An All-Hands Referendum

Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash

         There were no historical references on since when the Left hand started wiping asses and the Right hand  started feeding the hungry mouths. However in the past few years there has been a growing dissent from the Left on this. Hence somebody decided that it is better to call for an all-hands meeting involving everybody, to have an impartial discussion on the simmering problems at hand. The agenda was set to simply discuss, debate and vote on who gets to  take up what roles for the better future of everybody. Both the Left and the Right knew always that it is for a given that one cannot function without the other and even if they try to do that it would result in almost everybody getting affected for the worse

       The discussion finally began with the Left citing various reasons from superstitious beliefs to religious dogmas that has resulted in the current situation of almost everybody choosing the Left to wipe their asses and the Right to feed their mouths. While it looked quite convincing and plausible for an argument sake, somebody brought out the point to the fore that it's not a matter of belief but based on the point of strength and confidence to get the respective hand-jobs done that has made people to be so. The Left said that there needs to be a clear referendum to decide on this matter. Almost everybody were initially skeptical on the idea of a referendum for something as trivial as this. But then the Left refused to work thereafter while the Right remained unfazed and eventually the environment became quite stinky. 

          Everybody agreed on the inevitable need of the hour and the date was set for the all-hands referendum. The referendum was to decide on whether the Left or the Right gets the majority of votes from everybody and the one that wins the majority would feed the mouths and the other gets to wipe the asses clean. 

            The referendum was a month away and until result was to be announced the status quo (of the Left wiping the asses and the Right feeding the mouths) was to be maintained. The election campaign started with the Right highlighting about what more they could do apart from feeding the mouths while the Left campaigned about why they are rightfully (ironically yes) entitled to do the feeding job. As the deadline neared for the referendum, the Left completely deserted their job and focussed only on winning the referendum. Eventually everybody started to suffer and it was the Right that came to the rescue and ensured that they did what was Left as well.

         The D-day arrived with both the groups quite confident about the prospects of winning, with the exit polls showing a tight race. As the counting of votes started, the swing was quite evidently building in favour of the Right. The final results were a shell shocker to the Left as almost everybody preferred the continuation of status quo with the Left's support base (pun unintended) literally decimated. The Left began to blame the wrongs with the Right in the fair conduct of the referendum until it dawned upon them that nobody was listening. Right was given the job of what's rightfully theirs while the Left was left with the option of all that was only left.

           

Net Neutrality: A wrong & misinformed fight!

        

           Just like how Hollywood movies used to release in India (months after its US premiere) until a few years ago, the Network Neutrality debate has finally landed in India almost a year after peaking the mainstream in the US of the A. Not surprisingly everybody (who makes money via the Internet [read as YouTube]) has put their heart and soul in parading against the curb of Internet freedom, voicing against Facebook-Reliance tie ups or Airtel Zero-Flipkart deals and what not. With Internet Freedom paraders on one side and the TSP (Telecom Service Providers) on the other, either of them are trying their best to voice their end of the argument being fairly absolute.  Though TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has joined the party pretty late, their premise of request for comments from public has not really been 'Neutral' per se but just turned up to be a fancy judge between two fighting parties.

             However, you might be surprised that there is huge degree of real 'Net Neutrality' that is actually missing. With the current debate raging between this way or that way, everyone somehow are missing the middle path that is technically 'The Neutral' path too.

             Prior to looking at what the middle path is and how it retains the NN (Net Neutrality), Internet has to be first looked upon on what it is in the current state. One of the most common take of the NN supporters is for the Internet to remain a non-partisan and non controlled information access medium. A few facts to the better understanding of all the NN supporters as well as to set the context of this case.

Did You Know?

• Internet was neither envisioned nor designed (in first place) to be Neutral.
• Each of the application protocol standards that has evolved have always found wanting of a preferential treatment of their packets called QoS (Quality of Service) in their own respective ways.
• The existing unbundled Internet medium is not a factual endorsed NN view point but a skewed one-sided end-user centric setup.

 Hence in the true spirits of holding NN as a supreme goal a middle path has to been drawn where it has to be clearly regarded a SIN

• If end-users say or expect Skype calling and Wikipedia Browsing to be one and the same.
• If TSPs decides to provide selective applications the entire bandwidth and QoS while some similar other applications are left to suffer.

What is the Middle Path?

