The Scare of “Being Scared”

I am scared. Very very scared.

Mostly I am scared to be a woman in my country’s capital. Then I am scared for the fear that I am slowly but surely losing my independence which I am fighting for everyday since I was a child. I am scared to get on a public transport – at any time of the day. I am shit scared of travelling alone at night even though I feel angry @ feeling so. I am scared of trusting the autowallah I wave to stop on the road. I am scared of even driving my own car!

I am scared of wanting to enjoy a normal life – the life which most men take for granted. I am scared of the fear and anxiousness I see on my family’s faces every day when I kiss them good-bye for office. I am scared when I hear the same anxiousness growing manifold when I tell them I’ll be working later than the day-light hours. I am scared of the uncertainty that my every step brings – to myself and those who care for me. I am scared of opening the newspaper everyday – for fear of the number of new rape stories that I shall read – each of which depicts the woman as the one “shamed”. I am scared of trying to argue with the world why I should not have to put a full-stop to my life ‘cuz of the animals roaming around.

Why? Why should I have to think a zillion times before planning a late-night movie? Why should I be questioned for wanting to save my hard-earned money and not splurging on a cab-ride everyday – which again isn’t safe? Why should every time a rape case happens, the whole world questions the “circumstances”  - the girl might be travelling alone, she might be with a male friend, she might even be “alone” at her “own home”, she might be coming late from office working hard to meet deadlines, she might have been coming back from a drinking spree with her friends. Why should the girl be questioned at all?

And what right does anyone have to question a girl’s “morality” – her wearing jeans, her being educated, her befriending people of the opposite sex, her even drinking and smoking, and something which all of us read but chose to ignore – her being put on the same pedestal as a woman who indulges in sex for money – and even she doesn’t deserve to be raped! Is it “moral” for people to refuse to see women as people of the same race and giving her the well-deserved “Right to Live”? Is it “moral” for the people to even THINK that a rapist might EVER be justified for any God-damn reason?

How low have we gotten? As a nation? As a society? As the human race altogether? And inspite of such repeated acts, I read about the police officers and politicians and courts asking the people to pat them on their backs for “quick action”. Excuse me? But isn’t that something that MUST happen – not just this one time – but rather ALWAYS? And what use will that be when the “guilty” might never be punished – a case in point being the Aruna Shaunbaug case among many others where the guilty went scot-free after years of trial?

We are not safe on the roads. We are not safe in the malls. We are not safe in the moving vehicles. And we are not safe even @ our homes. What exactly are we supposed to do? And why should me or the million other women in this city be scared – EVER - of wanting to live their lives as a “normal free woman”  living in a so-called democratic and free country? I am still not FREE and I shall not be till I know that a rapist might not be lurking at each and every turn I take. And he might just take “offense” and try and hurt me even more if I refuse to accept his sexual advances?!

I so hate, despise and am disgusted of this feeling of being forced to be “scared” when I take pride in being anything but? 

Emotions

Emotions : So powerful and consuming; they have the ability to make you see life vividly - colorful & bright; yet at the same time, sometimes they blacken everything to soot. Love and Hatred : 2 sides of the same coin!

The clay mold's gonna break very soon!

Yes, may be it's the right time - may be it's not! But I can feel it feel it coming. A lot of circles have been forming lately, the web growing thicker, making it even more difficult to find the way out. However, the mold must break some day, never too soon, sometimes late, but it must break one day. And it should, or else the weight become too heavy to take. 

Not sure if it's for the good, but I guess the decision to go with the flow is also a two-edged sword. On one way, it makes you sit back and enjoy the mockery life tries to make and so do people, on the other hand, it makes you even more determined to CHANGE - yourself as well as the situations. Sometimes we wait too long, sometimes we go in too deep, but then again it's always not so necessarily bad. You stretch your limits, you see life going topsy turvy - in  all possible places. Obviously, that doesn't surprise you, for you have been used to the rut. In fact, sometimes it makes you ticklish just thinking how bad it can get. But till then the clay mold's become so strong - it can either break or be broken. 

A change is underway. And CHANGE it shall be!!!   

Lost in the mêlée

I hear your footsteps behind me,

I turn around but all I can see is you walking away.

I feel your breath on my neck,

But all that is left is the air you touched while you passed by.

I search for your eyes among the crowd,

But all that I can see is the emptiness in your heart.

I try to reach out and touch your hand,

But all I can feel is the cold she left in your soul.

