Facetious AD-Critique

Posted on March 26, 2013 by AbhishekAG

When it comes to advertisements, I’m embroiled in a very special love/hate relationship.

I hate TV advertisements because they interrupt my shows, that aside, I love everything else about them!
The weird world of ads never ceases to capture my imagination, from surreal settings, to lame slogans and hook-laced jingles! I’m enamored by the way brands choose their advertisement style and strategy.

However, there are some advertisements in the recent past that have left me unsettled and disgruntled.

Thums up:

Sticking true to their image of making ridiculous over-the-top ads, Thums Up doesn’t offer anything new in this particular TVC. My hopes for this brand were lowered beyond belief during the ‘Don’t be a Bandar, taste the Thunder’ campaign. That being said, I really have no expectations from this brand nor do I hold any grudges. But I absolutely love the product. Thums Up has to be the best soft drink ever!

So it saddens me a little when they make such ads.

Arbaaz Khan as the driver of the truck was irritating, but what ticked me off especially, was the treatment meted out to the general public! The scene where Salman gives a ‘Lift’ to the Thums Up van is so very depressing. When there is a traffic jam with so many people stuck on the road, isn’t it unfair to ‘Lift’ the whole truck and transport it, so that only Salman and his entourage can have a refreshing drink? What about the common man stuck in the traffic jam and sweating it out?
Very depressing.

2. Sony Experia Z:

So have you seen this teaser where Katrina Kaif talks about Sony releasing a new smartphone on March 12^th?

“Meet the phone you have never imagined” is what she says, while giving sneak previews of another generic looking smartphone.

Thanks Katrina. I would’ve preferred to have just imagined it though.

Maybe then, I’d have followed it up, curious to see the phone I could never imagine. What i’m trying to say is that, it would’ve done Sony a world of good if they hadn’t shown glimpses of the new phone.
But alas! Sony has many things to learn to successfully execute a buzz campaign.

3. Cinthol Deodorant:

This whole ad can be quite irritating, if overplayed, however I thoroughly enjoy the background score every time it’s on!

The highlight disappointment for me was ‘Alive is aww-saaam’ with that typical drawl. It’s not just the accent that perturbs me, but also the message, assuming there is one! Alive is awesome, go figure.
Very, very cringe-worthy.

4. Pepsodent Pro Sensitive:

Please accept my apologies as I’m unable to find a link for this Ad, in Hindi, so we will have to make do with Tamil.

Having watched innumerable dental care ads since childhood, I really didn’t pay much attention to this one the first time I saw it. Same old style of showing graphics of a tooth being attacked by germs with the same old toothpaste coming to the tooth’s rescue. However, all the old ads had a separate cut-scene where they would show a professional in a lab/clinic, who would further explain about the product features and benefits.

Not in this one.
“Meera, Lab.” He says! And poof she’s an expert!!

I can’t even begin to explain how silly that looks. So I won’t.

Proactive Mentorship in Management Education

Posted on March 18, 2013 by AbhishekAG

The art of mentorship is yet to be fully tapped into and explored by the present system of management education in India. Post-Graduate programs are the penultimate stepping stones for students entering the ever evolving corporate world. The importance of mentoring at this crucial stage has been downplayed, if not ignored, by the system at large.

After 15+ years of formal education, students are thrown into the workspace to explore and fight their way towards a successful career. At this juncture it becomes imperative to have some sort of guidance from experienced seniors.

Management programs today focus on most aspects of holistic development for students, but proactive mentorship seems to be missing.

What is proactive mentorship?

I consider proactive mentorship as the style of mentoring, wherein the mentor constantly tries to engage the mentees into communicating their goals and desires, to subsequently provide meaningful advice aimed at helping the mentee.

The keywords being: Constantly, Engage and Communication.

As someone who has not yet completed 1 full year of working, I believe I’m still a student at heart. With this knowledge I understand that students as a group are quite a tricky bunch of people. The general method of imparting knowledge (Read: Lecture based classroom learning culminating in a 3 hour exam) has sensitized students and each and every student develops a unique coping mechanism. Some may use cellphones during the class, some might doodle out their elaborate fantasies and some just wait to enjoy their class-nap. The point I’m trying to make is that students can’t be force-fed information. It’s futile to assume that when students reach the level of post graduation they will suddenly change their behavior.

