Social Media Marketing

With Social Media Marketing racing into our daily lives through friends, peers & those wonderful first time virtual friends, advertising online received an amazing adrenaline rush with millions of dollars being spent by big Brands on social games for an ad spot, brand reach and the most cherished word for this decade “connect”.

All of the Big Brands seem to want a part of it. Right from Bing, Mc Donalds, The movie   – Megamind, Strauss Groups Peanut bar, 7eleven and more are racing to acquire “fans” & to further increase their brand reach by putting up sponsored ads on the worlds most addictive social game of Farmville by Zynga with over 80 million users online playing it.

MC D's Ad On FV

The wonderful aspect of this whole social gaming and reaching the audience was also when for causes like HAITI relief, Farmville game contributed a wonderful cause by bringing users together, connecting, being a part of this concern and in real terms making a huge positive contribution and difference to them globally.

Haiti Relief from Farmville

7 eleven Ad on FV

Strauss Ad for Peanut bar on FV

Farmville Worlds most Socially connected Social Gaming

No wonder the ad-spend on social gaming has crossed over $200million already worldwide.

What does the future look like for brands and products to connect with their consumers in unique way for a global reach?

Share your views with us on this!

Regards

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

Connect with me:

Twitter @ananthv9

foursquare connect ananthv9

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Related Post:

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“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth – Muhammad Ali”

Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility has always been a key factor for every team member associated with Techdivine Creative Services.

This time one of our friends Ms.Dobani, shared with us something that was close to her heart and a very important aspect of life that many a times we tend to have ignored even without our own knowledge.

One of our team members had a long conversation with Ms.Dobani and we mutually shared our involvements across various NGO works over the years.

Which is what brought us today to share this important date.

Today on 1st October, we celebrate the very reason for our existence here on earth with “WORLD ELDERS DAY”

World Elders Day

The TISS group (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) batch of “TISS Gerontology – Batch 2009-2010″ has prepared a wonderful presentation that would take just few moments from your precious time to share something that is extremely valuable and very much in need of ATTENTION not in any other way, but in the form of your thought and your concern for the same, that’s all.

We are sure that you would take few seconds of your time and go through this wonderful presentation on “WORLD ELDERS DAY“ and share it with your friends too.

Always remember, Life will give you back everything you have given to it. So care while you share!

(You can download the Presentation from the link below and do keep your speakers on, if you can too)

Go To Download Page:
CLICK HERE

External / Related Links:

TISS

Social Corporate Responsibility Blog Post

Making the moments count

Have a wonderful life ahead.

Regards

Admin

Techdivine Creative Services

3 Years of Blogging from Creative Writers Blog: 199 Posts & 1120 Comments: Thank You Dear Readers & Dear Authors!

This is our 200th Post today:

As we would have loved to add a special touch to this 200th Post, we have one of our very celebrated writers from the Young Talents Zone, Mr.Aditya K, to add his experience again in beautiful words. To make this more special, we requested Mr.Aditya to share two of his most recent learning experiences and he did.

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Reconnect: Part 1:

Young Intach

ReConnect’s First Expedition

The five members of Mumbai’s first Heritage Club, ReConnect, and our mentor Mrs. Gaynor strolled over to the main gate of the school, intently waiting for the Jeep that would drive us through our first expedition. We all hopped in, sorting out our stationery while the car rolled through the dug-up roads of Juhu, heading directly for Bandra. We crossed archaic buildings like the Mithibhai College, the coarse waters of the Juhu beach, the Talao Lake, St. Joseph Convent from 1803, St. Peters Church, St. Stephens Church and finally our destination, Mt. Mary. Mount Mary was a basilica, meaning it contained relics of a great person. This basilica is extremely famous in Mumbai, and has a huge fair in September to celebrate the birthday of Mary.

The members of ReConnect marched to the entrance of the basilica, where we noticed the heavy Portuguese influence on the construction. We noticed the silence of each footstep rebounding off the high arches that formed the dazzling ceiling, intense with bright designs like the walls which portrayed the life of Jesus in vivid colours. The tall statue of Mary stood amidst vibrant flowers looking down on the benches.

