what's 'being successful'?

Try to answer this question: Do you think you have been successful in your life?

If you have come up with a 'No', you ought to read on. If it's a 'Yes', great! But you can still give a shot at this.

Alright, in order to answer the above question, we need to first of all define what success is. And thats not easy. Why? Because success, like happiness, is a very relative term. What's success to me might not be success to you. And that's natural, afetr all every human being has his own ambitions, goals, way of thinking and whatever. But above this phenomenon of individuality, in my opinion, there is a fundamental flaw in the society when it comes to determining success.

And whats that? Its this practice of choosing the wrong paramater to determine if someone has attained success. Wealth is something which takes so much precedence in judging an individual's success. To illustrate, have you ever heard of terms like 'successful social rights activist' or a 'successful professor'? If you have, when was the last time you heard that or how often? Now what about these terms - 'successful businessman', 'successful entrepreneur', even a 'successful politician' ? Everyday, isn't it? For a simple reason that the primary objective of these people is creating wealth while for the former, its about making lives better, creating a betetr tomorrow. But who walks away with the accolade - the 'successful' tag? Ironic it is, and this is beacuse wealth has overshadowed purpose and happiness as the key criterian for determining one's success.

Its not important what you do, its not about how much wealth you manage to amass, its not about all your assets; its about happiness. A poor farmer in a remote hinterland who travels on a bicycle, lives in a hut with his small family but manages to live happily is far more successful in life than a billionaire business magnet sitting in his BMW but is far from being happy. A professor who instills knowledge to his students and creates leaders of tomorrow might not be 'the successful person' you are looking for, but he has served the purpose and he would only be happy to see the fruits of his labour years later.

The bottomline: It's happiness which should determine the success and not anything else. And for that, one needs to learn being content with what they have in their lives. Of course, the hunger to achive should prevail but without adapting the form of obsession, for then the ultimate path to success - happiness would be lost.

Now again, do you think you have been successful in your life?

If you are a politician in India ....

1) First things first, you need to meet certain criteria.

"After the general election in May a study by the Association for Democratic Reforms, an activist group, found that nearly one third of the 543 members of the national Parliament face pending criminal charges — up 20 per cent on the previous Parliament. The alleged crimes include murder, banditry and kidnapping."

2) Corruption is your birth right. Its natural for you to assume that hard-earned public money is for you to swindle.

"The former Jharkhand chief minister and current MP from Chaibasa in Jharkhand along with his cabinet colleagues are accused of laundering money to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore, almost half of Jharkhand's annual budget, during his tenure as Chief Minister from September 2006 till August 2008."

(The whole story)

3) You can send a bunch of hooligans to launch attacks on a media house if their news updates about you or your party are not 'in line with your expectations'. And trust me, both you and your party will be let scott-free.

4) You can get new states created for you at will. Alternatively, you can stop the same by enacting a mass resignation drive and fueling intense protests. 'Fasts, bundh and road-rail rokos are ready-to-use tools at your disposal.

5) You can dismiss criticisms about your age being a deterrent for effective administration and prove people that you are still 'young' by doing what students at colleges do. Yup, you can bunk sessions at parliament or be late for a session and give ultra-lame excuses about it.

"After the railways, it's the turn of the airlines to share the blame for MPs turning up late in parliament or missing the day's proceedings. A member, who remained absent during Question Hour in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday despite listing a query, demanded change in flight timings to prevent absenteeism in the House. "The flight from Raipur should be a bit early in the morning so that we can reach parliament well before time," he said"

(ref)



6) As you wouldn't have really attended kindergarten, you can experience at the parliament how a typical class at kindergarten would function.



7) You are not subjected to any regulations in land, air or water.

"In a clear-cut violation of the DGCA norms, Mr Singh’s plane took off from the Dumka Airport in Jharkhand with only the headlights of jeeps to guide it through the dark, unlit runway" - more here

... and the list goes on.

These points are based only on events that have happened in the last few months. If you take into account a much longer period, say the whole decade that was, you could probably pick up a million things that politicians can 'achieve' in India.

As yet another new year dawns upon us, we continue to ride on the hope that the current breed of corrupt, inept and incorrigible politicians would cease to rule the roost. But for that to happen, the 500 million strong youngistan has to come into play like never before.

"Will they?"













P.S: All my views are entirely personal in nature and is not born out of any affiliations to any of the political parties.

Creativity, every second!

It wasn't long before when millions of cricket fans across India were in for a visual treat, ironically, not as much in the game as was in the commercials aired during the course of the games.
No points for guessing, who would have forgot the excitement when they spotted those cute white creatures with their egg-shaped heads - the Zoozoos! The series of commercials from Vodafone to promote their value added services was an instant hit and easily proved to be one of the best Indian ad campaigns of this year.

Well getting into the topic, everyone knows whats happening in the telecom space today - too many players, heating competition, falling tariffs and falling revenues in that order. What still seemed to be a stable industry despite the competition has suddenly crashed over the past couple of months. The trigger - someone 'did the new'! The 'per second billing' system introduced by the Tatas for their GSM service 'Tata Docomo' has prompted every single player in the market, including incumbents like Bharti to follow suit almost immediately. The result - rock bottom tariffs which would translate into a drastic hit in the bottom line for the whole industry. Alright, let me shut the crap on the business side of this!

If developing products is one big challenge, marketing it with effective ad campaigns is another herculean task. Its really interesting to observe how all these players have rendered different angles while approaching their common new product - the 'per second plan'.

Tata Docomo, the first movers, started with a fairly simple commercial in which all the letters in 'Docomo' dance in different styles before finally settling to form the sequence. With a catchy tune in the background, the ad totally achieved its aim of being simple and let the consumers' eyes catch the '1 paise /second' line.

Then came in the industry leader Airtel, again this time with their top brand ambassador SRK, to make a series of commercials which essentially conveyed the message - 'How long does it take to convey something'. This added a 'relationship' dimension to the campaign, which Airtel always brings to the fore along with other elements like 'confidence' and 'belief'.

Soon Aircel, which is eyeing a pan India presence, jumped into the 'per second' fray and looked to grab eyeballs with its latest commercial for the same plan. The key message - 'If we had an option to have only what we need' added a concept of 'necessity', which translates into the consumer's need for only a portion of the typical one minute pulse being offered.


Again came in Docomo, but this time with an advert created with a perspective. The message 'When life can change in seconds, why pay in minutes?' brings the dimension of 'Time' along with it. Through through this, the campaign sticks to its objective of keeping the consumers focussed on the 'per second' phenomenon ,the overall approach seems a little irrelevant.


And the last one to join the bandwagon, Vodafone, has come up with yet another brilliant series of commercials where the message 'A little can convey a lot' lends a new dimension of effectiveness, strength or power. The ad where a son who comes home late at night is greeted 'Good morning' by his dad certainly packs the punch!


Fascinating to see how creativity can manifest itself in different forms by just looking at the different dimensions (relationships, strength, necessity, etc) explored to underline the same concept. Well its good news that the tariff war in the industry has not only augured well for the consumers, but also set the country's best creative minds ringing!