Bangalore Mega-city and its Micro-cities: An Interview

Interview with Harish Bijoor

Brand-strategy specialist  &

CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

1.     The city has many micro-markets such as Indiranagar, Jayanagar etc. What has led to these acquiring a distinct brand image of their own?

In the beginning there is the city. And then there are the micro-cities.  We live in urban agglomerations that are getting to be bigger and bigger in some ways, and smaller and smaller in other ways. Both these movements work together. Mega-cities happen by the fact that more and more people from all over gravitate to live in these mega-clusters, drawn to the magnet city. And micro-cities happen within them as a reaction to the fact that the mega-city has gotten just too big for liking.

Micro-cities are movements that are spontaneous. These are movements that occur when smaller localities get more and more self-sufficient. People who live in these localities want to travel out less and stay self-sufficient for all their wants, needs, desires and even aspirations. These smaller localities then offer the best of F and B options, the best of shopping locations and the best of entertainment options. When a locality becomes totally self-sufficient with the bank branch, the eating out ‘adda’ and the shopping destination, the micro city emerges. In many ways, a Koramangala, an Indiranagar, a Kamanahalli and a Jayanagar are classic examples of the micro-city.

 Micro-city is therefore a city within a city. A self-sufficient cluster, content on its own. Each of these clusters gradually acquire their own unique identity and brand image. Over a period of time, new settlers in the mega-city pick and choose their own micro-city to live in, depending on the dominant functionality and dominant imagery that each conveys.

2.     Some micro-markets such as the Outer Ring Road are prime office space markets. Do you see these turning into the city's prime business districts commanding a premium in the future? What is driving them?

Even as micro-cities emerge, specialty districts will emerge as well. These districts will be the Shopping District of Bangalore, and the Business District of Bangalore and more. For all you know the BIAL area will emerge as the Aviation District of Bangalore.

The Prime office space locations that have emerged on the ORR and the IRR for that matter, as well as the ones that will emerge on the road to the Kempegowda International Airport, will command a distinct imagery of their own. The more builders and their marketers invest in this generic brand building opportunity of developing district-imagery oriented districts, the more will it benefit their price appreciations.

Imagine the opportunity to develop the BIAL area as an “Aerocity” and the ORR as the “OfficeHub” of Bangalore. And maybe an area in Whitefield as the ‘EntertainmentDistrict” of Bangalore.

3.     What are the attributes that give a micro-market its brand image?

Focus is important. A keen yen to focus on a set of three unique attributes helps the branding process that much more.  Look at Koramangala. It offers the widest range of food and beverage options you can imagine, in mid-price range. In addition to what it offers, if one can focus on street-food and offer an entire street that goes “closed to traffic” on a Sunday, and open to the street-foodies of Bangalore, the brand identity will develop, slowly but surely.

Koramangala then gains a magnet status on Sundays. When you think food, you head to Koramangala. If it is a Sunday, you go Koramangala. These micro-cities then start competing with one another, offering distinct USPs that help position every micro-city as it emerges.

A mega-city will then become a sum of its whole.

4.     Is the city heading towards an agglomeration of micro-markets, each with its own distinct image?

 Yes it is. I have explained this in detail. Bangalore will aggregate at one end. More and more people will throng to Bangalore as it offers more and more jobs. Bangalore will attract people from all types of cities, towns and villages. As the mega-city emerges as an ‘opportunity-center’, people will throng to it. Bangalore the mega-city will then become bigger and bigger. This mega-city will be a mixed city. It will have people form every country, and people from every state in India. It will have urban folk rubbing shoulders with rural folk who have just entered it.

In the midst of all this aggregation, will occur dis-aggregation. The micro-city trend will ensure this. Economic groups will form as a function of rentals in these micro-cities will dictate who can afford to stay where as well.

5.     How does this phenomenon of almost each locality being a micro-market impact the image of the city as a corporate/investment destination? 

As an investment destination, the mega-city will not suffer. The city will continue to attract interest. In fact micro-cities will bring about a better governance structure as well. Ward-level governance will need to deepen and the city will be managed better with boroughs of micro-city interests pushing more and more of local self-governance.

Our villages have local-self-governance mechanisms with Panchayati Raj in place. Our cities need to replicate that through the Corporation Ward level management system. There needs to be a greater degree of autonomy in the management of these boroughs. The locals who live in these micro-cities need to decide how their budgets will be deployed and on what. Citizen-participation, as an adjunct, will need to deepen in these micro-city management systems.

6.     What sort of impact does the brand image of a micro-market have on its real estate prices?

An excellent and positive impact. Real-estate prices will go in tandem with the image of the micro-city. The more you invest in a micro-city image, the more you rake it in, in terms of real-estate prices. I would recommend every real-estate player in the city to invest in the ‘think’ towards the micro-city movement.