• Everybody (from NN supporters to TSPs) need to understand that real NN can only be delivered practically if all of us joined hands in our respective roles, agreements and understandings.
• End-users should be made clearly aware of the application level impact and differences on the existing Protocol level differences between, for instance a Skype call & a Wikipedia browsing (aka VoIP and HTTP) and on why treating both as the same is making the idea of real NN void.
• The OTT (Over The Top) should be broadly categorized into different group based their network necessity.
• The TSPs should hold the same level playing field for all OTT applications in every category without any preferential QoS whatsoever for either of them.
• It is high time that the TSPs create category specific (NOT application specific) bandwidth channels so that end-users have the flexibility to choose and subscribe accordingly based on their needs.

With the current trend of support and lobbying growing on either sides, TRAI is either going to lean to this end (leave Internet as such) or that end (bring in model for charging OTT) sometime real soon which at the end of the day is NOT Network Neutrality in the truest of senses! I shall still pin my hope on for sanity to prevail and Network Neutrality in the purest of forms come into existence! 

People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.

-

Max Eastman

God, Religion & CBC | An Opinion Poll

             It is always interesting to get to know viewpoints of people when it comes to opinions and thoughts about god or religion or anything related to that. Hence on this  context I decided to test waters with the 200+ folklore of the highly active Chennai Bloggers Club members. The challenge taken up was to post six question related to the topic at hand. 

Here's what unfolded...

Some simple stats to start off

Total respondents: 66

Total responses polled: 120

Highest polled question: 'Do you believe in God?' .

Least polled question: 'Do you vouch for / against the belief in god or religion, to people?'

Now the detailed question-wise stats

 

     One strong opinion noted was that many of those who believed in god did not believe in religion and I leave the other such complex stats that could be derived out of the permutations and combinations of these, to your imagination!

Top 5 Qualities that Defines Most Indians

      Sparing an opening note for the first timers and for the record, India is a land of diverse elements, be it the climatic variances across the lengths and breadths of the sub-continent to the language localization within the country. In-spite of this plethora of diversities there still exists certain characteristics that uniquely identifies a true Indian be it (sampled) from any part of the globe. There were quite a lot of inputs (though mostly derogatory), the following are my compilation of the top 5 qualities that defines most Indians, in no specific order.

• Judgmental & Blamer

              For non-Indians these might be two totally different characteristics a person might possess but for an Indian these go hand in hand just like politics and corruption. When you find a person who talks to you, say for a few minutes and if you're sure he's an Indian then most likely that he has already judged you. Few instances to give a hang of the lovely judgmental qualities we Indians possess and use in conversations....

• A bearded guy has failed in love (excluding the ones who have it for religious reasons).
• All flashy dressed women are allegedly hookers.
• Those who 'obey' parents are the best kids on earth.
• All those who study abroad are exceptionally brilliant.

Coming to the blamer quality, its deeply embossed in the DNA of all of us. The last thing on earth we can do is to accept our fault without throwing the blame on others. The fact that the present day reality shows having taken the western world concept to the next level is one stamping proof. Here again a few instances to show case the typical blame-games...

• At road accidents be it small or big, we are always right and the others involved are always wrong.
• When it comes to punctuality be it at work or even for meet up with friends or family, the whole world is at mistake for our miss and mess up of the timeline.
• Even our clothes & shoes take the blame for getting 'smaller' rather attributing to the fact of us becoming 'bigger'.

• Spice Foodie

            This part of the world has people whose spice levels in their food could touch alarming levels (according to a non-Indian) and still remain fit and healthy. As the saying goes 'Variety is the spice of life' we Indians have a variety of spices to heat up our lively taste buds and its diversity can only be experienced by travelling across to different parts of our '!ncredible !ndia'

• God Fearing

               If there is something that defies the law (Indian Penal Code, Constitution etc...) and procreates a belief that is widely accepted and nurtured as the law of the land then it is the belief in God or the Almighty or in whichever term the wide-spread religious establishments across the country call it. As much to the delight of countless Indians on earth, there exists equally countless ways, situations, opportunities etc for the implementation of these God-Fearing beliefs cutting across regions, religions & languages. Also comes truck loads of superstitions as a freebie with this trait. 

• Coitus as sex               

               Being a country that is one of the top on the table in terms of population or in terms of the number affected by STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) & for historical reasons too (Kamasutra), our country is ample with theory of Coitus in its artistic illustrations which are looked up and held in high esteem by the outsiders as an art. However ironically most in this country don't even know the term by its former name and refer it as the latter and mold it to the extent that compels kids to believe that any form of even knowledge-based exposure or discussion based on it elevates one to a 'bad' societal status. Hence it results in the obvious inquisitive trait (in secrecy) and the internet boom, crimes, fetishes and what not, the rest is history. Due to this genetic degeneration of coitus what is left is just the physical eroticism, population explosion and growth of porn industry as a grey shade.