After noting down facts, we leaped back into the vehicle in awe. We rode into St. Andrews, where we got a jolt to find graves dating back to 1908, piled out in the entrance like paving stones.

After taking down& closely observing the features of the church, we rode back to school.

Going on this one trip has increased my knowledge on the heritage of Mumbai and the history behind it by acres. It has been a great learning experience.

Love Mumbai!

Thank you

Aditya K

Reconnect: Part2:

Five heartbeats boomed across the MPH as the remaining students of the audience marched in. Could they hear these heartbeats? The five of us who were crouched backstage could definitely hear them. We waited in anticipation for Mr. Craig to finally announce us on to stage.

We five members of the ReConnect (Heritage Club) were prepared to do a magnificent assembly with two grade 11 students. After everyone hushed down, the presentation started in full swing.

We were introduced one by one and the information began to be let out, little by little. Our topic for the assembly was World Mother Language Day, which takes place on February 21^st. Our main concerns were about languages going extinct and how to prevent that. Each of the members walked over to the spotlight and presented a given topic about Mother Languages.

My topic was the death of an 82 year old lady in the Andaman Islands. But it was not just the death of a human but also the death of the language Bo, of which she was the sole speaker. Now even languages are endangered; not just our animals. ReConnect revived and presented the numbers 1-10 in Bo. This was followed by every one of us presenting a short speech in our mother tongue.

The assembly ended with an intense debate about whether it is better to learn and preserve your Mother Tongue or the universal language, English. As it turned out, both of them are important, as you should communicate with everyone in a mutual language and maintain your mother tongue. I am certain that everyone left the assembly hall soaked with information!

However, this assembly was the second event of ReConnect that week- the first one will be remembered by most of the women staff in Middle School. Since it was International Women’s day on Monday (18^th March), we members of ReConnect went handing out roses to all the females we encountered in the school and received numerous You made my day!’s from them.

These events have made us in ReConnect more confident in approaching people, as well as given us more information.

Thank You.

Aditya K

School Ecole Mondiale

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The News behind a newsppaer:

All the students of grades 7, 8 and 9 marched over to the buses parked in a grid pattern like the houses of the Indus Valley Civilization. We were all geared up and ready to drive down to the DNA (Daily News and Analysis) printing press in Vashi to learn the entire story of the newspaper that reaches our doorsteps at 7 in the morning, right from setting what percentage of coloured ink the logo on the front page needs to the proofing of the paper to insure that there are no smudges.

DNA News

The long drive from the school in Juhu down to the printing press in Navi Mumbai was predicted to take up to two hours, but time flew by- for most of us- as we chatted along with our friends, seeming to find more topics outside of the window. After asking “Are we there yet?” uncountable times, we final got there.
The printing press seemed quite a serene and quiet place from the outside, but that opinion was shattered when we heard it after we got off the bus. The transition from the somewhat cool bus to the scorching heat of the factory compelled our sweat glands to force the sweat out. There was a faint synthetic ink smell lingering in the air, wafting around the huge rolled bales of fresh recycled paper.
As we made our way through huge machines humming, we caught sight of paper being unravelled and printed on at a tremendously rapid pace. In fact, the press could produce 4500 newspapers in just an hour!  Talk about rapid news!
The people at the DNA press were simply fantastic and very helpful. They kindly explained various segments of the press in detail, answering all questions and clearing all our doubts. They diluted their talk by showing us the machines as well so we could comprehend the information visually.
After we were shown how they printed paper, the buckets of ink, how they dried it, how they printed plates, the coloured ink percentages and how they preserved the ink, we were taken into a large conference room to give us an introduction on DNA’s history as well as ‘YA!’, which is a newspaper just for kids, of which we each given a copy of.
I learnt a couple of great things there, such as the fact that they added a chemical to the ink so that it didn’t smudge. I also learnt how the newspaper was assembled and put into boxes to be carted off. I never knew that so many processes have to be followed in order to make a newspaper- right from a newspaper reporter writing an article to advertisement spaces being sold to printing it.

This experience has increased my knowledge by miles- around as many miles as there are letters in a newspaper.

Thank you DNA and their entire team for such a wonderful experience and Thank you EcoleMondiale for this amazing opportunity.