7.     Is there need to plan some brand management for the city now with a view to attract global investments?

There is surely a need. Unfortunately, when it comes to brand thinking for a city, everyone puts it on the back burner. In the bargain, the city writes for itself a self-fulfilling prophesy of mediocrity. And that’s precisely what’s happening in and to Bangalore.

Twitter @harishbijoor

Bangalore the Ideas City

Rodin In Cubbon Park

By Harish Bijoor

I live in Bangalore. I love Bangalore. But that’s not why I am saying what I am going to say right now.

I do believe, if New Delhi is the political capital of India, Mumbai the commercial and Kolkata the ‘kultural’, Bangalore is indeed the Intellectual capital of India.   We are a city of ideas. A city of thinking people who think the past with equal aplomb as we think the present and the future.

While most cities today are very besotted with the present, we straddle every aspect of the past, present and the future, in our own true-blue Bangalorean way. Never mind the fact that we live treadmill lives, like everyone in the bog cities does, but we get off at times as well. And that’s the time we think. And sometimes act.

Bangalore today is all of 87 lakh people living cheek to jowl with people from 25 different Indian states and some 39 nationalities that have made Bangalore India’s biggest expatriate island. Bangalore is therefore a true-blue amalgam city of sorts. We are the melting pot city in India, if there ever is to be one, where different cultures, tastes, and most importantly ideas mix, rub shoulders and blend. This then is an ideas-laboratory of sorts. A place where new things are thought out. A few ideas flourish and most die of course. In many ways an idea is a sperm. It lives like one and dies like one as well. Very few germinate.

Bangalore today is really an ideas city. It has been one for a while now. Only thing is we have not noticed enough of it, and not made enough of it as well. This is an innovative city. Innovative at every level. A city of entrepreneurs as well. A lot of credit for this entrepreneurship streak needs to be given to the lakhs of new settlers we have welcomed into this city from every part of India and the world at large.

Let’s first credit every land entrepreneur who came in from Andhra and indeed the immediate neighboring states around us. Lets credit every retailer, whether it be in the space of grocery ‘kirana’ or gold retail, many of whom came in from Kerala and again our very immediate neighbor states. I can go on listing out terrains that cover technology, ITES, IT-end to end services, Biotech, manufacturing, pharma and literally every other idea vertical that has made this city what it is. A city of ideas. A city that has encouraged idea start-ups from the realm of the humble Momo-cart to high end embedded systems that run nations and their many programs.

The basic DNA of this city, from the bottom end of the corner 'kirana' grocer to the top-end of the IT-preneur is a city that is led and bled by ideas.  Look around, and it is not difficult to spot an ‘ideapreneur’ on the prowl. This guy has been welcomed into the fold of this very accommodative city. Never mind where you are from, all are welcome. There is no jingoism here. If your idea is good, you will survive here. And thrive.

The ideas that run here are both small and big. Decades ago we started with Pub-entrepreneurships. The theme pub started in Bangalore really. A space pub called NASA, a car pub called Black Cadillac, and 485 other variants happened here. The food revolution is a reality in Bangalore today. Every food-entrepreneurship is an idea whose time has come. Koramangala today boasts of the highest density of restaurants per square kilometer in India for sure, with its 458 offerings. The Café started in Bangalore with VG Siddhartha’s Café Coffee Day, and now we have 2950 of them belonging to a myriad set of brands all over India. The IT end-to-end services enterprises happened here and sprouted, just as did the BPO outfits that litter our lives, From bottom end to top-end, this is surely an ideas city.

One downside though. The idea sperms are many, but few meet and mate the money that is needed to ramp up the humble idea. One wonders where the moneybags are burying their moneys. Let’s dig.

In a way, if I were to look for an image icon that would represent Bangalore for what it is, it would not be the Vidhana Soudha, which we use so profusely. Neither would it be the visual of the “Namma Metro”.

Instead, I would land up right in Paris, run into the Musee Rodin and fly out Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” and plant it out here right outside Cubbon Park! Sorry Parisians! This is the spanking new thinking city of the spanking new world. Bangalore!

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Harish Bijoor is a Brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Twitter @harishbijoor

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

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Must Election Campaigns Be Banned?

Must Campaigns Be Banned Altogether

By Harish Bijoor

Have you noticed? Elections and the campaigns that accompany them are getting quieter and quieter. Even less exciting than the ones that preceded them. It’s a matter of perspective really. While the politician at large feels there is less excitement on the election campaign process itself, from the lay-voter point of view, there is that much more clarity and that much less noise that drowns out the real issues at large.