• Nomadic or Adjustable 

                It's a grounding fact that a major chuck of earning Indians are salaried, which in simple layman terms translates to "I shall be ready to do anything that my boss orders me to, and remain grumbling behind their backs forever". We're probably the largest class of people in the world to be proud to trade our families for lucrative donkey jobs anywhere on the globe. We learn the global business language (English), foreign languages and most importantly unlearn our local language to not become literary experts or for the love of the language but just to earn money. If the 'brain-drainers' are so, the locals aren't amateurs either. Its just the economics of it, the locals do the same adjustments in their lives for up to 5 digit salaries while the NRIs do for a 7 digit onward perk.

Some of the qualities that almost made it

Gossiping

Casteism 

Timelessness

VIDHURAN by MacTrics - A Review

             I'm still awestruck and gaping, yet to come out having experienced a truly vivid display of sheer performance, at its best of coordination and execution. Having said that, in my humble opinion every performer or rather every person who has been a part of this theatrical production has to completely believe and go by the spirit that "What I did was not my best, what I've learnt and gonna do next could be my best". In that spirit of the game here's my take on what went right and what went wrong, where the right should be taken in the humble spirit of acceptance of appreciation and pride should not find a place and wrong should be taken as a scope of improvement of one's respective contribution and nothing personal.

• MacTrics - The Mummers
• You were the pillars both metaphorically and literally.
• As the entire part of yours involves a high degree of precision and timing, being the audience I did not see even a bit of that been missed out or delayed.
• Though the entire performance involved a lot of physicality there was not a compromise on the expressions at various points that required.
• I especially loved the expression of the girl who played Draupadi Kunthi during the moment where a Vidhuran's man would fall at their feet pleading them not to go to the palace and she would be the last to leave and I felt her reaction was just priceless mixed with anxiety, confusion, worry, concern etc.
• The quick regroups portraying the flash back, the mirrored maze and final exit from the cave were my pick of best of formations and executions.
• Dancers
• Firstly, the idea of portrayal of dangers bound for Pandavas via a dance form, was a commendable and novel interpretation.
• The expressions at varied points enhanced by the well synchronized lighting was just a visual treat.
• The single beat of foot tapping resonating out of 10 feet altogether at many instances was an audible testimony to the coordination with which you girls performed.
• A few instances of gestural and hand movement miss of coordination were seen which apparently is not a big issue however it just does not give the tag of being called a flawless one.
• The Joker
• The way The Joker began (circling the audience and making stunts) really set the mood of the audience to get hooked to the performance right from the word go.
• There was that variety of expressions delivered by you at different points in the monologue which was doing justice to the role however your dialogues could not keep pace with that clarity.
• The subsequent monologue transitions from the mime began to be felt like more of a dip in the attention level rather than increase or maintenance to the audience energy levels. However the course of monologue "managed" to uplift the energy levels towards the end of each of it just before being transitioned into mime again.
• The monologue as such was a long one and with many of the line endings being said twice and sometimes even more, made it even more dragging. 
• I felt it would have been better if The Joker finished just the way he started, circling around the audience and exiting finally.
• Background Score
• I must say that MacTrics have been what they are, with a huge role of such a wonderful and talented mind behind, scoring the music tracks.
• The music indeed has been the string that held and moved the puppets (Mummers & Dancers) in the way it is supposed to.
• The expectation bars have been raised and the next time it would be a lot more.
• Lights & Sound
• If Victor Paulraj had done this feat I would have said, "His experience and versatility has done it again", however it was Charles who did the magic and its truly laudable.
• The inexperience, 20+ meters of distance from the stage, swift light change queues did not cause even a bit of downtrend in the commitment and quality of his deliverable.
• Way to go Charles, hoping to see you create much more wonders in the future.
• Just a concern was the stage blue lights when The Joker walked in during every mime to monologue transition. I felt it was not necessary and the show would've gone good with a black out instead, each time.
• The Marketing
• I guess it was the toughest challenge to the MacTrics throughout the entire production.
• I feel MacTrics (one of a kind in this city, at least) truly needs a lot more support from this crew.
• Maybe the ones here need to get to the drawing boards and start from scratch if need be, for branding and reaching out to the best, for the future MacTrics productions.
• Shutter Monkeyz
• Being the video and promo partner, I understand it was the first attempt at something of this sorts and there is quite a lot of learning you guys have to take away from this.
• Promotions these days are of much reach and ease more on social network than anywhere, hence you should have done a lot more on that front. Probably teaming up with the Marketing team at some points would have given better results.
• Stage Manager
• Managing the stage with such an enormous cast being entirely present almost the whole of showtime is no easy task and I must appreciate the work done by the one responsible and it was truly commendable.
• The Monologue Writers
• No doubt that the script as such was well written and the crowd's applause and appreciation at many a time is the proof for that.
• However in my opinion there were certain elements that were either not thought off or rather overlooked which did not make the The Joker's role on par with the performance of the mime and dance.
• There's this fine line of cohesion and comfort that should be there between the performer and the script which I felt was lacking to some extent. The script as such was good and well written, The Joker as such was a good performer however these two coming together did not deliver that punch expected out of a monologue and need to be really worked out together, moving forward.
• The Concept
• The message that MacTrics wanted to send out to the audience was truly a practically viable and needed one, drawing parallels from VIDHURAN from Mahabharatha and hats off to you folks for choosing this.
• I felt the audience could have been more informed of what's coming on the show maybe in the form a prelude via something as simple as a handout while they walked in, so that they can be a little aware of what's in store for them because what's been performed on stage was something which they have  to relate and assimilate without a blink and stay engrossed. On top of all these expecting the audience to catch the connect on what's the message being told in the end all by themselves is a bit too much to expect out of them.
• The length of the monologue each time and the switches between monologue and mime transitions could have been crispier.
• The Director
• Last but definitely not the least, it was a fabulous and well orchestrated show and you can pat yourself and your team for such a brave and daring attempt at a showcase on something that was as different as this.
• As a follower of MacTrics performances I would expect the next direction to be totally different and most importantly not involve any of the formations or representations that I've seen already.
• Probably that's a huge challenge and well that is what MacTrics is all about, in my opinion.

