South India changing......

The South is a special place…..

By Harish Bijoor

The South is a special place. For more reasons than one. Setting aside the emotional one, let me explore the rational argument.

And please! For a start, let me clarify this is no jingoistic comparison of region to region. Instead, it is a clear positioning of the potential of the 4 South Indian states of India at large. If there is any comparison attempted in number terms, it is merely to give a perspective to  an otherwise dull number.

The South is an exciting place. It is home for a start to 251 million Indians. The sex ratio remains healthy. The total population number of the 4 South Indian states makes it a region that contributes   21   percent to the population of India.  If our fertile young people out here work harder, we are going to maintain this number contribution on an even keel.

In terms of employment, the South is a robust environment. The South equally exports its people to literally every part of the world, just as the South attracts the best of talent from every nook and cranny of the world. To that extent the South has emerged a mixed market. What was once a language-centric domination of the local people, has given way to multiple sets of communities co-existing happily. You will find a Kenyan rubbing shoulders with a Bengali, just as you will find a Punjabi rubbing shoulders with a Kannadiga in Bangalore. The lines of language are blurring, and the old jingoism of language is giving way to a more common adoption of Hindi as a national language. In more ways than one, Hindi is emerging the alternate language of every one of the Metros in the 4 South Indian states.  This in turn, is ironing  out the creases in consumption patterns of both media and brands and products and services alike.

If I am to look at it anecdotally, here is an example. It was a Sunday evening and auto-rickshaws on the streets of Bangalore were scarce. Every one of the registered 87,000 auto-rickshaws  in the city seemed full. Waiting at the kerb-side, I heard a heated argument taking place between Hindi speaking auto-driver and Kannada speaking passenger. The auto-driver had gathered a big crowd around him. The passenger was shouting at him in Kannada, belting out choice expletives for not running the meter and demanding an excess fare. The auto driver was just harping on one point: “Sir, don’t scold me in Kannada. This is India. Scold me. But scold me in Hindi!” The gathered crowd on up-market Commercial Street was totally with the plea of the auto-driver!

In terms of education, the South is an educated place. In many ways, the very lack of opportunity to work of yore, has by default made the entire region a place that encouraged education. The quality of education doled out by institutions in the South has made it emerge a veritable centre of excellence in higher education. Engineering, medical, management, technical and now even law and catering colleges of repute have positioned far flung towns in South India as magnet towns that attract students from all over the country and overseas as well.

Anecdotally, if you were heli-dropped at Vellore in Tamilnadu, without knowing where you were, you would never know you are in the heart or liver or gizzard of Tamilnadu. The same goes for Manipal in Karnataka, where the population of Manipal is as variegated as the population of India itself. Also, 92 per cent of this town is below the age of 25!

South India, extending that point of a young audience, is an attractive location for the young. The early end-to-end services boom happened in Bangalore and Hyderabad. These cities have emerged hubs for IT companies, Biotech firms and more. A whole eco-system of employment opportunities has emerged in the South. Slapping Bangalore on a resume has become an important adjunct to a techie today. Never mind which part of the world you live in. Bangalore is a value-add.

The South in return has risen to the occasion and put up an excellent infrastructure in place. And many are in a project-stage. Hyderabad and Bangalore  airports(in that order please) are rated among the best in the region. Bangalore has just kicked off its celebrated Metro rail system. Chennai and Hyderabad are already on work in this space. The IT campuses that dot the areas of Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Coimbatore , Kochi and Trivandrum are exciting locations that resemble something transplanted from the concrete and steel and glass jungles of Manhattan. Mysore boasts of an Infosys Learning Centre that stupefies a visitor in its sheer scale and grandeur of effort.

Add to it as an icing on the cake the super-specialty hospitals of the South, and the South-side story is complete. Well nigh nearly! Well nigh nearly, because the South is still a work-in-progress region, and there is plenty to come.

In sheer terms of per capita income, which is a function of education, employment opportunities and indeed the competition that abounds to get jobs, the South is a special place as well. TN led the per capita income stakes for FY 2010 in the South with INR 62,499.  The per capita income of Kerala stood at INR 59,179. Andhra Pradesh stood at a robust INR 51,025.  and Karnataka followed at INR 50,676. This data needs to be seen in sync with the highs and lows in India, with Goa at the top with 1,32, 719 and Bihar bringing the rear with INR 16,119.

