The 'cloth' man

As I read about Anshu Gupta being awarded the Magsaysay award, a memory from a few years ago flashed clearly before me. This was in my sophomore year. I used to be a part of the Entrepreneurship Cell then, and we did an annual festival that we called 'E-summit' where we invited inspiring entrepreneurs to come and talk to the students at IIT Roorkee in the hope of inspiring some entrepreneurs of our own. Anshu Gupta was one of our invited speakers. He didn't really speak about entrepreneurship. Actually, he didn't speak about entrepreneurship at all.  However, his talk was without doubt one of the most inspiring talks I have ever heard. He spoke with real examples. He gave a chilling example of how in the Delhi winters, the people who work at cemeteries often sleep clutching dead bodies as it gives warmth. That story shook me then and thinking of it shakes me now. He spoke about the culture of giving and the importance of giving something that the beneficiaries actually need. He spoke about how people are always eager to give what 'they don't need' rather than giving what the less privileged might actually need. He spoke from his heart and he touched a cord. There was something he believed needed to change and he was passionate about it. What great spirit and what a great man. I feel privileged I had the opportunity to hear him. 

Cutting a cake

Last week, as we walked back into the Public Policy class, post the break, there was a cake on the table much to our surprise. After some quick banter on being past the number of sessions when students can opt out of the course, one of us was asked to volunteer to cut the cake. One of the students volunteered. As he approached the cake and was ready to begin cutting it the instructors cautioned him that he must make sure to cut it into equal pieces. So then came about the question of how many pieces we needed to cut the cake into. One of the students said there were 25 students registered in the class, so 25 would be the number. Meanwhile a few students counted the number of people present in the room and they added up to 31, including the students, the instructors, teaching assistant and a couple interns. Then the instructors asked if there was anyone who didn’t want to have the cake. Two students said they didn’t want the cake cause it had egg and they didn’t eat egg and three others didn’t want to eat as they simply didn’t like cake.

Right based on membership

The instructors pointed out that we should keep in mind that the cake had been bought from the tuition fees that the students paid for the course. There thus ensued a discussion whether that would mean that only the students who had paid the fees to attend the course had a right to the cake. And the instructors, teaching assistant and interns attending the course should thus not be given the cake. We also realised that one of the students was not present and would thus miss out on the cake. However, if being a registered student who had paid the fees was what decided one’s right to the cake, then he too deserved the cake. Also, this was unfair to the students who didn’t like cake or eat egg.

Do only the ones who can pay have the right to use a resource?

Do only the ones who are members of a group have the right to use the resource?

Is it fair to the ones who didn’t eat cake that a part of their fees had been used to buy a cake that they couldn’t eat?

Right to vote on how the cake should be divided

The class discussed if there should be a vote to discuss on how the cake should be divided, and if yes then who should be eligible to take part in that vote. Would the non-registered students also be given a chance to vote?

Immigrant rights

Should immigrant have rights? Should immigrants have the right to vote?

While there was an almost unanimous agreement on the fact that immigrants should have access to resources like food and water there was some debate on whether immigrants should be allowed to vote. Many said that only the legal citizens of a state should have the right to vote. But there was a counter-argument that if one lived in a place and paid taxes then she/ he should have a say on how that money is used. While some countries have provisions of naturalisation by which immigrants can become citizens many countries don’t. Even countries that do have such provisions could prevent certain categories from becoming citizens as the process has elements of subjectivity.

Need

Another aspect we considered was ‘who needed the cake more’. The cake could also be looked at as mere food and hence someone who needed the cake more should probably be given more of the cake. Hence we discussed if more of the cake should be given to the ones who were hungrier. We then asked around as to who all hadn’t had lunch. We then also discussed their reasons for not having lunch and whether or not they were legitimate. Some reasons like having to read for class were considered in a way more legitimate than simply being lazy to go to the mess.

Should resources be allocated based on need?

Can deprivation be a measure to decide how a resource should be allocated? We realised that even if deprivation were considered to be a valid way to allocate a resource, society does not consider all deprivation to be equal. We judge the reason behind the deprivation and try to decide if the reason is not legitimate or not.

Contribution

We also had a discussion on whether the cake should be divided based on who had contributed more to the course. The contribution itself could be in the form of the fees that were used to buy the cake, the time and effort that the academic associate had spent in getting the cake or the instructor’s idea to get the cake in the first place. We could also consider contributions of thoughts and insights that everyone had made to the class.

Should resources be divided based on contribution of individuals? If yes, what kind of contribution should be considered while dividing the resource? For instance, in this case should we just consider monetary contributions for buying the cake or since the cake is being cut in class, the contributions that everyone has made to the class by means of their thoughts and arguments should also be considered?

Deservedness

If the cake is meant for everyone who was in the class, we also questioned if some deserved to be in this class more than others. For instance, may be someone who had bid a greater number of credits for the course had given up more to be here than someone else who had bid less and hence deserved to be here more than others.

Representation

We also discussed if the cake should be divided in such a way that ensured that different groups were represented well. So should the cake be divided into two halves and one half divided among all girls and the other among all boys when the number of girls and boys in the class was not equal?

