through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation, courtesy Wild Blue Skies) The unfortunate bit, hopefully for now, is that this is not an India phenomenon now. Judging by the Havas Media report, Motorola is missing out on a huge opportunity in India.

    It is indeed good to see genuine efforts from major global players to make the world a better place, sustainable efforts  because they also make buiness sense, and are not spur-of-the-moment CSR initiatives.There can never be enough efforts, and in an increasingly connected world, which thrives on transparency, there’s nothing like a genuine effort to build on brand equity.

    until next time, (as a Springfield tee says) Respect Green Rules

  • Home is where….

    He enjoyed the cosmopolitan version of Bangalore. One of his favourite haunts was Indiranagar. When he’d first come to Bangalore, Indiranagar’s 100 ft road had lots of trees and a few brand stores. Now the situation had been reversed. And it wasn’t just brand stores, there were restaurants – fine dining and cafes. Yes, he did hear residents complaining ever so often about how Indiranagar used to be a peaceful locality until a few years back, and now the retired folk rarely dared to come out. It wasn’t just the noise, the bustle and the pollution, there was also the problem of how costly everything had become all of a sudden. He understood their plight, but couldn’t really sympathise with them, after all he enjoyed the cosmopolitan Bangalore.

    He loved Cochin, it was the place he wanted to retire to..later, after all it was his hometown. In addition to that sentiment, there was something fitting about dying in the place you were born in, a kind of closing the circle. When he walked the streets, when he talked to people, when he looked around, he knew that he belonged to the place, and  in spite of some things he loved to hate, his love for the place was quite unconditional. But he wondered what was up with these new malls, cafe coffee days, swank cars, swankier apartments and a cost of living that was aiming for the stars. The place was, damn, becoming cosmopolitan, and he didn’t like it one bit. After all, this was the place he wanted to retire to, and he had made an image of it in his head, which he didn’t want changed.

    And thus the realisation that the cosmos always has the last laugh.

    until next time, a homing device

  • Web 2.0 and transience

    As I am wont to do at infrequent intervals, I came up with one of  those  quirky connections – this one, for Tata Sky. I mentioned on Twitter that “aamir’s ghajini character could find Tata Sky Plus’ features quite useful-pause, rewind, record 😉 wonder if they’ll make a TVC with that”. In the days that followed, Asin has been extensively used in the Tata Sky campaign, so now I’m hoping thay actually make that TVC, complete with the Tata Sky helpline number tattooed on Aamir. 😉

    It led me to a tangential thought on social media. (the FB, Twitter variety, not business networking like LinkedIn) In what might amount to blasphemy, I wondered whether brands should make desperate efforts to be ‘engaging’ in social media. They need to be there definitely, but perhaps its only to know what’s being talked about them, and why. They perhaps need to be there more for reactions than actions. This also saves them the challenge of generating interesting ‘engagement ideas’ at all times.

    Why did I think all this? Because I realised that the engagement is being created by users themselves, for each other. For non web 2.0 brands, the engagement is most likely a result of something that’s been done offline. A TVC, a billboard, a radio jingle and so on. Must say, this perspective on how to use twitter for Marketing and PR made me think too.

    At one point, web 1.0 used eyeballs as measurement, that’s an idea thats not going anywhere great? Web 1.o gave us many great websites and lessons, but in a few years time, we jumped into web 2.0. The attention span and shelf lives for most things are becoming smaller. Is web 2.o just a transient phase that is needed to get us to another version? The optimist in me (which is usually bullied into submission) says that when a certain version is reached, the engagement and revenue models will manifest itself in an uncomplicated manner. (now you know why it needs to be bullied). Maybe the baby steps of getting connected are meant for simple things. Maybe it is only meant to let businesses know  that a connected world can shake up existing models. Maybe there’s some growing up to do, some discovery to be made, before revenue models and engagement by brands can happen as a regular occurrence.

    Or perhaps I’m going out of whack and being impatient. Center Networks has a good comparison of Web 1.0/ 2.0 revenue models and profitability. As this good post sums up in a different context

    New business models for media require entirely new exchanges of value — it’s not about finding new ways to balance the old equation.

    Perhaps the more meaningful discussions lie in figuring out how the basic pillars of web 2.o – connecting, sharing, collaborating-  can be used to build brands. The ‘How to use Twitter/Facebook for Marketing/PR’ are based on tools, and that would mean that we’ve been confusing tactics for strategy.

    until next time, discover 🙂

    PS: A few things that I thought were good to share

    Discovery Is The New Cocaine – Going Beyond Engagement

    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: discovery ux)

    Social Media PR vs Social Media Marketing, and in context,a tool – CoTweet, that’d be a help to teams handling a brand on Twitter.