Aditya K

School Ecole Mondiale

With so much of social media marketing, brand analysis, consumer needs statistics, product insight interactions etc the power of media & the number game online, it becomes a great everyday learning school and a wonderful experience. It adds so much of learning on the real meaning of the term BRAND with respect to different products and industries & what they mean to each of them.

The work is great and there is so much of research and new tools understanding happening here on a daily basis. We just finished 3 big marketing campaigns each for two of our corporate clients into the trading & retail industry last week. It will be going live the coming week from their end.

The first thing that we did after the campaigns is ask ourselves, “Isn’t the rent due to the “society” for some time now?”

That’s right, corporate social responsibility is a key factor for every team member associated with Techdivine Creative Services.

It’s been over 5 years since my association with varied NGO’s across cities in India. I am still deeply honored for being considered for the Rashtriya Gaurav Award for the varied contributions to different NGO’s. I remember my different experiences across well known NGO’s and I actually realized that not everyone associated with an NGO need to be understanding the cause fully or even caring about the same to the core. That brought me close to also understanding the fact that writing a cheque of X amount to an NGO does not fulfill your duty towards the family surrounding you and your loved ones, which is the society in general.

The works that I have associated myself with in the last 5 years have been from taking and educating the less privileged on different aspects and subjects to doing volunteering works during calamities to arranging IT literacy sessions for groups that would love to learn and grow with IT, but cannot reach the right source or afford the same, to just being there for those who need anyone just to be around them for some time. It’s only during these associations and interactions with scores across the cities of India, that I ran into massively big & well known names in our nation who have been doing this and lot more for decades. Their experiences have deeply humbled me over the years. I used to feel proud of myself when I began contributing my time or skill for those less fortunate, but when I realized the amount of efforts that I could have actually put into it over a period of time, I felt more humbled. It’s very true to say that, no amount of profits in life or number cracking achievements can give you a real peaceful sleep than knowing that you made a positive impact on someone who really needed it in their life that day and whom we have never known before.

Mother Teresa has been an unbelievable influence on my life and when I see the smile on the sweet mother’s face when she is with her children in her videos and across platforms, the aura of positive energy that already seems to surround her only gets bigger. I can never become or even fathom to do what she has done for billions across the globe, as I am like a candle in front of the sun when I look at her, but if I could while making the rightful contribution towards my family also always make that positive impact to those who are part of the society but not related directly to our lives, the feeling is amazing. At the end of the day, it is to make ourselves feel better that we do something for someone, well, for most of us. There are those around us too, who do it because it is their greatness to contribute without expecting pride feeling in return. They are truly the ones that are keeping the world in one single safe and sane place. Societal contributors and influencers like Mother Teresa, now being the mother that she was, is not a task that is easy or humanly possible to follow.  Even during our recent visit to one of their abodes, the air and the aura surrounding us were amazingly positive. Attached is a pic taken from their facility.

Mother Teresa

As more of these discussions and thoughts flowed across with our team at Techdivine creative services yesterday, (this happened after the team presented the marketing reports for the week, by the way, expecting  a pep-talk probably from my end on how to analyze and perform better, instead, this is what they got to hear). But they did not complain. Every member of the team here knows the importance that we associate to Social responsibility on a regular basis.

We are hoping to one day soon plan out a forum wherein we can coordinate, plan, invite and conduct lot of social initiatives on education, social abuse help groups & motivation events with the support of the entire team and good wishes from our members across countries.

No wonder that Corporate like TATA or Infosys today commands so much of respect across the globe today, with so much of social help that they have attached themselves in sincerely carrying out as part of their routine. They are great motivations and inspirations to any corporate today.

As the weekend draws to a close, I guess it is time for a real time social connect anyway.

Stay focused, stay connected & stay really social!

God Bless,

Ananth V.

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Dear Friends,

This month marks our 3^rd Anniversary of the Creative Writers blog.

Creative Writing

The journey began with the first publication and the Times of India interview and coverage of the coffee table poetry book “Expressions“, but it was only by end 2008 that we got an idea to get other writers too to add their ideas, experiences and stories and share them in such a large platform.

