Grey Matter

Huge number of protesters are gathered in front of the Cinema theater.They are all shouting anti-someone slogan.They are preparing to assault the theater.Cut. Zoom out and through a wikimapia like interface pan and zoom into another city some 350 km away. Here protesters wearing lawyer’s black dress are in front of a restaurant.Same slogan shouting.They are about to break the restaurant.Zoom out and show both the places simultaneously.In parallel frames.Both the group start pelting stones,bricks and whatever is in their hand at the glass door and walls in front of the theater and the restaurant respectively.But alas nothing breaks.

A marquee in the middle of screen pops up.Saint Gobain Glass.Unbreakable.

India is a full of small time traders who are the retailers to major chunk of the population.

My family buys milk from a milk vendor,called palkaramma(meaning: milk trading woman in tamil)whose real name many even dont know,
Since to everyone she is known as and only as the palkaramma.
Palkaramma has some cows and buffallows with which she makes her living.
We get fresh cow milk everday delivered by the palkaramma’s son.Yesterday i attended her grand child’s birthday celebration.
It was a very grand celebration.

Annachi kadai is where we buy the groceries.Similar to palkaramma,
the owner of the shop is known to the world as ”Annachi”(meaning: elder brother).
The groceries are also door delivered by the small boy working under annachi to our home.Annachi recently came to my house to give sweets for
the birth of his son.

My family’s dealing with these traders date back to more than 2 decades.
Its amazing to see that any amount of advertising and other marketing
by packeted milk hasn’t spoiled this relationship.

This is what is the ”indianness” of retailing.Retailers in india are more than just
traders,they have an emotional connect and a lifelong relationship
with their customers.They are more like extended part of the family.

This is what Kishore Biyani portraits in his book”It happened in India”(BTW
you can read this book if you dont mind the excessive amount
of self publicity and extract relevent matter for you)

Now that my company is providing me with sodexho pass there was bit of
argument in the house about where to buy the groceries.While my mother
was in favour of buying groceries in some departmental store with those
passes my father was against it as he did not want to embarass Annachi.
I was in support of my father. Since if the sodexho was not spent in groceries
they will have to be spent in restaurants so that would mean more
eat-outs for me

But at the end we ended up trying the departmental store.While i was coming back from shopping Annachi was staring at me with shock.
I haven’t spoken to him yet after that. :(

Wanna make news? Learn it from Vijay Mallya of UB group.
Vijaya Mallya thinks “hmm its been so dull.Lets create some activity“
says ”I am interested in Air Deccan“
Checks Any reaction is stock market.
Thinks again ”Dumb fellows.Think they didnt hear it right “
says again, this time clearly , “I am interested in buying stakes in Air Deccan“
Checks again the reaction.
Decides “lets spice it up a bit more“.
Makes  Capt.G.RGopinath of Air Deccan issue a statement “we are not for sale“.Catchy one indeed.
Now Mallya sees the reaction from all quarters.
thinks ”mm i like it.Its buzz that keeps me going.“
Finally both of them are seen in a photo handshaking.
The headlines “Kingfisher bought stakes in Air Deccan“.