I sometimes see you talking to her,

I sometimes see you walking to her,

I sometimes feel you crying for her,

I sometimes know you are dying for her.

How things take such a vicious turn,

When all you can do is look away and burn.

How life stabs a wound in your heart,

When all you wanted was a fresh start!

I come again from where I started,

Lost in the mêlée, quite outsmarted.

The smiles are still there, the eyes still twinkle,

But there’s no life left there, if one must tinkle.

~~~ Deeksha

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask! 

~~Paul Laurence Dunbar

Set up and stuck!!

Have set myself up.. again!
This time it would be harder to stand up.
The slide down is faster... harder..
But there's nothing I can do to stop the momentum..
This is the worst thing
When you know you are in for a loss
But you keep playing, fighting it out.. all for NOTHING!!!
Wish I was stronger..
to fight myself!!!!

Hah!!!

Life can be so ironical it's almost funny!

Dear Brand, are you losing me ?

My First article which I wrote after joining here :) Thought I should share the same on my own blog as well!

A little different from my usual blog posts!!

So here it goes...

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Deeksha Rajpal

Okay, I confess, I am a Facebook-aholic! Social Networking is a very important part of my life that I find hard to do without! Sounds familiar? May be you are also one of my partners-in-crime. A crime which has nothing to do with the run-of-the-mill murders!

So what crime is it exactly that I am going gaga about? Let me share with you a small story. This story has me, the consumer, it has got most of the brands under the sun today and it has got a small button. A small innocent LIKE button! So easy it is to click that button that without even realizing it, I am responsible for changing a brand’s identity!

When I joined Facebook ages ago, it was just something new and exciting. It gave me the freedom to share my life with the people I care about-my friends, my long-distance extended family and many more people who make my life what it is. It was so exciting to share my new look with everyone instantly as soon as I got a haircut!

Soon, some of the others things that are a part of my life started springing up. Things like a coffee-chain who’s Irish coffee I swear by. And the particular brand of jeans I’ve been wearing since I was a teenager! The brands which were oh-so-far-away soon started interacting with me! So exciting! I could actually talk to the brands. Who thought such a day would arrive?

Then the harsh reality bit me. HARD! An year down the line, when more and more of my friends, colleagues, families started FACEBOOKing, all I could see on my wall were the all too frequent messages from X, Y, Z brand. Where have the people I care about gone? Why can’t I see their messages? Soon, I got to know who the real culprit was! It was the thousands of community managers who were taking care of multiple brands and working overtime to ensure it was their brand that I saw whenever I logged in to my Facebook page. As a result, my homepage was flooded by TV channels, too many apparel brands, tech pages and more than a few arbit pages.

So, I started doing what many other poor mortal souls would surely be doing. I either deleted half the pages from the 356 brand pages I liked or I simply hid their posts. So sure was I that I won’t be missed that I didn’t even think twice before UNLIKing a page!

And I was not disappointed! My ex-brand pages went on with their lives, adding thousands of LIKERS or followers every month, losing a large chunk of them at the same time. While they must surely be overjoyed by the continued followers, they didn’t care two hoots about those who were no longer a part of their social media journey.

Do you know there are 55% of the Facebook users who are just like me, unliking a page after liking it, simply because they no longer wanted to see the brand/company’s posts! The even worse case is that, there are only 57% of these people who bother to formally unlike the pages. The rest either simply ignore the posts or delete posts from their newsfeed!

Have you, as a brand or an advertiser, ever missed my absence? Ever realized that I was once a part of your journey too? Ever tried to find out what exactly was it that broke us apart? Or are you just too busy accumulating the number of followers and comments?

Anyways, that is one part of the story. The other part involves those friends of mine who keep on adding every brand page on earth, without EVER interacting with those brands. WHY? They simply don’t care. Facebook is just a medium for them to interact with their friends or fellow strangers! So why exactly are these people a part of the brand’s community page? Well, they could be among those lakhs of people who add a page simply because everyone else is doing it. Because my best friend LIKED page, I automatically assume it would be something interesting. I add it as well, and then simply forget about it.

After liking a page, I’ll again go back to my life, throwing the page out of my memory, never even bothering to even once visit the company’s pages after liking it. Why? One, I may not be interested. Neither interested in what the brand has to say, nor interested in sharing my views.