The South is a fully-loaded consumptive location as well. Armed with per capita income that is robust, a media-exposure that is total and stable jobs that bring comfort, the South is a nice place to be if you are a marketer of a two-wheeler or a tank top for that matter. The market is wide open. Wide open to welcome ideas that are traditional and ideas that are modern as well.

The South is an exciting place to be. In sheer population terms this is a region of 251 million stomachs that put in 753 million plus meals in a single day. This is a region that drinks a lot of coffee and tea and beverages of every kind, cold and hot. That’s 251 million bladders to feed every day! Even the market for hair-oil is big. We have 251 million heads. Half of them women. And women with an average length of hair that is all of 9.2 inches. Compare that with the average length of hair on a Chinese woman: 3.1 inches! The market for hair oil and the market for shampoo and 'shikhakai' alike are that much bigger out here. Touche!

The South is a special place. Yes it is! Yes it is!

The author is a brand-domain specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, a private label consulting firm with a presence in the markets of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and the Indian sub-continent.

Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com

Email: ceo@harishbijoorconsults.com

Twitter.com/harishbijoor

Brand Mangalore and education

Brand Mangalore: Shaken and Stirred

By Harish Bijoor

Once upon a time, not so long ago, Mangalore was a quiet little coastal town in Karnataka. Well known for its culture, its dance, its music, its coastal cuisine (that has many a person, including the writer, salivating) and more.

Outside Mangalore, you heard of the city as the destination you had to go to when you wanted an engineering or medical seat for your son, daughter, sister, brother or cousin. Or if you were headed to some very revered temple spots.

Over the last 5 years however, Mangalore has been making news. And this news is not all about how it is emerging to be a tourist destination of much impact. Not because the area boasts of a rich eco-heritage, but for reasons completely different and completely chaotic.

We had the now-famous Pub attack led by Pramod Muthalik, followed by the reactive Pink-chaddi campaign. The latest piece of turd to hit the ceiling is the Padil home stay attack on youngsters celebrating a birthday party, with friends, cake and beer. And in-between we have had sundry church attacks, desecration of altars, pulling out of couples that looked “not married” out of buses and beating them up as well. And possibly what’s been swept under the carpet of fear is much more than what’s been reported to date in media.

Every event listed above had Mangalore make news in a big way. In a negative way that has had Brand Mangalore painted as a small little town with hordes and hordes of ‘goondas’ roaming the streets, all looking to impose a Taliban-style living.  All looking to inflict a regressive and retrograde style of living altogether. The city has also managed to earn for itself an image of being totally young-unfriendly!

Now, I do believe this is where the brand disaster really starts. A “young-unfriendly” Mangalore is really a big worry to carry as an image-tag for Brand Mangalore.  Let’s remember two things. 54% of the population of the country (including Mangalore as well) is below the age of 25.   Add to it the fact that Mangalore and its surrounding areas that cover Manipal, Surathkal and more are younger still. 

Let’s also remember some facts. Greater Mangalore (the area that includes Mangalore and its surroundings) today boasts of colleges of higher education that attract students from all over India and indeed all across the developing world at large. The listing is mind-boggling. Here goes. 17 Engineering, 6 medical, 5 Dental, 14 Physiotherapy, 19 Nursing, 13 Industrial Training, 6 Hotel Management, 9 Polytechnics, 6 Hotel Management, and the list goes on.

The point to note is that Mangalore is much more than what Mangalore was. Mangalore today boasts of a Diaspora audience of young people from all over. All younger than 25.

Mangalore is therefore one of India’s biggest educational hubs. Mangalore hosts not only all these colleges of higher education, but also hosts students from all over. Add to it the fact that the hearts of many a parent and relative lives and beats in Mangalore, where their wards now study and live. Mangalore has therefore a heart that beats for it all over India and elsewhere. Mangalore is insular no more.

Events such as the ones that have rattled the name of Brand Mangalore in recent days rattle not only the local citizenry and the people of Karnataka, but they rattle many a brand sentiment all over. Brand Mangalore has earned for itself in recent years the image of being intolerant, insular and young-unfriendly. This cannot remain. This can only prove negative to Mangalore as an education hub of significance.