As the readers and comments kept increasing, with more inputs, critique, suggestions from all of you, we added interactivity, free registrations for comments, Premium memberships and so on to the creative writer blog.

Today, we proudly stand at 183 –Posts, 973 Comments with 11 Authors and scores of Categories under varied subjects of “Technology, Career, Education, Gadgets, Life, Passion, People, Marketing, Online Media, Art, Legends, Freebies, Social Media Marketing……..”

We sincerely THANK all our dear readers and of course our wonderful authors who have contributed their time and skills to us and have been a part of the Creative Writing family.

Hope you have enjoyed a good read. It will only get better!

Feel free to write to us with any suggestions, comments or your views on the same.

You can reach us at:

Techdivine Creative Services

Facebook – TD Studios Group

Facebook – Techdivine Creative Services Page

Twitter – @techdivine

admin@techdivine.com

Below are the stats to the Top 30 Posts from all time:

Top Posts for all days “March 2007 to March 2010”

All Time – March 2007 – March 2010

Title                                                                                                                                        Views

1. Coffee – A case to begin all cases (2123 Views)
2. Why So seriousssah……. (493 Views)
3. SHOLAY in Facebook Style (388 Views)
4. Google wave – Part 2: Adding & tagging Attachments (331 Views)
5. My Trip to Aurangabad- The City Of Gates (112 Views)
6. Of Forbes India’s 100 Richest: Top 10 picks from our readers (197 Views)
7. IIM Indore my blog: The Life at IIM I (187 Views)
8. Online Creative Writing Contest for Students is HERE! (183 Views)
9. Charlie Chaplin (179 Views)
10. Married but to caste and religion (175 Views)
11. Twitter & Facebook: Why SNS? (174 Views)
12. Pulau Tioman, The great journey ( 170 Views)
13. IIM Indore – IRIS Break Free – Klueless Game (169 Views)
14. ET Awards 2009: For Corporate Excellence (158 Views)
15. ‘Kudos’ to an amazing artist “Kseniya Simonova” (157 Views)
16. Standard Chartered 2010 MUMBAI Marathon (155 Views)
17. Touching a million lives, but only ONLINE (154 Views)
18. A Southie’s Life Rocks (or is it on the rocks) (154 Views)
19. Transitions in Life (152 Views)
20. BLINKX: Video Search engine: Don’t “blinkx” anymore (153 Views)
21. 26/11: Mumbai Terror Attack – Saluting the real heroes (152 Views)
22. Warli Art India: UK Art Council: A journey, for Art’s sake! (152 Views)
23. Google Wave is here (150 Views)
24. Le Tour de France 2009 (145 Views)
25. Social Media Marketing for your business: Unleash….. (143 Views)
26. Working Women & Parenting (142 Views)
27. Social Media Marketing (SMM) – From root level, Why it will work? (141 Views)
28. The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2010: My Dream Run (138 Views)
29. Save Indian HOCKEY!!!!! (135 Views)
30. The Adventurous Land and the half blood Man: Having the Elixir (135 Views)

Most Popular Tags with us:

Life

Online Marketing

Marketing Services

Emotions

People

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Quotient

Hope

Career

And yes, our Blog has always been Mobile ready!

Happy reading!

Admin

TECHDIVINE Creative Services

Social Media, Design Services & Creative Writing

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Hi friends,

I am back again with yet another post.

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) – 2010 – MY DREAM RUN!!!!

The Start, the dream run and the finish:

I thought that a mere reply or comment to Techdivine’s SCMM article may not encapsulate the myriad range of feelings that one encountered during the Marathon.

I Would like to thank TECHDIVINE Creative Services for updating through tweets too the status of the marathon.

The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon has been around for 7 years now and I have had the good luck of running the marathon 6 times leaving aside the first time. However this year was a watershed year for me personally speaking. I have had 2 Dream-runs, 3 Half-Marathons & this year I ran the FULL MARATHON!

Let me trace the steps that led to this marathon for me.

Somewhere in the beginning of August, one of my friends’ mailed me about registrations for the marathon being open.

