Counting people in cups of corn

Last week, made a quick trip to yercaud.
the drive was good, with the roads and the weather in excellent condition almost all the way.
the last few kilometers on the 20 hairpin bends uphill, it was raining heavily with very little visibility.
the hotel where we stayed was small, but functional. one of those ecology themed hotels, close to the lake.
with very misty weather, took pleasant walks the next morning - but the view points - the pagoda point [invariably spelt as pakoda point - pakoda being a local snack!] had only the view of the mist.

we found very few visitors at the view point, and the local dog at the temple could also not be bothered from its sleep.

there were a few vendors who had their stalls - though on push-carts and makeshift sheds, they had screen-printed banners with names such as steam and roast - for steamed corn and roasted peanuts!
their steaming equipment was a hand operated blower!
i was wondering how they plan their quantities - as it looked like the corn would feed a battalion. i tried to imagine how the vendors would feel as they see visitors coming there. they surely welcomed us very enthusiastically and expectantly.. though we were not good customers.
i was tempted to try the fresh fig and honey combo, but decided against considering the cleanliness aspects.

on the way down, as the sky was also clearing up a bit, we saw many vehicles - cars, buses, two-wheelers going uphill. tried to visualize the emotions and expectations of the vendors at pakoda point!

like in cartoons, the image that flashed before my eyes, were that each vehicle was equivalent to a number of cups of corn..
2 for a 2 wheeler, 2-4 for a car and 10 for a bus....
i am sure they would have done good business for the rest of the day, going by the number of strewn paper cups and plastic spoons we could find along the way back.

June tunes

June is here.
I love the smell of the earth with the first fresh showers followed by the fresh plant smells.
June is also the time when the schools re-open in Bangalore and one can see children getting ready to go to school in the mornings.
with the new school session starting, it is also interesting to observe the proud, dreamy and anxious parents, getting the kids ready for school, on to the bus etc.

as i wait for my company bus in the morning, these scenes not only provide some diversion, but also interesting insights.

like the mother of a small boy - who spotted another older boy going to the same school - and quizzing him on the school, teachers, bus timings etc.
or the father who gets a kid on the bus, then crosses over to the other side, to wave 'tata' to the kid, as the bus makes a U turn after picking up some other children.
or the very concerned mother who argues with the bus driver every day, as to why he cannot drop the kids back on the same side of the road - rather than the other side, in the afternoon - as it is not safe for kids to cross the road, particularly when the parents get a little delayed
or the patient 'ayahs' who get the little kids and their school bags + lunch boxes well settled before the buses move
or the impatient drivers, who play a teasing game with the kids who come late, by raising the engine, to make them run faster to the bus..

among all this, there are also these occasional drivers - both bus drivers and others - who drive into dirty puddles and splash water over others waiting.

evenings are wetter, with regular rains that time themselves with the office timings, to make two-wheeler drivers take shelter under trees - or the elevated roads and fly-overs, to wait out cloud bursts.

this is very different from the Mumbai culture, where life goes on, in spite of the heavy monsoon downpours.
in fact, the culture is so different in Bangalore, that - soon after we shifted here about 20 years ago - we would be among the very few that carried umbrellas - which were very common and a mandatory accessory in Mumbai, during this season.

that has changed a lot in the last 2 decades. while the acceptance to live with nature has increased, the awareness and responsible use of water has yet to catch up.
i have seen the ground water table dry up and go lower in our area. the recent rule about rainwater harvesting should show some results in the next few years, like it has helped chennai.

Exam

one of the side effects of long air travel is an 'opportunity' to watch movies - some which one may not have watched otherwise.
last week, i watched this movie called Exam.
very interesting and absorbing. a simple theme. simple setting - all of the story is enacted in a windowless room.
it is about 8 candidates who come to the final stage of a selection process - without knowing much about the organization or its business, except that one winner would be the assistant to the CEO.

i was reminded of the 12 angry men.

not sure if I would have noticed this movie when released in theaters. maybe it already had its run.
on the topic of movies, i noticed during my recent trip to the US, that the pre-release promotions such as actor / producer interviews in the media, 'creating' some news about some of the characters or the movie itself - is not uncommon in hollywood also.
with so much money at stake, such promotion as well as in-place branding for products in movie scenes are becoming more common.

currently, i am also eagerly waiting for a positive result in another area. the top kill exercise being undertaken off the gulf of mexico. this has to succeed to not only limit and stop further damage to the environment, but also restore confidence in technology and engineering.

splitting hairs

as i was at my monthly haircut session, i noticed some news stories [in the old newspapers and magazines that are a part of the salon visit experience] in the last week about some innovative solutions for the gulf of Mexico oil spill.

the most interesting one - which was contextual to where i was, was about using human hair to absorb the oil.
it sounded very logical.
i have heard of the tonsured hair from Tirupati being exported for making wigs, but this seemed to open up another market.

that set me thinking if my habit of keeping my hair short [full-short, in the language of the hair dresser] was not very social. if i grew my hair long, surely it would help the shampoo industry also. but then, would it mean consumption of more water that would only be polluted by washing the hair - as i am used to having head baths twice a day? also, with less frequent visits to the hairdresser, how would that industry survive? with a high level of attrition or shuffle among the technicians, and the growing costs, they already operate on hair-thin margins - mankind cannot afford to make them an endangered profession.

that is why, when some of my follicular-challenged friends say that they are charged more on their visits to the hairdresser, i can understand the reasons they are given ranging from an MBA-like answer such as since their visits are less frequent, and the annual RPC [revenue per customer] need to be at their industry norms, that have to charge higher, to a more frivolous reason that the hairdresser needs to spend more time searching for the hairs to be cut!

