Dealing with deals….

After seeing my husband’s blog on his new hair cut, I have decided I am going to remind him of one more experience of ours with deals. These days I get to know his feelings more through his blogs…damn this internet… so why not answer/talk to him here ;) (Best way to talk to someone who sits in front of computer for almost 18 hrs a day… a mouse potato :D as he said)

Well… with the limited number of hours I surf on net, not a single day goes by without these messages/ads on my screen.

‘Congratulations!!! You have won free laptop for details click here’

‘Congratulations!!!! you have won free ipod… click here to claim’

Some times when the speakers are on it scares the hell out of me. Suddenly a voice comes from nowhere saying ‘Hello and congratulations!!!! Why??? Because you are the one lucky winner of our …..’

As though we have learnt nothing from these experiences… we are fooled yet another time. The other day we have been to pier 1 imports to buy a gift for Vijay’s friend. Since it was a house warming party we thought of giving them a flower vase. So, we were looking for nice vases and were trying different combination of vases and flowers. At a point when we are trying to reach some flowers placed a little higher, there comes a good looking sales girl.

Sales girl: are you finding everything alright?

Me: we were trying to reach those flowers for this vase (showing the vase to her).

Sales girl: those flowers??? They don’t go well with your vase. I will show some thing better. Is it for Diwali?

Shocked were we… an American not just knowing about Diwali but also knowing when it is falling is quite uncommon. Impressed with her…

Vijay: it is for a house warming party for my friend

Sales girl: well… then I guess you don’t know the colors of the walls to select a vase which will go with them. Then I will look for something which is simple and can go with any color. What is your price range?

Vijay: around 50 bucks.

She went and looked for some thing in our price range. She tried all the combinations of vases and flowers and finally came up with the best. They had this weird sale of 20% off on the highest priced item. The vase, flowers and some leaves all together amounted $47. It was all very beautiful with the leaves in fall colors. We were quite satisfied on finding something lovely in our price range. Very much impressed with sales girl we finalized the vase. Suddenly she comes up with a new offer.

Sales girl: you get a $20 gift card if you can bill more than $50.

Our faces lit up. We were very glad and complacent with what we got, still we became greedy. We were calculating… a $20 gift card!!!… that would make our beautiful vase just $30??? How could we resist our avidity???

YES!!! We screamed… couldn’t control our amusement. She comes up with some more flowers and leaves and arranges them well in the vase. I was wondering if this added any beauty to the vase. But who cares… my vase is becoming cheaper. This was fine with us until and unless the extra flowers loot the beauty of the vase.

Then we go to the counter and the bill amounts to nearly $60. We paid the bill and then she handles us the gift card. Acute disappointment on receiving it… It was a $20 off on purchase of $50 or above for the month of November. One more lesson on this deals. Or should I say one more feather in the cap ;)

Dream… and then follow

‘You have to dream before your dreams can come true’- Abdul Kalam in his auto biography ‘Wings of Fire’.

I have been longing to read this book ‘wings of fire’; finally I could manage to find a book with Abdul Kalam’s signature in it. I started checking my mail daily hoping that the book would reach today. Finally the day has come, the very first sight of book after longing for so many days to read it has been a little disappointment. The book seemed to be a mere school text book, but I was delighted on finding Kalam’s signature on the first page.

After I started reading the book I couldn’t help but admire Kalam. He is a person with great knowledge not only in science but also in life. The phrases and poems of great writers on almost every page shows how deep inside him are those still existing. Some of them were from his school books. Well, there might be some significance in the appearance of book too… just like Kalam unattractive from outside and knowledgeable and inspirational from inside.

There are few common things I noticed in lives of great achievers; they follow their dreams, their happiness, their passion and love towards it is unconditional. Kalam like any other person joined in BSc math and physics after his intermediate. He later realized that it is not want he wanted. He realized his passion for flying objects, then after completion of BSc he joined in aeronautics engineering. He joined DRDO upon graduation. From there on there was no turning back. He was advancing in his career leaps and bounds. He some times even worked for 100 hrs a week. But he was never exhausted or frustrated with his work… because that is where his happiness lies. And some times you need to encounter with failures too… Kalam was no any exception… his first satellite launch, on which he worked real hard, has been a failure. But he didn’t give up. He fought and fought and at last achieved it.