Let’s remember what happened to Australia and its image in recent years with the issues that had killings and allegations of racial slurs all across. Parents and students alike, when they think Australia, they think thrice, if not twice. We don’t want Mangalore going that way as well. Or do we?

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

Twitter.com @harishbijoor

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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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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

Bangalore Rage!

The Rage of Bangalore



By Harish Bijoor


Bangalore is an attitude.

A city is really an attitude. A reflection of the collective attitude of its people. In many ways Bangalore is not about this now sprawling BBMP area of 740 sq km. It is not about the eclectic mix of its people. It is not about the ethnographic mix. It is not about its varied food habits. Not about its varied dressing habits. Not about its many languages. Not about the 10,000 plus expatriates who have adopted the city as their own. Remember, the city boasts a third of the expatriate population in India. The highest single cluster of expatriates anywhere in India.

A city is really the aggregate of the attitude of its people. What is the mindset of the Bangalorean at large? What is her world-view? What is her civic-view? Is she inclusive in her mindset or exclusive? What is her social attitude? How is her economic attitude fashioned? And what of his Religious attitude? How is his political attitude?

It is therefore all about attitude. A city is defined by the attitude of its people. Attitude as reflected in behavior. Attitude as portrayed by the actions of its peoples. Attitude as displayed on the sleeves of the people who make up this city.

Who makes this city then? An eclectic mix of the haves and have-nots. Bangalore boasts of a large population of industrial workers. Textile workers even. Auto-rickshaw drivers (1, 21,000 at last count), drivers of every kind who make for the travel comfort of this city. Servants and cooks and home comfort-enablers of every kind. Sweepers in the formal sector, and indeed a whole host of rag-pickers and beggars and street-singers and street-acrobats in the informal sectors.

The city ticks on with its complement of tech-workers. A big chunk of the 16 lakh population of tech-workers in the country have made Bangalore their home. Add to this people from every part of the country who work within the confines of the many enterprises in end-to-end-services, the BPO industry, retail, marketing, manufacturing, aviation and more. Name a business vertical of significance, and we have it here in Bangalore.





If you speak a region, we have them all here. Literally every one of our many States is represented in this microcosm that is Bangalore. The languages are multifarious today. From the biggest non-local chunk contribution of Telugu (12% plus), every language that is spoken in India is here. As is the food of these many regions. Add to it the many foreign languages and cuisines. Sushi is now found in as many as 19 different restaurants in Bangalore. And Korean cuisine in as many as 11.

We are a mixed city then. A healthy mix from everywhere. A mix that has found Bangalore a pleasant place to be, sans the jingoism that mars many a city elsewhere. The Kannadiga is the most hospitable and inclusive person there is. Embracing everyone into the myriad folds of the city. Bangalore is a ‘bisi-bele-baath’ all of its own. A very tasty one at that.

As I write, the city remains what it was, inclusive. What worries me though are incidents that seem to come up every now and then on our roads. Road-rage for a start. These incidents are small in number but deep in the anguish they cause among those exposed to it.

If the city is an attitude, road-rage is a stress-induced manifestation of the attitude of a city as well. There was a time when road-rage manifested itself rather politely in this city. I have personally seen instances where people have gotten out of their cars with folded hands and apologized to those who they have upset. Gone are those days. This is getting to be an angrier city. Why?

Road-rage seems to be inversely proportional to the education of its peoples. We are a reasonably well-educated city. The most educated seem to get the most angry on our roads. And road-rage seems to be a vent-point. A point where the issue of the “outsider” and the “insider” seems to manifest itself suddenly. When someone gets angry, very angry, the first shout that seems to emerge is in the mother-tongue of choice. And this is where it all starts. This is where language comes in, one opposing the other. And this is where the status of the “insider” and “outsider” comes in. And this is precisely where the government machinery and its possible biases come in as well. To the chagrin of the affected.

The attitude of the city needs a balm on the roads, particularly as our traffic-snarls increase. The snarl is really in us. We need to very consciously control this animal. Shall we make a conscious effort? And let’s educate one other person on this. Just for a start.

We need a public program that educates us about road rage. Any takers?
Harish Bijoor is a brand-expert & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: ceo@harishbijoorconsults.com