      Definitely living to true spirits of what MacTrics believed this production of VIDHURAN to be, it made justice by being a show that was never seen or attempted before in the theatrical arena. Congratulations to the team MacTrics, yet again...!!!

The Greatest Indian Businessman

     I have heard a lot of rags-to-riches businessmen stories, who went onto become the greatest of all but did not think of someone as a role model to look upon until the time I saw this. Of course I have done nothing more than the fact of supposing him as my role model. However lately I had this sudden thought bolted in my mind (about another ONE, whom I have never looked upon this way before) which made me think again about this whole "Whom should I learn from and look upon?" stuff. Since that compelling thought within myself, I could not restrain myself from thinking about why "HE" definitely was/is/will be the Greatest Indian Businessman EVER (though he is successful world over, his grass roots are from India). Here are the strong reasons for why he's THE ONE.

• Some historical references elucidate that he was born to poor parents.
• He was a child prodigy in-fact a baby prodigy to be precise and people awed and oohed of his talent.
• His words of wisdom enlightened people's lives.
• His discourses on any subject as complied by his listeners were bestsellers in its own genres.
• He took up various roles at different timelines in widespread geographies to reach the masses.
• He never expressed interest in a business partnership with anyone but people thronged at his place for having him as a partner and he had never said no to anyone.
• There has only been growth and success stories of people who have had him as their partners and the World at large is an example for this.
• Though he professed on having faith on themselves and their skills, people have only increasingly had more faith on him instead and invested more of their time and money on him.
• No doubt he has the largest fan followers who are ready to do anything for him.
• He was the first and the most successful person in the history ever, to harness and sell beliefs to people.
• His selling potential beats the necessity for advertisements, promotions or marketing and the word of mouth reach has just been phenomenal and ever growing.
• His reach has been to all classes of economy and has not shown any discrimination to anyone, whomsoever.
• He does not have any specific headquarters and every establishment of his has always reaped benefits outstandingly well in all forms of financial exchanges by selling out beliefs, philosophies,  stories, souvenirs  etc.
• He has done business in a way what billions of others have not even imagined in their wildest dreams in-spite of age long strong speculation of him being mythological or factual. 
• In fact a few others have followed suit in this business model and have made their mark in their own manner and have been  examples of similar run away success stories in their own worlds.

    Though there are scores of people who have aspired and worked upon to be GOD, none have reached that pinnacle of success and hence the take away here for many budding entrepreneurs is to learn some of those "GODLY business principles", if not all and apply it in their own respective interests.