The Election Commission is to be thanked or blamed for it all. Again, depends on the perspective you come from. I would personally go all the way out and thank the guys at the EC who have made this happen over successive sets of elections. Progressively, over the years, more and more of these regulations have stepped in to halt the otherwise raucous tempo of electioneering and undue throw of money-power.

In the old days, think elections, and you thought noise and clutter. The process was truly un-regulated and therefore the election campaign at large was electoral pollution at its best. There was visual pollution and clutter all around in terms of posters, banners, streamers, buntings, Chennai-style cutouts and more. When you looked around, the election looked like a festival of democracy for sure. In this festival atmosphere however, there was little to distinguish and a lot to confuse. In many ways, the one who put up the most posters looked the biggest and the poor candidate with little or no money looked very small. Never mind the issues and philosophy he or she represented as an individual and minor party in the fray.

Add to this visual pollution,  noise pollution as well. Every place of every kind was used for electioneering. Schools, colleges, temples, churches and mosques were not left out of it as well. Music would blare right through into the wee hours of the morning disturbing schools, hospitals and the sleeping public at large. The election continued to be a festival of noise and sound. Auto-rickshaws with loudspeakers, taxis with folk singing songs and shouting into microphones and more. Remember?

Again, the one with more money to burn on the campaign was a better guy, at least in terms of his imagery in the constituency.

The campaign included more of course. And this part of it is still not as regulated as it can and must be. Biryani-dinners, cricket-clubs in villages with sponsored t-shirts and caps and prizes, mobilization of crowds, grocery-shop coupons to redeem, liquor-coupons to redeem and lots more to redeem, except respect.

The point I make is a simple one. Campaigns at large gobble up money. This money is of different colors: black, grey and white. The ‘black’ is spent in terms of hard cash that comes from God and the Devil knows where. The ‘grey’ money is all about benefactors who sponsor dinners and posters and taxis and helicopters and more, without coming to the fore of it all, and the ‘white’ is the Rs.16 lakhs a candidate is allowed to spend on a campaign.

Campaigns that consume money to 'influence' voters are an insult to the electorate. Why insult at all? Campaigns that consume money must be banned altogether. Why must so much money be spent to 'influence' voters?

Why must a voter be ‘influenced’ at all? Yes, a voter must be ‘informed’ but not ‘influenced’. The process of keeping a voter informed and aware can be well achieved by the EC itself. Why not ban campaigns altogether? Allow for only 1:1 contact programs of the candidate and the voter at large. No support campaigners even. Allow for television and radio debates with clearly allocated free slots for all candidates in the fray. Lessen the noise, and lessen the pollution further. Campaigns in many ways increase the clutter, are cost-intensive and confuse and confound.

Think again from the perspective of expenditure. None of us really believes that all a candidate in a constituency spends is as little as Rs. 16 lakhs on the campaign.  The truth lies somewhere in the number between Rs. 35.84 Crores on the Karnataka election and a number of Rs. 6000 Crores as touted by some.

Will we save a lot of time, energy, money and pollution of every kind if only campaigns are banned altogether? Touche!

Twitter @harishbijoor

Karnataka Elections 2013: 4 Parties and 4 Stories

Four Parties, Four Stories

By Harish Bijoor

As Karnataka wakes up to another summer of election discontent, the noise level in our lives is slated to go up by decibels in the weeks ahead of 5 May.  This noise is not just aural noise, but instead it is all about the clutter of the visual, the confused tonality of touch, the sense of mixed election smell and indeed the delicious taste of an election as well. Not to talk of the after-taste. Bitter or otherwise!

Elections, after all, are very sensorial processes. Sensorial processes that affect our sense of sight, the sense of smell, the sense of touch, the sense of sound, the sense of taste and indeed the sixth sense beyond that as well. The election ahead in the state of Karnataka is therefore an interesting one.

At this point of time, parties are yet to announce their candidates and their party manifestoes are still being cobbled and bound together. To that extent, the election ground of Karnataka is as pure as pure can be as of now. I am really talking about the mindsets of people and their dispositions to parties. The minds of people are yet to be influenced by the campaign that is just about to commence once the last date for withdrawal of nominations is upon us. To that extent, this is a lovely time to assess what each party has in store for itself in terms of imagery. Imagery cues that each party has accrued over the last five years, and in the case of one party, imagery cues that have accrued over the last three months.

I am going to paint a picture from the Brand Positioning perspective of the top four formations, in alphabetical order.

