Marketing the Blogs

For the last some decades, marketing is the thing. These marketing guys have even taken over ‘leadership’! And here I am an Army Officer. Retired, so what? On that dirty word of marketing, some other time. Bloody consumerism!

I had an uncle who was a big shot in the tyre industry. To give the devil his due, he was my siblings’ and my guide and mentor during our formative years. But since my siblings were much younger and unable to grasp his wisdom, I was the one who got a lot of his talks into my head. And it did help in so many ways. But there always comes a time, for any worthy pupil, when you question your guru. It came to me too. I called on him in Delhi once as his family member. He was on to some business venture while being the national head of an organisation and was trying to rope me in, when I was, in a senior enough rank, still in Service of the Nation, while he was selling tyres. The discussion went on and on. I was trying to politely decline him. At one point, he said “you got to have leadership qualities to do it”. I blew my top. Instantly. You understand the reason for my indignation, don’t you? I came home and narrated the incident and my insubordination to my parents. They were aghast. What blasphemy, they said.

Even in the Army, there were some wise seniors, who had advised me to keep a record of good things that I had done. It would come to use, they said. Ha. I dismissed it. What use? And how can I ever discern the good from the bad from what I have done. I never did a bad thing anyhow. Whatever I did was always good, as far as I was concerned. Whatever my commissions and/or omissions, my seniors knew and they would write my annual confidence reports (ACRs) accordingly. They were supposed to be objective about it, though there were innumerable stories how they, the ACRs, were very subjective. I couldn’t care less. It is their business, was my view. I had no intention of hauling them over coals with all those records, if they wanted to be subjective and ruin my career. I had no inclination, or time, or interest, or the acumen to submit an ROG (Redressal of Grievance), or file a suit, if shove came to push. I had a feeling that seeing my nature and habits, of living and working, those seniors were well meaning and in a veiled manner were asking me to prepare myself for such an eventuality. They, perhaps, never wanted to tell me on my handsome face, “Rajendran, you will be screwed one day”. I was too busy enjoying my life playing and working in that order of priority. Playing in the games fields and working in the office, not the other way around! I never played games in the office. That was anathema to me.

There were some seniors, perhaps those who had this marketing and selling skills underneath their soldierly skin, who advised me “Rajendran, you must sell yourself” “What!” I didn’t think that was my profession! Of all things! Sell myself! As I said, I was and still am an open book for all those who care to see (or look. What is the correct word here?).

What’s that? I heard a hiss. Oh, that’s that familiar hissing “you talk too much” at the nape of my neck. That means it’s time to get on to the topic of today, which, ladies and gentlemen, is not at all any autobiographical note as might have seemed from the above musings, but about my defence to the reaction I got from some “well meaning” friends for an angry whatsapp message I sent this morning, first thing on waking up early at 9, to my friends and enemies, in short, to all and sundry existing in my wa list, regarding their act (or non-act as the case may be) of ignoring my blogs.

The reactions baffled me.

“Raj, senti mat hona yar”. Okay I can understand that. That is a course mate. All friendly and nice. I was senti. That’s not done.  “I replied/ commented. Don’t know why it’s not appearing”. Yea, that’s the point. That’s exactly what my lament was in the blog I posted long ago titled/captioned “A Notice”. Obviously he/they haven’t read it. Not even seen it I am sure. Otherwise he/they would have given me a solution, instead of expressing his/their ignorance. Next was “Stop being childish old man. Some of us work for a living” along with a series of smiley faces which I could not decipher. Now that got my goat. It is loaded with innuendos. As if! If you haven’t got it, the meaning I mean not the goat, I will tell you. It means that I am worthless and she is doing something earthshaking, not to be bothered with itsy-bitsy things like my blog! Why do girls communicate more with smiley faces beats me. 

“You need more practice. You can’t bully properly. Stick to what you are good at”. I am absolutely certain that you know that this has to be an Army guy, from the tone and tenor of that admonishment.  Is it not? Yes, dead right you are. Another course mate! By the way, do you know all ye poor ignorant civilians out there; there are only two mates in the Army. Course mates and Room mates. Camaraderie and all are simply high sounding words, for Generals to use at the war front. Or while ‘submitting’ papers to the ministry to fill their waste paper baskets. In our parlance, if we say, “he is my course mate/room mate” then all doors against him are firmly shut by us to keep him safe and warm. He will be saved from anything, even from the Officers Mess Secretary, what to talk of enemy bullets!  But I must ask him to spell out that “what you are good at”. Can’t let him get away with that crack, which to him might have been a wise one. I smell something sinister in there.

“Sir, you have all the time. I hardly have any”. Well, that’s quite straight forward as expected of a Soldier. I can understand both the subject and predicate of that proclamation. Subject, that’s me, that I have all the time in the world. True. The predicate, that he running a huge farm in the outskirts of Bangalore, is in a predicament, that round the year he has to tend to it, lest it sulks. I can sympathise. (Or is it empathise? I am very bad at knowing which is which). This is not as offensive as that whiplash “old man”. Moreover this fellow is my junior. We are always protective of our juniors. By the way, do you know the ignoramus civilians that we never ever, never ever (sounds familiar? Yes, I mean to be equally aggressive) refer to our juniors as ‘subordinates’ as in babudom? Because they are NOT. For us they are ‘juniors’, even between Lt Gens and Maj Gens, pushing their 60s. There is no superior/subordinate business.

Okay okay. Stop hissing!

“Aiyooo Rama!!!!!” to my mind is the icing on the aforementioned collective cake. Nothing more nothing less. Just Aiyooo Rama with five exclamation marks, if you know what I mean. A fervent appeal, a prayer, to the God Almighty, with head turned up, eyes rolled up, hands upwardly outstretched, with a deep painful breath, so deep that no ocean has the depth to catch it. Tired, exasperated. On the verge of total collapse. Poor thing. Without my elaborating you can know that this is another girl.

But what was the topic of this ‘discussion’? If you had cared to read between the lines, you would have known it was to be about marketing. In my last wa message, sent this morning at that ungodly hour, as mentioned hereinbefore, I had willy-nilly marketed myself it seems! Much as I am against anything that is even remotely close, by my personality. I find it loathsome. You do something good, good or even better will follow. Geetha is supposed to have said something like that no? I think I must spell it Gita, and then you might know this is not another girl, but that Bhagavad one.

My nephew who has already figured in an earlier blog declared my wa message as “a nice way to market it”! That is his profession and he is supposed to be excellent in that and so is languishing somewhere in Singapore, taking care of half the world, this side of Suez. I understand that when he was on the other side of the said canal, he sold a fridge to one Mr Eskimo and so got posted this side,  with an eskimo kiss by the company he worked for. For better or worse, I don’t know. Therefore he should know what he is talking about. Still, No. That was not what I intended, even though to him it must have appeared so. People have coloured vision. He being half my age, and family, I have to excuse him for his affront. Whatever the Americans teach us by self help books about unending “strategies” such as hard selling, cross selling, up selling, side selling, down selling....no no....delete down selling, that must be sacrilegious in the corporate world; I refuse to be drawn into that vortex. I am quite happy in those aromatic fumes that rise up in the air after 8PM, without being a Leader in Marketing. But if I seem to have done it, it is unintentional and with no malice. I plead “Not Guilty”.

 Sherlock Holmes said: “That’s the frailty of genius, John; it needs an audience”. He also said that geniuses need to be observed! That’s all I seek. An observant audience. Is it too much to ask for?