before i could get more confused, another report resolved the dilemma. with about 210,000 gallons of oil spilling every day, this was not a practical solution.

it was time for my turn and i decided to let this global problem be solved by the experts, while i relaxed and got my monthly 'full short'.

very different customer experiences

yesterday, i had two very different customer experiences.

the first was very pleasant - and something that i was not expecting - or rather was expecting it to be much more gruelling. this was about a college admission.

going through the admission formalities, i was prepared for a 4 hour process, as the communication mentioned. the set up was very structured, and well coordinated. right from the security guard, who was very courteous, was aware of the process and proudly explained that there were 4 steps and the as we move from one stage to another, we would not have to retrace our steps.
it turned out that way - well documented steps, with the staff involved knowing not only what they were to do, but also the previous and next steps.
in fact, we were taken on a slight detour of the stages for the counselling step, and were taken to the department instead of the generic institution overview - as, we  were told that there could be overlaps and the time would be more effectively spent if we had that discussion only at the department.

the last step also included a feedback seeking session, where the feedback from the parents and the students was sought - even if only informally.

compare that to a less than overwhelming  experience from an institution that ought to be extremely customer focused - a bank.
getting an account converted from a junior account to a major account exposed the inadequate training to the staff on the process, the documentation required, the next steps etc.
having already made 2 trips to the bank on this activity, i found that even the branch manager was not very well equipped in terms of the wordings of declarations to be provided..
the TV ads from this bank talk about being sensitive to small things - such as wishing the customer who comes to the bank on his birthday - i found that the staff were more preoccupied with their promotion letters than customers waiting for more than half an hour to make deposits.

my hope is that the educational institutions like this one would turn out more customer focussed or customer-responsive graduates that would make a significant difference to the service industry.

Brinjal - the versatile vegetable

Why a post on Brinjal?
as my favorite vegetable, i thought that it was time to give it some space on this blog!

the sheer number of varieties that this vegetable comes in, does not make it any common vegetable.
each one, due to its size and texture is ideally suited for some specific dishes.

The more popular varieties in the west - called aubergine in europe and egg plant in the US - are not as tasty as the smaller varieties you get in india.

I am sure you would have tasted it as a normal dry sabzi, as a gravy-ish bartha or the small ones, that are stuffed with masala as in the 'ennai-katthrikkai'.

other variations i like include the 'porichha kootu', with a dash of shredded coconuts or that little extra flavor that it adds to the avial - or the sambar-ish rasavangi,

you might also like the Vangi bath or gothsu or the special mangalore style gravy made with black channa that goes very well with jolada roti - all karnataka specialities.

when i used to live in Bombay and visit home for vacations, i used to enjoy a different dish made of brinjal every day, specially made by my mother.

I have been watching the recent controversy about Bt brinjal. the activists - both pro and against - are all missing the simple point - with the introduction of the Bt-ed variety, will the diversity be extinct? the commercial interests would surely overtake the gourmet's interests, and, we might have just the engineered variety.

i have not tasted it or seen any reports of how this new variety would taste.

the arguments on both sides are about the economics, the possible control of the market by multi-nationals, the possible effects of this variety on people etc etc etc.

nobody seems to care about the taste.

we have so many campaigns to preserve our heritage art, culture, wildlife.. but taste?
recently one of the magazines carried some articles on 'kitchen archaeology' - which included capturing and preserving old hand-written recipe notes, which are very traditional to every family. they may preserve the ingredients list, the process steps etc - but without the right brinjals, the original taste cannot be preserved or experienced.

in any case, if the taste can be preserved or the variety not compromised, i may not mind the Bt brinjal!
particularly if it can be used to make one of my top choices for dishes made with brinjal - the 'katthirikkkai rasam'.

Jumbled newspaper

i had not planned it that way.
this morning, i started reading a newspaper [sundays are the leanest days in terms of newspapers @ home, as we get only 2 papers, compared to 3 during the week and 3 or 4 on saturdays, depending on the mood of the newspaper boy].
i had to step out for something, and when i got back the news papers were all jumbled up - not left in any order, by others who read the papers.
so, i read paper 1: main, followed by paper 2: sunday supplement 1; paper 2 sunday supplement 2; paper 1 supplement 2 and paper 2 main.

since each section was anyway independent, it was ok.
but, for some of the news items that were duplicated - found that the reports were very different.
or, the relative importance assigned to the reports in terms of prominence or location also varies from paper to paper.

i used to think that this was the characteristic or the character of the paper and the editorial policies.
but, of late, whether it is the TV channels or the print media, the 'advertorials' or 'placed' news and paid-news seems to be more the norm.

even the relatively conservative paper, Hindu, has prominent ads on the main page.
[nothing to beat the Times, for the launch of indya.com, when the complete front page was taken up [though the traditional first page was actually page 3!].
i suppose it is the pressure of profits - or possibly survival - that is pushing the media to resort to any-way-to-make-more-profit tactics.

to some extent, this competition is also pushing the print newspapers to be the same as their peers - in terms of the format - and, at the same time, be different enough to push those differences as their USPs.

with all this, another aspect that seems to have undergone significant change is the reporting style and also the background / profile of the reporters.
columns that were earlier associated only with seasoned and long-standing reporters are making way for more investigative reporting and sting operations taken up by much younger professionals.

some publishing houses have also started diversifying or extending their 'product portfolio' with news papers targeted at different segments, including tabloid formats from the earlier traditional or business news papers.

with all this, i am not sure how much of what we read or see / hear is really 'news' anymore. so, i guess i could jumble the morning papers and even mix and match pages and still not miss any story significantly.