Lazy as I am, I logged onto the SCMM site a week after the communiqué. I was surprised to find that the registrations for the half-marathon were closed. Hence I registered for the next best option – the 42 Km Full Marathon. This was done keeping in mind the fact that the runners for the 21 Kms & 42 Kms begin their respective races from the same starting point. Hence I always had it at the back of mind that I will start off as a full marathon runner and end up running the 21 Km Half-marathon along with my friends.

Come Saturday 16 Jan 2010, my friend and me, went to collect the Bibs and Goodie bags. At the WTC Expo, realization dawned on me that the starting points for both the Half-marathon and Full marathons were different. While the Full Marathon commenced from CST, the Half marathon started from Bandra.

I saw this as a great opportunity coming my way. Never had I attempted anything of such a kind. As for practice for these races, the only practice that I ever did was on Race day!!!.

So, come race day & I was pretty much eager to go the full distance. (Kindly note, this is not advised at all)

I have always been either a quick runner or a brisk walker. Not the average jogger kind of guy who would easily go on jogging till the end of the race. Normally, I carry a small travel bag with all sundries in it and deposit it at the baggage counter. However, today, I had made up my mind that, if it seemed tough, I may return from the very place where I gave up. Hence I carried only my backpack which had a change of shirt and a few energy packs of electrals (FDC Ltd).

On Race day, I reached the venue 15 minutes before time. The race started sharp at the anointed time of 6:45 AM and there were a million feet pounding the asphalt. Here I was, surrounded by a sea of people many of who were playing the follow the leader game & went where the person ahead of him was going. I tried to keep up pace but after 10 minutes, I started my walk.

Every time I felt some amount of energy in my body, I would run. Then once I was exhausted, I continued walking. I had one simple plan and a few smaller ones that helped me on my way. From my past experience, I knew that an hour of walking will enable me to complete a minimum of 7 Kms. This translated into 6 hours for 42 Kms. So rather than counting the Kms left, I counted the hours.

Smaller numbers meant the brain was always in agreement.

Then another trick was when a marker came along, indicating the number of kms completed, I told myself that 21 Kms still remained.

Irrespective of whether the marker showed 5 Kms or 10 Kms or 15 or 25, I tricked my mind into believing that there were only 20 Kms left to travel and since I had done the 21 Km half-marathon before, the brain sheepishly nodded in agreement.

By the time, I was convinced that I would be able to complete the marathon came the stunning and mighty Bandra Worli Sea Link.

For someone who has never seen it previously, this was a God sent opportunity. However little did I know that this was also one of the worst stretches that the Marathon had to offer. With the clock reading 10:30, I set foot onto the Bandra Worli Sea Link (BWSL).

The sun was at the horizon and every thought of a cool breeze subsided. This coincided with the fact that the water stations that we runners took for granted at every 100 mts, were nowhere in sight. All runners were left to fend for themselves for the entire stretch of 6 Kms on the sea link. So much that all of us were quite thankful when we stepped off the BWSL.

By this time, I had only around 8-9 kms left to complete my first full marathon. As if on cue, my leg started sending signals to the brain that it had had enough and that it may stop walking any minute. There were some indications of this happening earlier too before I set foot on the sea link resulting in a small icepack session at the medical stall put up for this purpose. By the time, I reached within a striking distance of 7 Kms, my legs literally gave way. My toes were starting to turn inwards, my calf starting to bend backwards and my thighs unable to sustain any more body weight. I limped my way actually dragging both legs upto the finish line and heaved a great sigh of relief to have completed the Marathon and still in one piece.

However I would like to thank all those who made this possible. My friends who supported me throughout the race. Then there were parents with their kids lining the streets encouraging us participants to go on. There were kids handing out Parle-G and Marie biscuits, some enterprising ones even handing out soft drinks to the thirsty. There were little slum kids who were thrilled at the number of people who were running and gave us hi-fives. It was a pleasure to see those lit up faces. To see the people who came out onto the streets on a Sunday morning for no reason of their own but just to watch all of us participate and to egg us on in our initiative.

I would like to also make a special mention of the seniors who were running this marathon just like any other youngster and yes there have been many who in their 60s have gone past me while jogging along as against my trundling.