Should there be quotas based on categories like gender or caste to ensure that all categories are represented equally? This could be in the context of educational institutions, jobs, elections etc.

Level playing field

The instructors then asked if it would be fair if they gave all of us similar forks and asked us to reach out and eat the cake with those forks. The class had several concerns – the ones who got the fork earlier would have a head start, the ones who were closer to the cake would have an advantage etc.

Is it fair to give equal opportunities?

All people don’t have the same starting point and hence equal opportunities may not actually be equal. For instance, an award for the best scholastic performance may not really be fair as different people have different starting points and hence have to make different leaps to reach to the same point.

We extended this discussion to talk about the process by which students are selected into institutions like ours. Even though we offer equal opportunities by means of a single, fair exam for all, the playing field is not really level. Looking at gender, the proportion of females in IIM A is much lower than the ~50% that we see in society. This at least in part can be attributed to the fact that in a large part of India girls are still discriminated against, not encouraged to study, not given the same quality of education as children and often forced to marry early.

Nature of the resource

Underlying all the above discussion was a fundamental question – what was the nature of the cake? Was it to celebrate something or was it merely food or something entirely different from the above two?

The right way to divide a resource is not universal but in fact depends on the nature of the resource – a resource which is a necessity may be treated in a different way from one which is not. A resource which is a necessity like water may be divided such that every person has equal right. The same can be said for primary education. However, we don’t treat high education in the same way. Higher education is often allocated based on deservedness and equal opportunities rather than being divided equally among all.

Why write?

I have been writing since I was in early school. I thought of poems in a spur and sometimes wrote them down. I don’t think there was any poetic genius there, but the random words were much encouraged by dear family to whose amusement I would often recite them. I did that for a while, but then stopped probably when I grew up enough to realise that that wasn’t really poetry after all. After that I mostly stuck to prose – stories, articles, book reviews, editorials - apart from a bout of poetry in my mother tongue that struck in high school. But I have always been an impatient writer. I am in a hurry to put my thoughts down and find repeated readings of the same few hundred words drab and painful. I’ve never given much thought to either my own writings or writing in general. However, much focus on writing over the last one year, here at A and during the last two months over the consulting intern has made me ponder over how I write and now over why I must write. As painful as WAC was, I am now convinced it had some merit and I’ve decided I must write more often – and hopefully this blog will be more prolific – and this post is dedicated to why I think we must write.

Forces you to think deeper – Thoughts often sound better in one’s own head. Putting them down in a sentence somehow forces us to see the gaps that exist and think further to refine those thoughts. Writing our thoughts down, and reading them is subjecting them to our own scrutiny if not anybody else’s.

Lends structure – I am going to be chastised for consulting jargon here, but as much as the word is probably overused ‘synthesis’ is important. It’s important and useful to be able to crystallise what one wants to say in a few crisp sentences, in a manner that makes it easier for the audience to digest what one is saying. Writing forces us to structure our thoughts, put them into buckets and consequently makes them easier to read and comprehend for others.

Understand and accept – One reason to write is to communicate, and the previous point about being more structured helps one do that more effectively. But one needn’t always write to communicate. Sometimes we write just to express what’s going on in our minds. It can even clear the tangle of thoughts that has conjured in our minds and help us make sense. People often write down the pros and cons while making a tough choice. Writing lends clarity and helps one better understand and accept ones owns thoughts. 

These are some of the reasons why I think one must write -not just literary geniuses, and these may not be reasons that inspire literary geniuses -  but each one of us. 

The casualties of blurring lines

We could safely say that for a while now, society has challenged the traditional gender roles of the ‘Man’ venturing out of the house to earn the bread and better and the ‘Woman’ staying behind to cook, clean and look after the children. The extent, of course, varies and one would expect very different scenes in a thatched roof hut in a village in UP than in a swanky twentieth floor apartment at Cuffe Parade, but there is no doubt that the lines are blurring.

More and more women are pursuing ambitious careers. They are getting out of homes, getting themselves an education, getting jobs and matching steps with their male counterparts as they too get home the bread and butter. Well, more bread and better, but more is always good. And this is great, but there is something I think we must pause to think about. How many men do I see staying home, taking care of children or cooking daily meals?

Oh yes, that must sound like a preposterous question. Why would I ever expect that to happen? Rather, why should I expect something like that to happen?

I think we have two concerns to address. Firstly, the direction in which we are moving is a dangerous one. It leads to a future, where both husband and wife go out to work, the maid cleans the house, the cook prepares the dinner, and there is probably a hired help to teach the kid to cycle. This is a house, but not a home and would spells the end of ‘the family and home’ as we know it.

Secondly, in our bid to create equality we have developed a notion that certain tasks are inferior to others. Or, we could also say that the notion that certain tasks are inferior to others is what fuelled the need for a feminist movement in the first place, but what is certain is that we are giving out a message, that as a society, and I include both and men and women here, we seem to believe that the traditional male roles are better than the traditional female roles. If I were to ask the question – do you think the ‘male roles’ are more important than the ‘female roles’, the almost unanimous answer I’d expect to get is a very forceful ‘No’, but that is clearly not what we truly believe when the entire flux that is created due to this greater fluidity between gender roles is uni-directional. Women are vying for opportunities that were earlier restricted to men, but the reverse isn’t happening. Few men, if at all, would rue the fact that they can’t cook as well as the women around or wouldn’t know how to take care of their infant child.