And before I do just that, a definition for a start. The Brand Position of a political party is really the exact pinpointed position a political party occupies in a voter’s mind at a given point of time, in relation to all other political parties that occupy that voters mind. To that extent, this brand position exploration is an as-is-as-of-now kind of an exploration. Do also remember that this position can change with time, change with campaigns, change with crises, and change with an act of God as well. The joy of political reality is change. Constant change that continues right up to the date of polling. And that’s why, none of us can call an election right. Never ever!

Let’s explore the brand positions and high ground occupied by the various parties in Karnataka as of now. Lets remember, every political party is a brand and its leaders are sub-brands that go to either embellish or rob the party of its deserving image. So here goes a quick paintbrush imagery of the four prominent formations that are assembled to face the electorate.

1.     BJP:
The Story So Far: A party in tumult. But then which party is not? The ‘nataka’ of Karnataka politics has bitten every one of them.  The BJP however has many bites to show though. A clear mandate to rule 5 years ago. A leader who rose from the grass roots in the guise of BS Yediyurappa. A good start. The politics of appeasement of groups. Rebellion. The Bellary brothers. Scams galore. Corruption issues that had the leader go to jail as well. And many Ministers as well. The challenger and the challenged all went to jail for sure. Forsaking the CM’s gaddi to a trusted name. The trusted name assumes his own in no time. A demand to change leadership. Resort politics. Brinksmanship. A new leader. But the same old issue. The leader assumes his own, this time causing for division within the Lingayat vote-bank itself. Brinksmanship again. And the leader who built the BJP in Karnataka, BSY, finally leaves the party to form his own. A quick variant of a name: The KJP. From “Bharatiya” to “Karnataka” Janata Party.

The Brand Imagery of the BJP: Corruption is a non-issue. Performance is. Voters strangely forgive corruption, but not a lack of performance. The BJP seen as a party that squandered the popular and solid mandate given to it, is an unforgiveable image the party has to tide over. This is the key explanation the communication format of the party needs to address in Karnataka.

2.     Congress:
The Story So Far: A party broken in form. While the party ruled the roost in the UPA coalition at the Centre, Karnataka remained a muddled dream of fishing in troubled waters. The efforts kept moving in a straight-line trajectory as any opposition party worth its salt would indulge in. The efforts, despite so many opportunities provided by the ruling party in the state, came close to snatch it all away from the BJP, but the party could never manage it really. A divided leadership in the State ensured that the party’s biggest competition was in-between its own leaders. This continued. Sadly, this continues to date, with the latest bickerings on ticket allocation catalyzing it all even more. Who is the real leader of the Congress party in the State then?  And “real” means real and unchallenged. Unchallenged in front of the leader, and more importantly unchallenged when the leader has turned his back to smoke a cigarette.

The Brand Imagery of the Congress: The party is fighting with itself. The party has a near sure shot chance at governance. The party has however not got its act together. The party is seen to be secular. The party leaders seem to exhibit ability, but the missing element is a common weal and a common driver who all will respect, before, during and more importantly after the elections. This is the key communication the party needs to address. Manifesto apart, leadership needs to be defined.  Announce Siddaramiah as the CM in waiting and sort it all out then? Or will it? Or will an old war-horse of the party in Karnataka need be invited back?

3.     JDS:
The Story So Far: A party that is intermittently awake and intermittently asleep. Are there two parties really, or one? Is there a party in North Karnataka and one in the Bangalore-Mysore region? Kumaranna’s work has been appreciated in the past at the ground level. But has Kumaranna lost out being center-stage for long? Public memory is proverbially short. The party’s stand on the Cauvery and Krishna waters issue has been a point of appreciation in the farmer community. That’s a plus. Is the JDS a party that is family led and family managed? And has this put off a lot of leaders who have deserted it over the last 5 years?

The Brand Imagery of the JDS: Confused as of now. The party needs to address key issues in the eye and has to move much beyond its trajectory of talking about the farmer at large. Rapid urbanization is a reality and the party needs to address these issues that relate to infrastructure, education and more, rather clearly and with cogent purpose. And just water politics may not do.

4.     The KJP:

The Story So Far: A new born led by an old war-horse. BSY is possibly the only leader in the pantheon of leaders around, who can be seen to be a real grass-roots leader capable of rousing the troops into action. The pity however is that the troops are just being assembled, and some of his key confidantes still sit across the party lines in the BJP, waiting to be rejected a ticket to defect. This delay might prove to be just too costly.

The Brand Imagery of the KJP: Nascent and just forming. The party needs to assemble its troops together fast. The key communication piece it needs to address is the fact that many a voter will think voting for the KJP is a waste of a vote. The typical hurdle the best of independent candidates face in elections, where voters want to vote for you, but don’t as they want a winner and not a loser to be the beneficiary of their valuable vote, faces the KJP as well. This is a big communication task.