This reminds me of Nagesh Kukunoor. He was born in a well educated and traditional Telugu family. He was an engineer working in US for a fat pay check. But he was not happy with it. He realized his happiness lies else where… in film making… but how would he dare do it or tell his family… films are considered occupying one secure notch above prostitution in educated families. He had battles in his mind… he felt he is selfish… he is not on world mission to serve humanity… it was his personal search for happiness. Later he could convince himself that even people who give up every thing to serve humanity might have happiness in doing it… may be their pursuit is as selfish as his. Back, he came to India in search of his happiness… films… but he was rejected… people didn’t want to learn from an NRI. At times he doubted his own skills, finally he won the battle…made his first ever film ‘Hyderabad blues’.

Well… there are many achievers who followed the suit… MF Hussain.. Sachin Tendulkar… Shekar Kammula… Kalpana Chawla…many more..the success stories of these achievers show that they just followed their interests,,, … their dreams… and they expected nothing from it, it was purely unconditional… what they pursue from it is beyond worldly… is immaterial…

Well… I am still shuffling my feet not knowing what I want… not knowing where I can find it…I dint know that penning down my thoughts would give me so much pleasure until I started writing blogs… who knows.. sooner or later I would encounter with something I am really made for…

Ad world…

Ads have always been my favorite pass time; I enjoy watching them and analyzing them.

The other day I was watching this program the world's very funny ads on TV. There was this whimsical ad by Mc Donald’s which was quiet funny. It’s a Mc Donald’s ad from other country which goes like this. There was a small boy who asks his dad ‘what is sex’. The father then takes him to Mc Donalds and explains the whole of it… aha we can only hear the background music ;)… the small boy then takes out a form to fill up from his bag showing a small box after the column sex and asks his father ‘will all that fit in this small box?’ hahaha funny isn’t it??? Well I liked the message they wanted to convey though, they were showing Mc Donalds as a place where people can feel free as home and have an open conversation.

Though I am very much fascinated with ads I actually doubt if they would increase the sales directly. I am sure they would increase awareness, but do they really boost the sales… not always… that is what happened with Hutch. Do u remember the ‘You and I in the beautiful world’ ad by Hutch? they focused on something but people caught something else. Just to remind you.. it was an ad where a small puppy keeps following a boy with the song ‘You and I in the beautiful world’ in the background (very catchy song indeed). Well they wanted to show that their network follows where ever you go but ultimately something else caught the viewers more… the sales of the particular breed of the dog they were showing soared but not the Hutch. Well its quiet difficult to catch the pulse of the people.

Sometimes it’s a caption which catches people. Example santoor, from years they have been using the same dialogue… ‘College aur main’ and then a girl comes in calling mummy… they have changed many models… many directors but the concept has been same. Infact it has become so popular that we use santoor as a word to describe a younger looking girl… just like googling instead of searching.

One more ad which is in the list of my favorites is LML ad… it came long time back with Madhavan as ambassador which goes like this. School children stand outside the gate with a donation box in their hands circulating the pamphlets for donations. People just take the pamphlets and crumple the paper without even reading it and the kids end up without any donation in their box. Then comes Madhavan riding his LML trendy, he happens to notice the kids, comes to them and gives them an idea. The kids then crumpled the pamphlets and started circulating them, people when handed over the crumpled paper, became curious and opened them to read. Ultimately people started giving donations after reading them. A very good ad indeed. Played on people’s psychology, that is how people are. While the message they wanted to convey is, the vehicle is so very simple that u need not concentrate on driving, you can think while driving. Madhavan got the idea to crumple the paper while driving. In software language ‘multi tasking’, which I am very poor at. Reminds me of my chat with Kalyani the other day. While I was talking on phone with my friend Shravan, my other friend Kalyani happened to come online. Instead of typing ‘I am on phone’, I typed ‘I am on road’ as I was discussing on some roads and maps with Shravan… :))