P.S. This was not a shot at the sentiments of any reader but purely an analogy derived out of something in practice.

'Hand'some People

          

          If you had been to an Indian wedding especially the South-Indian ones, you would have noticed that the feast would mostly be served on a large banana leaf. What’s more interesting is the fact on how people eat, finish off their share of food. Further on shifting focus to how the people’s hands are, at the end of a meal, struck coherence with the following analogy in my mind.

• All fingers draped – These are the set of people who have all their fingers dressed-up with food (mostly of the sorts of last consumed) and they are the type of people who would like to have a grab of anything that comes to their offing in life but may actually do/make-use-of that, uninterestedly. They do not seem to have the passion of enjoying whatever they do.
• All fingers clean – For a second, these people may give a picture as if they haven’t had a meal but on a closer introspection, one can notice that their deft lips and tongue have made their fingers clean (and maybe better than how it was, when they started). A variety of people fall in this category with the likes of those who thoroughly enjoy the experience of whatever they have, use or like in their lives, to those people who grab stuff (be it a company quarters, official travel, or even simply a friend’s treat and lots more) to utilize or enjoy it to the fullest at someone else’s expense.
• Few fingers draped – There are quite a handful of people, who make use of just few of their fingers as a compulsive, self-ascertained dining etiquette immaterial of how much they eat. These people are more of the self conscious type for whom their appearance and presentation of their own selves is next to being god. More often than not they choose not to do/have/use something that they like to, in the manner that it needs to be enjoyed/cherished because of “What if other may think…”, “What if I don’t look classy and decent?”  Sorts of questions pondering in their minds redundantly.
• Spoons in lieu of fingers – These kinds of people are a rare breed but yes they do indeed exist. They cannot subdue their practice of using cutleries for dining and, banana leaf meals are a no different ball game for them. They for sure end up as highlight elements for other meal-mates to giggle about, for the next few days.  They are interestingly a daring breed who stick to their principles and practices wherever they are and (most importantly) do not shy away from doing it in spite of the vulnerability involved of being laughed-at/commented/criticized. They are firm believers of what they do and are ready to debate endlessly justifying their actions, though it (their actions) may be out rightly out-of-place/unaccepted/refuted by many. 

With such a variety of ‘hand’some people around which one do you think you fall under..? or Are you totally a different unlisted genre?

Note :This post is a syndication to my article published on Thoughts On Sale at this link.

End of an Era

       7th October, 2010 marked the end of an era in my life and of course a new beginning (hopefully good). Well, I am not sure if 18 years was too little for to be called an era but for sure w.r.t me about 80% of my life's area of existence has become void now and hence yeah its indeed the end of an era for me.

• It all began with the first thing which I could remember of happening was getting admission into Chinmaya Vidyalaya.
• Learning the balancing act on my little cycle (with a sense of achievement of having removed its balance wheels all by myself).
• Playing hide n seek forever with Sai, Anirudh, Natti, Kumar, Arjun, Chetan, my cousins and lots more throughout the summer holidays for quite some years.
• With the tech age setting in, moved onto Contra, Mario, Tank, Pacman and what not while at times of power cuts as well as during endless "Don't get your eyes spoilt" retorts from elders, switched gears to the epitome games of those times such as Business, Monopoly and WWF Trump cards.
• Then came the ages of Cricket madness starting from playing with empty asefoetida cans and aluminum rods to almond shells and exam pads and rubber balls and local bats to Cosco balls and seasoned willows as well as the assorted indoor cricket madness of Book cricket and Big Fun wrapper collections.
• Then came the crux of the era, the "Balaji Bakery" which played a major role in my journey of the-making and sustenance of lotsa friends (seniors, juniors, elders too) till date. Its name was so very entwined to our lives and people around that, the present owners of that shop (being muslims)  failed to succeed in renaming it as well.

     Almost the entire unit of school folklores were (a few still are) in and around this area and another reason to the importance and grief was the fact that I had been the witnesseth of each of those folks migrating out of this area one after the other and that was truly a slow blow to me. With so much of countless stories at almost every spot in and around this area, it was truly a herculean task for me to physically to move out of this area however mentally slowly moving on, clinging onto the hopes...

Divine Search

He knew about all my past,

present and future.

Well, many went in search of him terming him as god

some confided in the god-men instead 

some others found him on the Zodiac, Astrology, Palmistry and what not.

I realized he was none of these

and

was indeed my very own sub-conscious mind.

In Pain

It was wholly my decision

Hence I stayed mum

every-time I was bumped, slapped or even kicked.