Over to the election campaign then. Let’s see who says what?

Twitter @harishbijoor

Why We Must Must Vote!

Why Vote?

By Harish Bijoor

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

-Abraham Lincoln

This classic Abraham Lincoln quote says it all. The language is the polite and civilized  language  of the  1860’s, but you and I can well imagine what it would sound like, and how rude it would all appear if translated into the lingo of my young daughter and your young son today, circa 2013.

Lincoln packs a mean punch. And this punch is the ultimate answer to the question: Why Vote?

I am going to attempt to add seven more to that. But then, any piece written on the need to vote is seldom read and flossed over cynically. Therefore, allow me to embellish some sets of key thoughts with ‘desi-filmi’ titles that might just make you read this. And more importantly, take heed and act on it, when voting day dawns.

1.     ‘Sahib, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns’: We get the leaders we deserve. When Sravanthi Khan decides to take off to Ooty for a short two day trip on voting day with her family of 5, clubbing the Saturday to voting day (which many are likely to do), she does disservice to herself and her entire family. She gets the type of leaders she deserves. She didn’t vote, but she still gets what she deserves. A leader elected on the merit of her non-vote. A society really gets what it deserves. You and I get leaders we deserve. When we do not vote, we write a self-fulfilling prophesy of being governed by a leadership in place without the consent of our vote.

2.     ‘Dhamaal’: The vote is a source of power. Use it. It just might be the only source of power any of us have. We elect the people who make the laws. We elect the mechanism of governance we get. Have a say in it. Do not give up this source of power. It’s our only one.

3.     ‘Kaminey’: A vote is an opinion. Express it. A powerful opinion really. When you and I vote, we really express both positive and negative. We express our anguish and we equally express our hope for a better society and governance structure. In the one choice we make when we vote, we pack a lot. We pack our hope and anguish equally on issues that relate to education, health, society, safety, governance, corruption, and a myriad other things that affect us. And this chance comes once in 5 years. Normally. And what you and I have felt for these 5 years that have gone by gets bottled up in the one vote we cast. Is this not a heavy one? And is this not reason enough to vote?

4.     ‘Zindagi Na Milega Dobara’: The vote gives you a right to participate and demand. A lot of us are ready to talk the talk, but not necessarily walk the talk. When we vote, we really walk the talk. We stop being what Lincoln would have politely phrased to be bull-defecators!  I really don’t have the right to demand when I have not voted. I really don’t have the right to criticize, when I have not voted. Do you want these rights at all?

5.     ‘Son of Sardar’: We don’t vote for ourselves; we vote for our children really. To those of us with children, when you and I vote, we vote for our children even. We vote for our children who are not of voting age as yet. To an extent every vote we cast represents the positive intent we express for our children. It is therefore right that we vote, if at all not to disappoint and abrogate the aspirations of our children.

6.     ‘Bodyguard’: Education is meant to be a safe-guard of democracy. Really? Those of us who are educated and do not vote, somehow seem to make this statement seem all wrong! What’s the point of being educated, if we don’t exercise our educated franchise on that one day in 5 years? Have you realized that election outcomes are really controlled by those who step out of their homes to vote? Why would you or I abdicate this joy?

7.     ‘Qurbaan’: Your vote need not result in a winner. And lastly, there are people who really think that you always want to vote for a winner in the election. Let’s realize this is not a lottery. This is much more serious. Never mind that the candidate you and I vote for has lost. We have made a point. And every vote in the kitty of the losing candidate is a point made volubly.

Let’s not take off on that nice Sunday outing before we cast that vote on Sunday the 5^{th of} May then!

Twitter.com @harishbijoor

Bangalore and I

Being Bangalore

Harish Bijoor

Bangalore means a lot to me. If I am asked to name one thing that excites me about Bangalore, that’s a difficult one. To me Bangalore is a ‘bisibele baath’! And I love Bisibele bath! My favorite vegetarian dish. It is so much like Bangalore. An amalgam of this and that.  A mixture of cultures, a mixture of people from all over India. A mixture of nationalities, with us housing the single largest population of expatriates in India. A mixture of tastes, a mixture of textures even. A veritable delight to the city palate at large.

Do I love this city? I do. I owe everything to it. My education, my life, my career, my friends, my relationships and most importantly my entire being. There is a state of mind called ‘Being Bangalore’. And I think I embody all of this, as many of us in this city do. ‘Swalpa adjust maadi’. And we do a lot of it.  I have done a lot of it as well.

My earliest memories of Bangalore as a kid are that of walking in good old Lalbagh, playing around, getting hungry and then being taken by my parents to good old MTR, where I would gourmandize on rava idlis, and those small little ‘gindlas’ (katoris) of pure ghee that added a taste of its own to the idli at large.