Keeping this in mind, it is of utmost importance for the mentor to constantly try and guide the students. Most mentors have an understanding that students will approach them during crisis’ (Placements, choosing specialization, Internship, etc) and they will help them then. However, this approach is not fail-proof. Some students might not approach anyone just because they have not been doing it since the start.

To avoid this conundrum, a proactive mentor will constantly speak and guide the students from the start. It should be communicated to the students that the mentor is always available and can be reached through email, facebook, sms etc at any time. In an era where boundaries are irrelevant due to the social media boom, mentors must exploit this opportunity to be present for their mentees whenever required.

Another important quality of a proactive mentor is his/her ability to engage with the students. Since their schooling days, students in India are expected to respect their teachers/elders and maintain discipline in their presence. When working in a company, this behavior is translated to include the manager/boss. So, a level of apprehension will always be present with students while interacting with mentors. A proactive mentor has to understand this and constantly engage his students. He can do so with funny stories, incredible insights, personal experience and almost anything which will put the students at ease and make the mentor more approachable.

Finally, a proactive mentor has to learn to effectively communicate with his students. Unless he/she can do this, students will not be able to express their goals/desires clearly enough to enable guiding them. Effective communication is more difficult than it may sound. As most students and mentors have completely different fields of experiences’, the onus is on the mentor to understand what exactly the student is trying to communicate.

Having listed out the prerequisites of proactive mentorship; let me now dwell on some of the benefits:

Students will develop a fair idea of mapping their interests/skills to industry/profile they could start their career with.
Students will be better prepared to deal with the corporate lifestyle and the level of commitment and accountability required.
Proactive mentorship will create an environment of knowledge sharing in the campus.
Attrition rate of companies would come down as students are bound to take better informed decisions.

A typical day in the life of a Data Analyst

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Subhashini

One of the common thoughts in the mind of the new MBA is – how will my typical work day span out ? What will I be doing for 8 hours a day , 40 hours a week if I were to make a career in Analytics?

Analytics is a relatively ‘young’ area of work. It has evolved and expanded 100 fold in the last 10 years as more and more companies and their top managements have become convinced about the immense value it adds to decision making. In this increasingly complex marketplace, where net and mobile technologies are adding into the conventional brick and mortar economy, and the life of data is becoming short (ie, data which is very old is not usable), analytics is becoming increasingly useful and moving from the fringes towards the mainstream w.r.t business decisions. This, of course, spells increased requirement for analytics talent. It also increases the responsibility of success and failure to correct and timely decisions made using analytics. In short, the analyst (used loosely to define the analytics fraternity) has many choices in the workplace and can decide which role to play in his career.

Broadly the roles can be segregated into:

Individual Contributor – Subject matter expert (IC -SME) role
Team Manager role

Individual Contributor – Subject matter expert (IC -SME) role :- As the name signifies, an Individual contributor works by himself and may not have a team reporting into him . He would typically be an expert on a particular subject/s or line of work (eg. web analytics and using it for marketing campaigns, modelling for Loss given default etc.). He may also be a specialist in some software – hadoop / SAS e- Miner etc. He would work on projects across teams in an advisory role and would interact with the client as and when required. Exploring paths to improve a project would form a large part of his job . He will have to keep abreast with happenings in his area of specialisation in his industry as well as in other related industries. A keen brain, exploratory nature and love of his work would be the hallmarks of an SME IC.
Team Manager role :- A team manager would be spending equal parts of his day between client management, team handling and other organisational duties (budgeting, planning, recruitment, training etc.). His knowledge of analytics would be sound peppered with practical ways to execute projects, optimise outputs and ensure client satisfaction with the given resource constraints. A typical ‘manager’, he will be juggling multiple deliverables and playing different roles in the day. A person in this role can rise up to become the CEO, COO etc. of an Analytics firm. He also have scope to move into consulting and have a practical idea of implementing the analytics output. The higher he rises, the less of hands-on analytics comes his way. His goals would include business acquisition targets. These roles are more plentiful than the IC- SME role discussed above.