When told, nobody believed 

cos I neither had the scars nor the red-spots.

Finally the excruciating pain breached my tolerance levels

and out of me came my naughty little rascal

whom I could only adore, even in pain!!!

The Ogle

I raised my brow to have a look at him

noticed at the corner of my eye that

he too did the same.

I decided to look straight eye to eye

and we were transfixed until either of us were nudged.

BANG!!! smashed a stone

crashing down the mirror I was looking at, into pieces!!!

The Raid

The bedroom was pretty dark,

BANG!!!, The door opened.

Policemen stormed in, turning on the lights.

A couple lay there semi-nude.

She hugged him in fright

both looked drowsy unaware of what's happening.

The Inspector exclaimed in joy

"Isn't it really cute to see her guard her twin brother, being just an year old"

Friends?

I liked what she told me about herself.

Her interests seemed to match with my preferences.

Even her zodiac sign was in-sync with mine

Of-course she was looking really pretty

and I asked her - "Can we be friends?"

She remained silent 

And even after many days I found her status to be

"Awaiting friend confirmation"

Lift

It was around midnight,

A lone guy was waving his hand for a lift.

I came to a halt, few meters past him.

He walked up-to me and hopped on and said

"Just keep driving, will tell you where!!!"

"Where exactly?", I questioned.

"Where are you going?" he asked, pressing his hand on my thigh.

Anything more to PR beyond talking?

                  Three things that are most commonly associated with Public Relations are phone, e-mails and newspapers. Most people either don't understand what PR is all about (and that constitutes 90% of the professionals who need it to support and grow their respective companies). The other 5% (include family/ friends and people you randomly meet) who no matter how much you try to explain derive this conclusion that it is one cool job where all you need to do is talk on the phone! and remaining 5% who understand the know-how of PR are rare finds, alas!

           So the following is to clarify that those working in a BPO or a call centre are paid for talking on the phone. While in this profession it is just one of the tools to communicate with clients/media/internally just like in any other business.

            PR is one service that no professional company can ignore and why should it be limited to businesses. Personal PR is given as much importance now days. A statistic say, in a month a PR company gets at least 3-4 requests from individuals who want to take on this service to boost their image. Basically everyone from a company like TATA to a Pizza Corner or an NGO, from Bill Gates to a Kathak dancer need PR for brand building and to talk to the world.

          I know, doing PR for Bill Gates probably sounds like a cake walk and a wow project to work on. Almost everyone may say yes. Though it is comparatively easy but to walk on the cake you need to bake it and for baking that perfect cake you need to get ingredients in the right proportion.

         PR is a profession for thinkers! It needs people who can think, analyze, conceptualize, identify the respective target audience develop strategies; make a POA to achieve the set targets. and mind you no two clients even if they belong to the same industry will have the same strategy. It requires patience in abundance and most importantly it is a 24X7 profession, especially if you work with a hospital client. If the hospital gets an accident victim or a VIP patient one needs to be on site even at 5 am to execute the crisis management process.

       A PR desk gets about 15 newspapers every day and about 20 magazines a month. For a PR professional reading them all (if time permits, else there are dedicated people to do this part of the job alone) is step one. It helps to identify how to place the clients, which story can be plugged where so on and so forth. Oh yes, most of the stories you read in the paper are thanks to people like us!

         Clients think PR is like magic which will boost up their sales or enhance image in a day and that is a constant fight factor for us! Because PR is a sustained effort that supports the advertising and marketing efforts of a company. Ironically this is one of the most under-mined/rated services but highly valued and required at the same time. Costs are negligible in comparison to the huge advertisement budgets and involve much more hard work. For an advt. there is a fixed cost for which you buy space in a newspaper or on a channel.While we put out the same message without paying a penny to anyone and the art is in packaging it perfectly!

          Though unfortunately there are no set standards in the industry to measure the worth of PR but it is said that a story via PR carries 5 times more value than an advertisement. The credibility attached to it is higher as it is a third person endorsing your message.

        Some feel PR has a high glam quotient attached to it. Yes, there are these stuff like, to dine at fancy restaurants and stay at 5-star hotels but then there are no free lunches :). The 'G' factor is hardly an attraction.What keeps us going is to see our stories reaching out to the masses, just like hitting the bull's eye!

        All of this is just the tip the iceberg of what a PR profession is all about. Just because what one notices most is that the PR people talk it doesn't really mean that's all they can do...!


PS: This is a guest post and the views expressed are solely from the mouth of it's author