If I think later, my favorite place was the State Central Library in Cubbon Park. That stately little red building. To me this symbolized the one space of all reading and learning. I don’t know why, but I spent thousands of man-hours here. Reading the magazines and newspapers within its confines, and reading books within its confines as well.  Those days one could not afford to buy all the magazines and newspapers one wanted to read, and so, this was my daily haunt, visited religiously every day whenever I got the time (and there was so much of it in abundance then). I would cycle there every day from my home on Victoria Road on my reliable old blue BSA cycle and get back in time to be very hungry at home. Moving around took so little time, that one had all the time to focus on the real thing.  Reading and eating in my case. Two passions that I still hold on to.

And then there is my college. St. Joseph’s Arts & Science. I remember being more out of class than in. I was into every extra-curricular activity there was to handle.  I was in so many of them that I had little time for the curricular activities altogether. My favorite memory was that of an inter-collegiate magazine a few of us started called “Scribe”. We had St. Joseph’s Arts and Science, St. Joseph’s Commerce, Christ College, and of course the more exciting Mount Carmel College and Jyoti Nivas College onto it. We had representatives from each of these colleges on the Editorial Board, and all of us poured passion into it. Passion and time. This was the earliest business and consumer-touch venture that helped all of us hone our early and latent instincts for business and writing and communicating alike.

I can go on and on. Memories are such. “Being Bangalore” has been an experience to cherish and preserve.

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harishbijoor@hotmail.com

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Brand Bangalore in the Future....

Brand Bangalore: A Fantasy

By Harish Bijoor

Q: You and I live in the same city. How do you see our cities change over the years? What is your fantasy for Brand Bangalore?

-Revathi V, Bangalore or Bengaluru (still confused)

A: Dear still-confused Revathi, the city of the future is more virtual and less real. A lot of us will be spending more time in a life that is virtual, rather than real. A few of my personal fantasies on Brand Bangalore of the future:

1. We will finally have a new name. We will officially be "Bengaluru". Never mind the fact that Mayawati-ji's BSP, which will be the ruling party in the state by then (thanks to the lack of an alternative) will want to re-name the city into something else altogether by then. The re-naming debate is a forever one.

2. Future Bangalore is a different city altogether. We are going to be a Lasagne city if you look at us top-down. We are going to be a layered-roads city. Roads at different levels that help make the commute that much more bearable. Bangalore has been the first to experiment with roads made of recycled-plastic. We will have more of these. Our pot-holes (they will still be around) will be filled with this plastic no sooner than they appear. Silicon will find a more functional use in our roads than in our cosmetic surgery parlors as of today.

3. Commuting from one end of the city to another will take no longer than 32-minutes. This is going to be true at-least across those stretches connected by "Namma metro", our own city lifeline. A fair number of our city-techies will work from the Metro, thanks to its superior ambiance than the one at the noisy home. Eight up and down journeys on the train, and the code is written, tested, packed and dispatched to the Project Manager. Time to get back home.

4. Bangalore will have the first Pod-hotel. A hotel room in a pullout drawer of sort’s establishment. A see-through pod-room equipped with the best. Just one thing will be at a premium: size. Expect every Pod hotel to be fitted into a 2400 sq foot space. A 40-room hotel. The creative one's will call it the "Coffin hotel".

5. Night-life in Bangalore would have gotten a bit too noisy. In any case our Excise rules do not permit drinking and dancing in public places. You will therefore have the pure drinking places and the pure dancing places. No transgressing here. You decide. Most of our nightlife places will be "No-noise" places even. Wear a Wi-fi headphone and dance the night away. No noise anywhere, except in your ears. Anyone looking at you will think you to be the lunatic you are. Imagine strobe lights, lasers and a silent party in full swing. The cops are happy. The dancers are happy. Bangalore has found its own creative solution to the party-angst at large.

6. Bangalore will be more virtual than virtual. The largest number of tablet-PC's will be in Bangalore. The city will be the capital of the touch-enabled device.  We Bangalroeans will live more virtual lives than real. The largest number of Facebook users will be from Bangalore. We will make all our friends and enemies on FB. The largest numbers of Google+ users will be from Bangalore. A record number of circles with the most innovative names will happen from here. Lady Gaga move over. The largest number of Twitter followers will follow @harishbijoor.  Touche!

Q: The snack-food category is on the fast track. What’s next here? Is there a market overseas for the Indian snack-food?

-Rajesh Thevar, Mumbai

A: Rajesh, I do believe the snack-food category out of India can go places if it sticks to the knitting. Investing deeply into the health platform without tampering taste and the fun of the snack environment it lives in, is a must. If it is able to do this, it will thrive.