Thus , as many pure BPOs move into analytics and become KPOs , the requirement for analytics talent will increase. In my view, analytics is a skill and people with any background, with a head for numbers and a conviction in the power of decision making by numbers, will find this to be a field after their own heart . It covers nearly all streams of work within an organisation – HR, Operations, Marketing, Sales, IT , Supply chain management, Logistics– and hence, the choice of the team that you decide to join for analytics can be aligned to your area of interest of specialisations and study.

For a discussion on careers in Analytics you can contact me at 9731107798, subhashinitripathi@yahoo.com.

(Link to LinkedIn profile – http://in.linkedin.com/pub/subhashini-s-tripathi/3/405/77b )

My condolences to the Ladies…Again.

Posted on December 19, 2012 by AbhishekAG

Delhi.

The country’s capital, known for its rich history and heritage, is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. For the benefit of those who have not yet heard or read about this latest phenomenon, amplified thanks to the power of social media, here is a brief summary of events.

A medical student in her twenties, who was traveling with her male friend in a bus from Munirka to Uttam Nagar area in west Delhi, was gang-raped by a group of men inside the moving bus and thrown off the vehicle near Mahipalpur in south Delhi on the night of 16^th December 2012. I do not wish to dwell on the specifics of the incident or the police investigation thereafter, for the plain reason that you can read it elsewhere. In a country where sensationalism is the bread and butter, so to speak, of the big-wig media houses; it’s not hard to find gory details about this incident. What I find interesting, is the nation’s response to this shameful act. The whole country is up in arms, while calls for protests are flooding websites like Facebook and Twitter.

It does seem like we have had enough.

The amount of dissent has reached such proportions, that our politicians are now compelled to talk about the situation. Now that’s quite an achievement for our society as a whole. The Chief Minister, Home Minister and Police Commissioner to name a few, have faced full-fledged criticism and are now under the gun to initiate some sort of change. In a span of 3 days, since when the incident was reported, the amount of activity on social media websites related to this incident has garnered such tremendous response, that it can’t be ignored any further.

What strikes me as particularly disturbing; is the new-found zeal to debate regarding the best form of punishment for the accused.

Hang them? Parade them in public? Let the victim shoot them? Castrate them? These are some of the suggestions and ideas that I came across, while people were discussing vehemently.

Why is the ‘aam aadmi’ entertaining such macabre thoughts?
The present laws are not harsh enough of course! How can we deter rapists and eve-teasers if our laws are not a reflection of the severity of the crime?

So are we implying that, equating rape with murder will ensure more women do not get raped? Is it a fool-proof method of saving our women-folk? Will fear of prosecution/conviction actually decrease the frequency of these incidents? It seems more like wishful thinking coupled with old-school barbarianism if you ask me.

In a land where the female form has always led a life of duality, one of the pious mother/wife and the other of the evil witch/vixen, it is but evident that the problem is not with the law.
The problem lies way deeper, within the labyrinth of the male psyche. Conflicting ideologies would be my best guess for this sort of sociopathic behaviour. Conflict caused by an existing image of a ‘Mother figure’ who embodies love, trust and purity as opposed to the ‘Modern Temptress’ who is attributed as western above everything. Torn between these images we are witnessing the coming of age of a new breed of men, who are confused and insecure about their feelings towards the fairer sex and thus develop these twisted notions on how to deal with them.

But of course, I’m not a psychologist. And I do not intend to provide a profile of the ‘Indian rape victim’ or the ‘Indian Rapist’.

The one point I’m trying very hard to make is that, people are misguided. Our fears and feelings of angst are misguided.
Sitting on a desk and planning a protest on Facebook for the cruelty faced by women in our country is a fabulous idea. I wish you all good luck with your protests and calls for change.
However, I would not count on them to actually make a change.

On behalf of our society, I offer my condolences to the ladies. Again.

Is Analytics the right career for you ? 5 points that will help you decide

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Subhashini

[This is second in a series of articles on business analytics. You can read the first one about What is Analytics?]