Do you know that 51% fans confess that they RARELY or NEVER visit a brand’s page after liking it? In fact, 26% of consumers have liked a page because they were interested in a one-time offer and they simply unlike the page after getting what they wanted. How do we retain these fans?

Companies have to realize that every lost fan is impacting the brand? Because I don’t talk to you, I’m in simple words a dead follower. And hence, the other 1000 people I have in my friend’s list, the potential brand followers, are now automatically out of the radar. Why don’t you try to reach out to me? To interest and engage me?

Mapping the behaviour of a Facebook fan should give a heart-attack to any brand or advertiser worth his salt because of so many gory facts. Right now, shockingly, these advertisers aren’t even aware that such a trend is happening!

Facts prove that 19% of the Facebook fans simply ignore posts. They are too lazy to bother hiding a post or deleting a brand’s page. 38% of the fans might bother to click the small “x” button in their news feeds to remove irrelevant feeds or posts from their wall! A staggering 71% of Facebook fans say they have become more selective about liking companies of Facebook. Mostly because, their wall is peppered with brand communications, they feel suffocated by the humongous number of brands, each trying hard to gain the poor guy’s attention or because their expectations as a fan aren’t being met.

Why? May be you are giving them content which is irrelevant to them. Or maybe, your posts are too frequent and are simply crowding their news feed. One may also argue that it is because you have tried to smother them with your brand name and your product with every communication of yours. I would request you to please not drive your fans away.

Now, another thing that can be heard oft repeated is the problem of fake profiles which are crawling all over Facebook. You might be doing great as a brand on social media, you might be shelving out great content and engagement activities to your consumer, but how do you distinguish which of these fans are real and not just a fake profile? Why these fake profiles are there in the first place, one can’t really comment. But statistics prove that if taken on a case by case basis, at least 3-4% of the followers are just fake or bogus profiles. So if even 40,000 out of a million followers are a bogus profile, that doesn’t really bear well for the brand.

Why don’t you brand custodians send me your views on this trend? You know the brands, you understand the prospective consumers.

What do you think you can do to counter this gnawing problem which might just prove to be a slow poison for your brand?

At the end of the day, are you interested in forming a life-long lasting relationship with your consumer or are you just interested in a one-night stand? I’d love to hear your part of your story.

The Vicious Circle!!!

What happens when you are holding on so long to something, and suddenly reality hits you - wham bam thank you ma'am?!

You know you should move away... you know it's time to separate yourself from things that won't do any good to you in the long run... Inspite of you being the one who has been running away from things... suddenly you wish you had stopped by... may be then the regret of not able to hold on to something now you know you could never get wouldn't hit you so hard?

We need things we can't get... we get things we think we don't need... when we get things we need, we don't realize we need them at that time... and when those very things have bypassed their timeline, you realize what a fool you had been then?

At the end of it all, it keeps on going around in circles... encircling you and entwining you... but you know you haven't seen the end of it yet... nowhere close by... May be it's time to take that first step... That one step which is always the most difficult.. It can lead to anywhere... but then again... when you think of what little you have at the moment, you are caught up in two different world.. One world has a little of something and none of what you want... The other has neither of these... One is a small-win, a lot-to-lose kinda situation.. The other is... today I just lose-lose for something I MAY win tomorrow... As I said before... it's just a vicious circle... going round and round and round....

On A Silent Night

When night falls
silent thoughts come to me
I wonder what you're doing up there
and do you still remember me?

It's been quite a while
since we sat face to face
when I could laugh up at you
and see the smile light your face

Days have gone
more days to come
I wonder who still remembers you
after all has been said and done?

Wish I could  catch a shooting star
write your name and send afar
I now know how quickly the time flies
You blink and are left with.. just the silent cries...

Turning ONE!

March 16,2011 - A day in my life which would end up meaning so much more to me than just  a new chapter in the book of my life..

For a change... I am not ranting here... This is just a feeling you get from thinking back, a fortnight before a very important day in your life...

I was a novice when I started working in my first company in 2011. Straight out of college and having no intentions of persuing  Economics further on, I was pretty lost on the path I was taking.

The harsh realities and drama of life aside, I really didn't know what to do next. I had no idea how to start looking out for a job. Should I also start encircling vacant job positions columns in newspapers or do I keep on checking out Naukri, Monster and Shine - hoping to land up a decent job (whatever that meant!).