I am not saying here, that men should stop working and stay home to take care of children, but we must recognise the fact that the roles men and women play may be different but are equally important, and we can’t do without either. True gender equality does not lie in women doing everything men can, it lies in men and women being respected equally for who they are.

QR codes - scanning their way into your minds

Brands cast advertisements on radio and TV because potential customers spend a significant amount of time here. They put up huge billboards on busy roads. They insert flyers in the morning newspaper. They even find their way into the morning newspaper. With all of these, the brand is trying to find its way to where it expects its potential customers to be, and then exploit that opportunity to create an impression in their minds, stay there and eventually find a place in their lives. With more and more people spending more and more of their time on electronic devices, it was obviously not long before brands figured that that was the new place to be. And so it’s no wonder that the new buzzword of the 21^st century has been ‘Digital Marketing’. Digital marketing has given brands a brand new canvass to splash on, and they have made the most of it. Or maybe a tad too much of it, if one were to look at it from the perspective of the end recipients, who are often annoyed with the deluge of promotional mails, texts, advertisements which keep them from the interesting video that want to watch on Youtube or ads which pop-up while they play Fruit Ninja on their smart phones. All in all, digital marketing has become a two edged sword and if you don’t do it right you run the risk of pushing customers away rather than pulling them closer.

So how do brands exploit the great potential that Digital marketing has to offer to find a place in their consumer’s lives but do so in a way that is not intrusive?

One of the best innovations in the sphere of digital marketing, in the recent past has been the use of QR codes for greater customer engagement, and these abstract black and white square tiles, I think, have the potential to be the one of the biggest game changers in Digital marketing in the near future. QR codes, originally used to track parts in vehicle manufacturing have become very popular in consumer advertising. QR has allowed brands to enhance customer experience and in a non-invasive way. QR codes are being used in virtual super markets in Korea, where customers can simply scan the QR code for the products they want to buy and the shipment is delivered home. Starbucks is using QR codes to reduce customer waiting time. ^[1] Angry birds had an eye-catching ad, which was basically just a QR code that took you directly to the download page. ^[2]

QR codes have great potential and provide multiple avenues to engage with customers, be it attracting customers to the brand’s websites, promotional offers that have something on offer for every scan, or making the final step of actually buying the product easier. And they are biggest selling point is that they are non-invasive. They make the customers come to you rather than going the other way round, which has three major advantages – one, it makes it easy to identify interested customers and hence the market that the brand might want to target, second - saves on a lot of money spent on aimless advertisement, and third – is a great alternative to the intrusive e-mails, texts and pop-up ads.

To sum it up, I think QR codes can be the next big thing in Digital marketing. It’s just a scan away.

Books I like -1

I just finished reading this delightful book – A man without a country by Kurt Vonnegut. It is by far the most delightful book I’ve read in a long long time and like I often feel, it made me wish I’d met Vonnegut before. But God is kind and life is long, so I shall be able to make up for lost time. I guess.

The book is short, funny and easy to read. It’s like Vonnegut is talking to you and about nothing in particular. He’s somebody who likes to talk, just as he admits in the book and is refreshingly blunt. It won’t take more than an hour to read.

 These are some of my favourite quotes from the book.

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different”

“You think Arabs are dumb? They gave us our number system. Imagine doing long division in Roman numerals”

“If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts.”

“Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.”

“A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.”

“Vietnam only made billionaires out of millionaires. [Iraq] is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress.”

Sun, sand and no surf

I like travelling. I like the going to new places, meeting new people, pretending to understand cultures and all. Now that I've grown up enough, I also like it, because it's considered  a valid excuse to not do everything you don't want to do and not pick up all the calls you don't want to pick up. So anyway, I recently went on this trip to Rajasthan, and apart from finding excuses to avoid work and not pick up calls, I clicked a couple of pictures which I quite like. Well, I also had a lot of local food, quite a lot of which was vegetarian and still good, but that later.

This one, at some lake in Jaisalmer is my personal favourite. The tranquility of the water shaken by the sudden flight of the birds was beautiful. 

You can see the impending sunset in the golden hues reflecting on the sand. 

Now what kind of a photographer, even amateur, would I be if I didn't get a camel silhouettes against the setting sun pic? 

If I had enough people reading my blog, I would announce a prize for guessing if this was sun was bidding adieu or saying hello. 

There were so many peacocks! All roaming around without a care in the world. One even made the driver bring the car to a halt with a jolt as it decided to come out of a bush without notice

and cross the road. This was all in a village which inhabits people of the Bishnoi community, bishnoi standing for 29, for the 29 commandments they follow religiously. One of the 29 is that they don't hurt plants and animals, which is mainly why these beautiful animals can move around so freely here. The world definitely has a lesson to take from this seemingly community, whose villages got roads only a decade back and who still live in mud houses.

And a blog about Rajasthan, wouldn't be complete without a fort now, would it?