It is really a big appreciative effort on part of the populace to turn up to attend events like this and make their august presence felt and make Mumbai known for what is famous the world over. – For its welcoming hands and open heart.

This was my Marathon and I lived every kilometer of it. Would participate the next year too!!!

Thanks

Your views are welcome.

Mani (A.k.a Ananth.S.).

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2010

The 7^th Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) 2010 kicked off at the crack of dawn today (Sunday, 17^th Jan,2010). This event representing each individual running for their cause is undoubtedly one of Asia’s largest philanthropic events in India.

The event was alive at this 7^th year SCMM run with each one running for the causes they believed for (Children, Orphans, Senior citizens, Physically challenged, HIV, Water, Pollution……)

Catch our Tweets on this HERE as this year Kenya’s Dennis Ndiso and Ethiopia’s Bizunesh Mohammed won the men’s and women’s titles respectively in the $310,000 seventh Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon.

Ndiso finished in 2 hours 12 minutes & 33 seconds(2:12:33), just over his personal best of 2:13.51 seconds and the course record of 2:11.51 seconds.

The run was all across the streets of Mumbai, as Mumbai’s CST, Bandra Worli sea link and so many zones all across saw the unbreakable spirit of runners with a cause.

Amongst celebrated names and organization’s one amazing spirited team definitely were from Cadbury, as they were seen jingling and running with the cause for Saving water.

John Abraham who is supporting scores of NGO’s was pouring his heart out on the event. He was also seen giving fitness tips on having a safe run.

Rahul Bose, Akshay Kumar, Tina Ambani, Anil Ambani, Gul Panag, Amrita Rao, Shahid Kapur, Gulshan Grover and so many other business and cinema celebrities were seen cheering, running and doing their part in adding more life to yet another wonderful event from Standard Chartered!

Thanks to Standard Chartered for yet another amazing event!

Run Mumbai, run!

The spirit of Mumbai, will always shine!

For those who were part of this amazing event, do share with us your views and comments. We would love to hear from you.

Thanks!

Admin

TECHDIVINE Creative Services

www.techdivine.com

Follow our Tweets: @Techdivine

Married, but to caste and religion

Loves labor lost

A spectacled middle aged woman of average height and looks with tears streaming over her eyes was declaring with emotional fervor: “even in my next birth I want be Mr.’s wife”. The audience was watching this with respectful and emotional silence and clapped thereafter.

I was watching a TV Program on inter caste and religious marriages and the emotional ravages brought by an intolerant society or family on such personal relationships. Some of the experiences described were even more melodramatic that some of the Tamil movies and serials I had watched. Some of the more interesting experiences narrated were :

• senior police officers sensing threat to the lives of the newly wedded couple belonging to different caste/religion, on their own volition,  gave shelter to them in the police station for the night,
• parents living in the same street refusing to recognize such rebellious offsprings and crossing the street to show their displeasure,
• locking newly married daughter in rooms (like Pran in some old movies),
• marriage conducted in a cinema hall while a Kamalahasan movie was on (the parents were outside the theatre keeping a watch on their children) and marriage vows thereafter strengthened in the Hanuman temple outside the theatre.

The persons who were describing their travails in love did not look like Ranbir Kapoor or Shahid Kapoor nor were the middle aged women resembling yester years’ film heroines. My mental image of falling in love was restricted handsome men and women with filmy looks and dashing behavior. Ordinary men and women normally toed the parental/community line and gave vent to their fantasies in love through films, dramas and books.

I imagined falling in love with some of the girls I used to stare very hard in school and college. I tried to extend the scenario further. I imagined taking any one of them (several is too expensive) to a movie near my college. There were two cinema halls nearby. Both were awful then and continue this status even now. The tickets cost between Re.1 and Rs. 2. I used to watch all the movies which were released. Perhaps I would have had to take a fifty percent cut on the number of movies I watched. Would romance have bloomed in darkened, dingy and sweaty theatre with only fans circling reluctantly?  Love is blind but may still perhaps seek physical comfort, dampening any ardor. What about pecuniary limitations? Would I have shared the daily dose of the exquisite Mysore Masala or puri bhaji (I alternated between these two dishes everyday) at Vishwa Mahal for an uncertain relationship? Perhaps, I would have asked her to take a soldier cut (my generation’s code for equal sharing).  What would her view be on my smoking unfiltered Charminar? Is it a macho thing or ugh, ugh!!   On the whole, looking back, all this seems too much trouble for uncertain rewards- mental or physical!