The snack-food category is a forever category. As India and its brand image grows, Indian snack-foods and foods and beverages will grow in franchise globally. A great way of understanding a country is by tasting its food and snack. While food is difficult to access and is difficult to prepare in any condition, snack-food that is packaged is easily accessible and is easy to transport and easy to find on the retail shelves overseas. In many way, every pack of a Haldiram’s ‘bhujiya’ that is opened in Norway or Sweden or in Cincinnati, is taking a piece of India out there. Food imperialism at play.

As interest in India grows, interest in Indian foods will grow as well. Food diplomacy and its time has come. Indian packaged foods have a lot to gain.

Q: Baba Ramdev has not been able to make much of a success with his political entry. Despite all his popularity, why this?

-BB Joshipura, Lucknow

A: Joshipura-ji, Baba Ramdev is respected as a Yoga Guru. As a person who has brought healing for a whole lot of people. Transcribing and super-imposing the same equity onto the realm of political activism is a long-haul task, and could be a mistake as well.

What works in one realm does not work in another. That is the sensitivity of branding that people need to understand. One cannot assume all popularity is divisible and that all popularity can be appropriated equally, once had.

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Harish Bijoor is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Cities lose thier Frugality-mindset

Losing My Frugality


By Harish Bijoor


Decades ago all of us were very frugal in everything we did. If not us, at least our parents were.

Decades ago there was a method to every spend. There was a calculation that went behind every replacement of a pressure cooker in the kitchen and the good old 'tawa' to fry the puris in. There was a calculation at play even when it came to replace bed-sheets in the bedroom and towels in the bathroom. Decades ago, there was an entire attitude of frugality that was the big sentiment at play.

And then the decades rolled by. We now enter a brand new one in the series of years that will follow 2010. I now wonder, where has frugality as a sentiment gone? Where did it go? How did it go? When did it all happen?

Look into our city lives today. Is frugality a sentiment we associate a bit too closely to that one big vice called stinginess? Has it somehow got lost and has it altogether vanished form our lives?
Forty years ago, when I was al of 5 I grew up with a shortage of sugar. While holidaying with my grandparents in Mumbai one felt he pinch of shortages al the time. Delhi was no better. The sugar shortage was so acute that Udupi restaurants in Mumbai had stopped keeping sugar in eh small little bowls on the table for use with your cup of coffee or tea. Restaurant guests wee in the habit of swiping the sugar with eh bowl in tow. The shortage had bitten everyone hard.

This was one thing that spurred on the sentiment of frugality all around I guess. Everyone used everything frugally. With care. The more expensive the item, the more the care that was shown to it.

And then things changed. As India moved on from a supply-short economy to a supply-excess mode, advertising helped changed peoples mindsets on what to use and how much to use.

In a nation where even toothpaste it eh bathroom was used frugally, in came mass media advertising that encouraged consumers to fill the entire space of their tooth-brushes with sensuous looking tooth-paste (at least in the ads made during the day). India changed. Gradually though.

I still remember catching the sight of a ‘chimta’ in several bathrooms in North India and South India alike. These 'chimtas' were used to squeeze out the last bits of paste from the metal tubes of toothpastes the day. And we did it with pride.
That’s how frugal we were.

In the mid eighties and right upto the last years of the series 1900, India remained reasonably frugal, despite what mass media advertising has always wanted us to do. Sped more. Use more. Waste more even.

Mass media advertising wants us to have three television sets in the home. One in the drawing room as the family TV set. One in the bedroom for private viewing. And one in the kitchen for the moment, for Shantha-bai to watch while she cooks.

Mass media advertising has also wanted us to have more than one car in the home, use a lot more of snack-food and maybe even have three hair-dryers in the home.

India somehow remained rigidly and resolutely frugal. For a long number of years. An older generation of people who had seen wars ands shortages and strife, helped rein in sentiment.

India somehow continued to be rooted to the method of using what we must use, saving what we must save and not throwing what we must not throw.

We continued to be a nation that still has homes selling old newspapers to a “raddi-wallah” at the end of every month. In many of our homes we still save up empty plastic sachets that bring milk in them to our homes. At the end of the month we sell them to the 'raddiwalla' as well.

We buy a new car and keep the polythene seat covers on them on for a year and more. Never mind how sweaty and uncomfortable it gets. D never mind how yucky it looks. It at least prolonged the life of the seat cover.

As we enter the years of the 2010 series, I am afraid things are morphing. Frugality has somehow slowly found it sway out. Our city lives are filled with attitudes that fight frugality instead of perpetuating the sentiment.