I was just a graduate. Not even a topper or anyone that great or SHINING! I tried my hands here, there, everywhere. I knew I did not want to be a banker. Nor did I want to be a teacher. I did not want to study economics. I definitely had no desire to try my hands at Hotel Management. So what was it actually that I could do???? The one MBA entrance exam I cracked turned out to be the only one I was actually interested in cracking. As luck would have it, I did not clear the interview but the experience I had there was unforgettable. I made new friends. Got to know people from different backgrounds.. different cultures... They were all just.. so.. different!!!

I moved on.. finally landing up in a Marketing communications company. I was doing officially what I was anyways doing at home after my college - Facebooking!! My parents, not fully understanding what their daughter actually WORKED, used to tell relatives and friends that she gets paid to check out Facebook from office! :P

I have always enjoyed playing with words and this gave me ample opportunity to EXPLORE!! It was a good six months there and I pretty well enjoyed it.. But I always craved for something MORE!!

Again life intervened... inspite of all the on-going drama it keeps on shoving, this time it managed to hit me.. HARD!!

I still moved on... But now what... I either could sit and mope around or again give entrance exams for MBA or else I could start looking out for another job. But what now? My colleagues from my previous organization had moved to similar roles in bigger companies. I wasn't sure I really wanted that. As confessed above, I wanted MORE. I wanted to learn more.. I wanted to explore more.. I wanted to open my eyes and myself to things I did not know existed, beyond the realm of what I was doing inspite of knowing fully well there was a whole world left to be explored in my area of 6-month expertise.

It is true.. opportunities come when you least expect them. A friend of mine suggested this big media agency to me. Hah! I laughed on his face, wondering why would such an agency take me - an almost-fresher. I still went ahead and gave the interview.

Honestly, I was not that impressed with myself. I wanted to have researched more.. dug out more.. But when the D-Day came, it just came and went past.

Again I told this friend of mine of my uncertainty of cracking this particular interview. In the meanwhile some other, very well-performing social media agency offered me a job.. I hesitated... I had a feeling there was something else that was waiting in the wings.. What.. How... Where... When? I had no idea!!

But soon something wonderful happened! I actually got through my 2nd home as I call it - GroupM!! And I must say, I felt verrry verrrry excited and hopeful than I had felt in a loong loong time. Yes.. that was it! It gave me something to dream about.. something to put my heart and soul into..

I know I owe a lot to my seniors and colleagues of my previous company .. all of them so different from each other.... yet soo similar in a lot of things... Each and everyone carried sucha warmth. I still sorely miss the morning samosas and chaii... but then again the last one year in GroupM has taught me soo much... with sooo sooo much more to learn. Again, what.. how.. where.. when.. I have no idea...

Sometimes I get a feeeling, I now know this and I now know that. The very next day I realize, my slate might still be almost blank... with a plethora of things yet to be learnt...

But yes.. I am gonna turn One very soon.. And I shall blow candles celebrating my 1st birthday.. with GroupM!!! :)

The talks...

Not having anything to talk about either means you have shared all your "talks" with someone else or you have reached a stage where "talks" just don't matter anymore... Which one is it I wonder...

Ramblings of a brand-victim!

Ok. So I am the latest victim of a big brand and its pathetic after-sales service. I have had two very bad experiences with two very well known brands. Sounds familiar?! Huh, read on.

Story 1

You see, I consider myself an intelligent buyer and hence feel all the more cheated! I DO NOT buy anything without thoroughly researching it! Especially if that something would cost me a bomb! So when, I got myself a defected piece of beauty worth 18k, it really broke my heart. More so because I had spent months researching about just the perfect NEXT PHONE for me, once which would suit all my needs (or most anyways) and wouldn't make a whole in my pocket (it did!).

I have been a devout user of Nokia all my life. More so, because I just started working 2 years back and the phones I had earlier were either passed on by my sister or bought by parents - typical kahani in lotsa Indian households, or was some years back atleast! So whenever I got an opportunity to buy a phone, I got myself a Nokia, knowing it would last me. I am someone who'll keep the phone on her lap while driving and drop it when I disembarked from the car. I am someone who knows the moment I'm away from my phone it would ring, even though it can stay sleeping almost all the rest of the time. So I rather keep my phone on me all times than be told later on I didn't pick someone else's call :P So Nokia fit the bill - mobile internet wasn't that much in demand back then and the college kids like me needed a phone to just "Stay Connected".