I still have my college ID card. The photo stuck to that shows (in my view) a hungry looking desperado, wearing shirt with wild design which even Aamir Khan would have hesitated to wear in his Movie Rangeela. But then, such outrageous dresses were the “in thing” then.

The next scene I imagine is bringing home a girl from same religion but different community/caste (another religion is beyond my imagination). I bring home a girl studying in second year of college (first year of Plus three in today’s parlance) along with me and declare  my honorable intentions (towards that girl) in the presence of my parents and brother. I can imagine my father’s fury, my mother’s bafflement at this extraordinary initiative and my brother’s anger at extending a hobby or pastime into a full time reality.  The girl would have run away immediately and the relationship would have had a premature and painful demise on that day.

On a more serious note, the impact of the program was higher as ordinary persons had gone through an extraordinary experience and were declaring it in a public arena. One good point which the anchor made was that the emphasis in each of the person’s narration hinged on merging their identity with another caste or religion and not retaining their own post marriage.  Why can’t each person continue to live as earlier retaining their own identity and leaving their children to select their path? The chief guests attending the program explained how they implemented this concept in their life of a mixed religion marriage.

What matters most in a religion or caste in our day to day life? It is certainly not concepts of the sort described below.

Dvaita – mean dual(two distinct – atma and God/Pramatma). The proponent was Madhvacharya.

Vishit-advaita – Qualified(Special) – advaita. It is similar to advaita, meaning both atma and paramatma are one/similar in nature/quality(being and consciousness) but not in quantity(paramatma is infinite).

Mostly it is the pattern of behavior, rituals followed, community oneness and familiarity with one portion of the society to which we have a sense of ownership, identity and belonging. We enjoy the familiarity and the memories these observances bring to us and want to continue it to the next generation. One example of this is the number of temples abroad and the sincerity with which the rituals observed there by Indian emigrants. An even better example is the caste and community based organizations in Mumbai which celebrate various festivals with pomp and splendor which is sometimes absent in our respective places of origin.

The question which reverberates in our minds is how we ensure that some part of our way of life which we believe is beautiful and is to be retained for posterity. One source of optimism is the presence of the younger generation in many arts, callings, religious institutions, places of worship in more than expected numbers. The next is the inquiring minds of the present generation which while giving up blind and unquestioning acceptance of our generations, is willing to explore further in finding out what is beautiful about our respective heritage and are willing to toil for it.

When I speak to the younger generation, I find a yearning for marrying for love and not because the identified time has come and it is “your duty to get married.” One person told me with great disappointment that the intense hunt for a suitable spouse did not yield the desired level of success. The middle class society’s quest to earn a living –whether in metro or tier two cities- leaves little time to go close enough to another human being to take the decision to spend rest of the life with that person.

But then times are changing.  But they are changing slowly. We still see ads of the following kind:

Wanted Bride: only very beautiful, fair & slim, up to 24 years, from middle class or even lower middle class with educational qualification like graduate/ undergraduate or even  plus 2 for—–.

I would love to hear the younger generation’s response to this. Do give me your views on the same.

Regards

Anjeneyan

Love ....

Love makes life livable, said someone!

Somewhere here I am trying to decipher and decode the exact meaning of the phrase and yes before people reach to any conclusion on what kind of love that I am talking about, let me clear the air.

The Love that will be described and poured out in the coming lines, is the one that makes two people go “I Do” at the altar.

I would like to touch upon aspects in this post, about whys would two people who have nothing in common, become what they become, until they meet each other and discover a whole new world – together.

The very reason for undertaking this exercise is my own experience at this peculiar feeling which is known as LOVE the world over.

I am 25 and by the time this article is published, I will be a year older. I have had many crushes in the formative years of my childhood and have been seriously interested only once……….. ok…….. I am exaggerating, may be twice.

