IndianMaze

India has always been a country where the spread of wealth is skewed. Last decade or so made middle class become richer at a rapid pace. Interestingly, it is this very "rich" middle class that is treating the downturn differently. In my travels across the country this week combined with visits to some shopping malles on the last weekend have given me this insight. The shopping trip to a mall and supermarket saw very thin crowd and the long queues were missing on the checkout counters. This was the case at Spencers, Big Bazaar and Reliance. Even Bikanerwala that is always buzzing with activity was quiet. PVR and DT cinemas have started a Rs 50 cinema ticket that was unthinkable for a multiplex till recently. Airlines claim that low fares in January did not entice anough travellers. Contrasting this with a monday morning flight of Kingfisher to Mumbai and that was absolutely full. Airport terminal was rather busy in Delhi. I must hasten to add that Kingfisher has removed "

India has become a significant market for the screen oriented products - mobiles, TVs and PCs. India has already become larger than US household market with more than 110 million houses with TVs. As far as mobiles are concerned, it is the fastest growing market in the world and as far as PCs are concerned - it is in the middle of the road. But the story is about convergence. It seems all converging towards dual screens - mobiles in hand and TVs at homes. It is changing the consumer habits in a manner that could not be envisaged. SMSs in India created a kind of world record in terms of numbers sent per annum apart from creating a new language altogether (very nicely used by Vodafone in their campaign in India). TVs have created a complete new era of knowledge, entertainment, talent hunt et al. Though a great event in a corner of India (Tilottama in Kolkata organised by a Bengali magazine called Sananda) has given many Miss Indias but it is music talent hunts like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa on Zee T

This is a unique feature of Asian (and particularly Indian) that what is communicated may not necessarily be what is meant. This becomes even more complicated when combined with the expressions and body movement. I have been utterly confused at times when the answer is yes but the head movement is from shoulder to shoulder which to my understanding depicts a no. Is it because of subconscious disagreement or is there another issue that is linked to more social issues? In any case, yes or no is also a function of the context of discussion. As is an old adage in Sanskrit मौन स्वीकृति लक्षणं (silence is an indicator of agreement). Is it a universally acceptable practice? Psychologists, NLP specialists, please decipher for my benefit!

This one is for the spirit of the most popular R situation world is in! This situation has given the opportunity to all organisations on a silver platter to do what they want and blame it on R. There are cases being reported that replacements are decided at lower costs and then current set of people being asked to go. Travel levels being downgraded from business to economy, economy to budget airline and budget airline to train to correct the cost base. Salaries and "perquisites" are being "rationalised" (euphemism for cost cutting) with a vengeance. There seems to be a case of sadistic pleasure that owners/bosses are having in squeezing subordinates/potential employees. The balance has suddenly shifted. But are they forgetting that reputations are built over a longtime but tarnished in a moment. A company is known to have downgraded the perquisites of all managers and recently the CEO was seem as wining and dining in a plush top class restaurant with his cronies. Wi