The experience was fine. As is with most Nokia phones. You know it won't just conk off like that. You can keep on dropping it n number of times and NOTHING would happen to it (trust me, this comes from experience). So even though I could not experience then all the cool things that you can at a cost of 5k today, I was pretty content with what I had.

Then came the "Working Girl" phase. I was independent - financially! I don't know how many people truly connect with this term, but I am someone who's been born and brought up with the sense that one should be financially independent if nothing else! You shouldn't be dependent on ANYONE. And so even though what I was earning was meagre, it felt as if I was earning a million bucks!

One job led to another and a lil growth, monetarily as well! Now, it was time to end the life-long relationship I had shared with Nokia. With hesitation, I took the BIG STEP. I researched and researched, not even going into "Can I buy an iPhone" phase bcoz well... An iphone is an iphone! I kept dangling between the obvious choices of Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson.

I talked to friends, I went to shop after shop, I read articles, checked out reviews, post-mortemed THE PHONE from every angle and FINALLY decided to go for the kill! OOOOHHHHH  - What a thrill!! My phone has till now been one among my top 3 BIG PURCHASES (Yes, I consider 18k to be BIG!).

My romance with Android began and the honeymoon was simply mind-boggling! Sadly, it lasted 10 days! Now not having been married in real-life ever, I do not know if the actual romantic honeymoon also lasts this long only, to give way to a sour after-marriage experience!

Okay okay. FOCUS!

So, off goes my phone one day. BLANK. Empty! I tried every trick in the book to revive it. Nothing happened!! My heart goes thuduk thuduk.

So off I go again to Google baba, find out the the nearest suthorized Samsung service ceentre and put it in my To Do list.

But wait a minute! There's another villian in the story I haven't introduced as yet!

The Mobile Store!!! The name sounds familiar,eh? The Red signboard with those ddumb creatures sitting inside. I knew I was making a mistake sumhow, trusting an authorized The Mobile Store retail shop over some unknown private mobile shop. So what happens? They guarantee me this and that and all that jazz. Promising to be at my service any time, so if ever there's a need to get ANYTHING repaired/serviced in my phone, I DO NOT have to go personally to a samsung service centre. That did it! That just closed the deal. After all, I am a busy working woman now, with no time to spare for family or friends (grrrr...). Howsoever would I find time to go to a service centre.

Coming back to me story and the essential importance of a useless Mobile store is that as soon as my phone concked off, I remembered this ass of a man who had told him to pass the phone 2 them to get repaired. Once I reached that very man at that very SUPER USELESS The Mobile Store, The man refused - point blank! To add insult to the injury, they told me if I dropped my hone in wwater, they still might be able to TRY but this was something they can't help me with. WHAT THE FISH!!

Seriously guys, please shut down your joke of a mobile store and go inside  one of the phones as an app killer!!! Bluhdy idiots.

Anyways I go to the nearest samsung service centre and voila! They are equally USELESS!!!

After requesting them profusely, talking to thee brand manager, area manager, even district manager, all theey tell me is "Ma'am we only replace the phone within 1st 4-5 days, uske baad we can only repair it"

Is this a circus that's going on? Anything lasts the first 4-5 days. Reality seeps in only later on!

I still agree, after being assured of a complete "alright" phone in the manager's words.

Again the relieef lasted only 2 DAYS. Yess... that's the maximum time I could seamlessly enjoy my phone. Since then, either it shuts down suddenly, or it deletes my song from the playlist, or shows some stupid black  where my camera pictures should be or just doesn't GO BACK!!!

I must say I LOVE MY PHONE but I AM SUPER SICK OF SAMSUNG!!

Such a bad product and such pathetic after-sales service - from both Samsung and mobile store - they should take a reality check and understand - they are losing out on some key customers. I would definitely not let my friends and family buy a Samsung even though it has Androidified the world!

Enough of this BIIIG Brand. Another love affair with another equally useless - but online- brand would soon follow!!!

The angst of Self!

2 months and not a post. 2011 gave way to 2012 yet I maintained a stoic silence. Was it for want of words? Or lack of stories to write home about?

Not really. So many times I picked up my laptop and starting writing away mindlessly.. pouring my heart into words.. Either what I wrote could'nt be put in a blog or it was something I  left mid-way, not sure myself how to carry on.

I do not have anything to write today. Or may be there is soo much I need to express that my feelings struggle for priority. Yet I fail to understand what is it really that I want to write. Have I lost the power to express my angst? In trying to put my feelings under a cold grasp, have I lost the ability to express even the most innate feelings.

Again my answer comes to a naught!