We buy more than we must. We eat more than we must. We waste more than we should as well. We buy things we don’t really-really need. We buy things on impulse. We buy things led by emotive appeal rather than functional need and want.

I think advertising has succeeded at last. If you really peek at every product and service we buy and use, every one of them has two dimensions to them.

One is the “need and want” dimension. The other is a “desire and aspiration” dimension.

Let me explain. Coffee has a “need and want” dimension. When you need and want it, you go buy it. It is simply to satisfy this need and cravingn that is reasonably functional.

Coffee does also have a “desire and aspiration” dimension. When you want to try an exotic Colombian blend that costs twenty times the price of your local blend from Sunticoppa, in comes the dimension of “desire and aspiration”/ This is mostly cosmetic. This is mostly led by the allure and drama of branding and advertising at play. It is also spurred on by the influence of the Joneses, or the neighbors and peers who do the same.

Frugality as a sentiment has gotten lost from our city lives slowly but surely. Some of us are still frugal. But the rest may not allow us to be. For long. So watch out.
Must we then re-invent frugality in outr lives once again? Just to stay in touch with who we are rather than who or what we want to be?
Touche!
The author is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: ceo@harishbijoorconsults.com

Cities and attitude,,,,

Scratch My Back Cities


By Harish Bijoor


Mrs. Reddy came over the other day and gave a big bowl of Sambar just before dinnertime. Dinner was good. The wife is now thinking. What do I send back in that bowl?

And then there are wives and wives and wives. Some will want to send something of equal quantity back. Some will want to send something of equal value back. And then there will be the others who will want to send something of bigger quantity or bigger value back. Just to make a point. Ouch!

Living in a city is all about giving and taking. This is a give and take society. Sending an empty bowl back is not the done thing. It is against our culture of city living altogether. If someone gives, you must give as well.

This giving and taking is not all about the women in our lives alone. It is about the men as well. It is only decent to return favors. Someone paid a restaurant bill the last time round and now it is time to do the honors. Its time to fight to pay the bill. Its only decent.

This moves on. In corporate work life, the give and take syndrome transcends from paying a bill by turn to scratching someone’s back because they scratched yours sometime or the other. Favors make the world go round big time in corporate life. Somebody stood by someone some day and it is now time to stand by the person who did it for you the last time round. Never mind the issue. Never mind the situation. Ouch!

This give and take life has invaded our city lives completely. Corrupted it totally as well.

In comes Diwali and Christmas and Id and every other festival that dot our lives. It is time to give. And take. Ouch.

If you sent a box of sweets for Diwali to Mrs. Popat, and Mrs. Popat did not return a box, it is time to blacklist Mrs. Popat the next time round. Ouch!

Have you ever wondered about the dynamics of give and take?

If you are visiting the Tuntuns, it is time to check out what to take as a gift. And it sure is time to quickly calculate the value of the gift the Tuntuns brought home the last time round when they were over. Time to benchmark value and deliver it back. Give and take seems to make the world of city living go round and round. I sometimes wonder if people keep little black-books that record quantum, value and returns.

Give and take city living comes to such a pass that there sure are a whole lot of gift items that keep circulating from home to home, without ever being used by any of the homes they touch down upon. If there is a gift that lands at home which you don’t quite like, or have too many of(or whatever), it is time to buy fresh packing paper, check for engraved notations of name on the gift, and if you find nothing exists, time to pack it all up once again and set it going on its give and take routine.

I have often wondered whether something sent out two years ago by the Jalpaiguri family ever reaches them back as well. And if so, do they recognize it, or do they just set it going once again?

Why am I talking about all this give and take routine? Why am I belaboring the point this much?

Very simply because it is time we got back to be genuine and real. Time to sit up and literally cause tumult. Time to sit up and say that you will not simply return a gift because you were gifted something.

Time to get real and genuine once again in our city lives. Time to say that I will gift something to someone only f I feel like it. Not because I am forced to return a favor.

Time to stop this charade for sure. Time to get a little uncivil and break out of the ennui of the predictable.

But why?

Very simply because what starts out as simple exchanges of Sambar for Pindi Chhole, rather quickly morph to boxes of sweets and vases and chalices and favors as well, a bit too fast.

City living seems replete with favors that are not done, but favors that are exchanged. I have nothing against favors being done to people. What I have my hackles up is against the exchange of favors altogether. At times, one favor does not deserve a return favor. Unfortunately however, we tend to forget this all the time. And that is the crux of the issue.
If you scratched my back the last time round, I sure do have to scratch your back the next time round dude! Never mind what the issue is all about. I am obliged to. Touche!
The author is a brand-specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com