Sitting at a hotel room at Patna at 9 in the morning sipping Chai and reluctantly taking in bread toast is not what I 'd imagined 3 months ago.But that is life. Back then, i couldn’t ever foretell that i would ve to go without food for 12 hrs each day for about 3 days. Much to the delight of people who thought i was fat and much to the chagrin of parents, i ve really become lean but not necessarily mean.
I am interning at the leading FMCG in the country and my profile is that of a Market researcher. Does not matter that this sounds like a part of memorized answer to “Tell me about yourself” kind of questions thrown at interviews answering which you seem to think that you ve clinched and sealed the interview there and then.At least i did!! The experience of the first ten days in this organisation has been enriching, and i am sure this sounds clichéd .
So ,overall this s not a great start to my first official blog with too many oft stated though honest sentences.
With an intellect that limits use of extravagant adjectives , i intend to capture the reader s attention for the next 3 minutes.With the risk of being branded narcissist,i ve no qualms in admitting that i am good with things that concern me,ONLY me. And the following sentences only serve to prove me right. My job allows me to meet new people almost once every 3 days .I imagine that i am good with people and with a dictum that ” Every word you speak has to be a performance ”,I hope i am not doing that badly. But there does emerge a lot of things that I am still in the process of acquainting myself with. It gets tougher when you have to decode all the jargons and acronyms thrown at you and where managers proudly tell you that all this s organisation specific and that the credit of inventing this goes to it. Kudos to them, for i like jargons. They seem to empower you with something clandestine and covert that only YOU have sole access to. Over time, employee movement and knowledge percolation proves you wrong. An indispensable character of a good organisation is that it tends to discount the obvious and question and look beyond the industry practices .For ex; the market segmentation used by this organisation is a far cry from what s used by others and definitely more comprehensive. That is what makes this org the beast and the best in the business.Sounds boring na?lets move ..and i know i am being discursive.
For a 22 year old with his first ever corporate interface,this experience is an eye opener and is bound to be savoured most of his life, lest selective dementia gets the better off me. The initial days have forced me to alter habits which i thought d been ingrained in me by Lord Brahma. I was lazy, always banked on my memory to save me in my semester exams and i was oh so comfortable with a stock still lifestyle, if i may call it. I abhorred sudden changes and resisted it for the most part of my life.Now, i am required to travel four – five different states and in India,they mean 4 -5 cultures. This essentially implies that i have to force myself to liking travelling and recognize the importance and relevance of “Adjust kariyo “( RDB afficionados may nod in agreement)in our lives.
The project is massive and entails a lot of responsibility.My job also requires me to meet up with people from the world of advertising. This agency happened to be the best in its business. The first thing i noted about them is how grounded they ve to be in terms of their thought process. There are two things that is de rigueur to them-think different and yet the thinking cannot be far fetched from the reality because bringing about a congruity between the Aspired and the Reality is what they ve to achieve. I was surprised at the disparity in the thought process and approach that a marketer and an Ad guy seemed to project, yet having a common mission .In a way, both of them end up on a common ground and complement each other. Both these professions have always appealled me. For an Ad guy, a keen observation and the belief that what they are viewing is representative of the populace is crucial.
Writing about Mumbai-the city and its people is tough .But since i am reading Gregory Robert s "Shantaram",i 'd rather not induge in plagiarism and lift the oh-so-apt adjectives reserved by him to describe the city that Mumbai is.