The feelings just fizzled out because I am the type of guy who lets things like love take their own way rather than forcing myself on it. This is what led me to ponder as to what makes people tick?

This article may have a subcontinental flavour to it due to the fact that I am quoting examples from the, up and coming land called India of which I am a proud citizen. It’s then that I have tried to get into the “What of Love” and to say that I got satisfactory answers in my quest.

I will be best based on the analysis of the cases presented here and the readers own judgement. (Do not Judge me! )

I believe that Love is an important part of any relationship and is one of the pillars other than trust and loyalty on which the tree of mankind stands. In this regard, I have had certain observations to make and will tell you real life incidents of which I have been witness to or been a silent spectator of.

Case I – A young man whom we all knew of as a studious and very intelligient person who normally kept to self and incapable of doing no wrong along-with being protective of a blind father and an illiterate mother shocks everyone by proclaiming marriage to a young lady whom he met at his workplace

Case II – A young man who is given all freedom in the house and is an intelligient fellow does well in his education, completes his Masters in Business Adminisration where he falls in love, joins a high profile company complete with a good salary and perks. Then he confides about his desire to marry his lady love.

Case III – A young lady born and brought up in a liberal family has had many affairs by the time she reaches woman hood and goes on and marries a person whom she met at the workplace.

Case IV – A young man who has both parents who go off to work leaving him and his younger brother alone meets his lady love in college and they tie the knot. The lady in question in this case was junior to him in college and lived in the same complex as him

These are the samples that I have delved upon and arrived at certain conclusions after making careful observations. These are real life stories with the proverbial “& they lived happily ever after” theme ringing true.

The following observations were found to be true in each one of the cases mentioned above.

Ability to take decisions: In all of the cases mentioned above, the individuals involved have had to take/make decisions at a very early point in life. Be it the guy in case I where he was thrust the responsibility of being the head of the household or in cases II,III or IV where the individuals were required to take decisions due to the fact that there was very little parental assistance involved. It may be noted that people love persons who make their own decisions without getting influenced by other factors especially those which are emotional in nature.

I hope me making points and taking you back to ‘cases’ does not make this sound like a court ruling, it’s just that I would like to share different such scenarios, based on which  began to quote this post on the most beautiful thing in the world, Love!

Read on……

Self-Confidence: All the characters mentioned herein have amazing confidence about themselves. It may have been the result of their minds not being clogged by parents constantly advising about what is good and what is bad, When should one call the stops, What should one do and the likes. As a result of these, an individual goes into a mental state of being wherein he prepares a checklist before making any decision and ensures that the checklist is strictly adhered to. This process ensures that such a person arrives at a decision, which may be right or wrong, much later than those who go by the gut instinct. Also many a times such decisions may seem to be erring on the side of caution so as to ensure that one is always on the right side of the universe whereas confident people may go ahead with a decision that may seem to bewilder many but get positive results. For these people there is the inner belief that they can do no wrong because they do not distinguish between right and wrong and also believe that they can always survive any bad effects that their decision may entail. This leads to the making of a very self confident individual who also appears to be confident with an ever warm smile that pleases most people and charms the toughest of ladies.

Unfettered Lifestyle: Due to the minimal parental objection in their lives, these people live life to the fullest. They work hard, make loads of money, party harder and are always enthusiastic and positive about life. These are people who want to live lives that are worth meaning to them rather than sulking around, thinking about others or about decisions that may have far reaching consequences. That’s the reason why, when one comes across such persons, one feels quite positive and they are like a whiff of fresh air that has invaded your senses carrying you along with it.

Here I would like to rest my case wherein I have always been smitten by some one or the other. However when the time comes to make a choice, it’s always about making them a part of my life rather than colonizing them. So my mind starts throwing up questions like Would she fit the bill, Will my parents approve of her, How would the elders react about the match, What mother tongue will the children adopt and so on till the mind is left totally confused. What finally emerges is a chaotic situation. If not that then by the time I make up my mind, the lady is already been taken!

So friends I think I have unraveled the human mindset about love to a great extent and its physiological aspects. And for those who try desperately to fall in love but don’t, may be now we know why…

Enjoy

Do share your views with me.

Thanks.

Mani (A.k.a Ananth S)