So you want to work with an IBM, HP, Accenture, Genpact etc. in the latest field of ‘Analytics’ or ‘Data Science’ and you want to be absolutely sure if this is the career for you ? Check out these 5 questions that you should answer to make this decision .( If you have a YES for 3 out of these 5 questions and an OK for 2, then Analytics is a viable the career option for you .)

Do you believe that data should be the basis of all decisions? :- Take up Analytics only if your answer to this questions is an unequivocal YES . Analytics is the process of using and analysing large quantum of data (numbers, text, images etc.) to aggregate it , visualise / create dashboards on it , check repetitive trends and create models on which decision scan be made . And only people who innately believe in the power of data will excel in this field. Incase some prediction / analysis is wrong , the attitude of a good analyst is that it is because the data was not appropriate for that analysis or the technique used was incorrect . He/ she will never doubt that a correct decision will be made if the relevant data and appropriate technique is used.
Do you like to constantly learn new stuff? Take up Analytics only if your answer to this questions is an unequivocal YES .Analytics is a new field . There is a constant increase in the avenues of data , currently w.r.t internet data , social networking information, mobile transaction data , near field communication devices . And there is a constant change in technology to store, process and analyse this data . Hadoop, Google updates etc. have become increasingly important. Cloud computing and data management is common now. Economic cycles have shortened and model building has become more frequent as older models get redundant. Eleven the humble excel has an Analysis Toolpak in Excel 2010 which has statistical functions. Be ready for change .
Do you like to interpret outcomes and then track it to see if your recommendations were right? :- Take up Analytics only if your answer to this questions is an unequivocal YES .A data analyst will work on a project . The implementation of the recommendations will generally be valid for a reasonably long period of time of perhaps a year or even 3-5 years. A good analyst should be interested to know how accurate has been his understanding of the outcomes and should want to track the performance periodically. HE/she should ideally also be the first person to be able to say when the analysis is not working and needs to be re-worked.
Are you ready to go back to a text book and brush up / pick up concepts of maths and statistics ? :- Take up Analytics only if your answer to this questions is an unequivocal YES . To accurately handle data and interpret results you will need to learn / brush up concepts of maths and statistics. It becomes very important to justify why you choose a particular path during analysis vs. others. The business users do not accept your word blindly.
Do you like debating and logical thinking?:- Take up Analytics only if your answer to this questions is an unequivocal YES . As there is no one solution to all problems, an analyst has to choose the best way to handle the project / problem in hand. He has to be able to not only know the best way to analyse the data but also give the best way in the given time constraints and budget constraints. This sector generally has a very open culture where the analyst working on a project / problem will be required to give his inputs irrespective of his position in the hierarchy.

Do check your answers to the questions above . If you have a YES for 3 out of these 5 questions and an OK for 2, then Analytics is a viable the career option for you . Welcome to the world of Analytics !!

[Hi this is Shubhashini. I hope this has provided you some clarity on Analytics. Please feel free to contact me for any query or discussion at subhashinitripathi@yahoo.com , 9731107798.]

In my next articles I will cover:-

How to get into Analytics
Analytics as a career option for women
The career paths in Analytics
Salaries in Analytics

What is Analytics? What does a Data Analyst do?

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Subhashini

A large number of students / young professionals ask me this.

Especially when they see the articles from Mckinsey stating Analytics is the next big thing in business and that there is a substantial shortage of manpower. (www.mckinsey.com/~/…/McKinsey/…/MGI_big_data_full_report.ash )

Or when Harvard Business School takes out an article saying ,” Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century” (http://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century/ar/1)

Analytics is simply the use of numbers to decide on business problems / situations.Thus, in a world where there are huge ERP systems, Internet information, Mobile apps etc. there is a large volume of data that is created and stored by an organisation . The old way of work was – if you need to make a decision, call the person who has experience in that area and take his advice. Was it the best way? Perhaps not, because human beings develop biases basis the atmosphere / situations / education they have been subject to. Also, it has been found that though a human being can effectively judge the effect of one factor on an outcome, he /she finds it difficult when the number of factors are many and the data is huge. Better decisions are made with the use of statistical techniques which allow us to work on the data and come to a conclusion.

The next question often is – So what is the type of ‘use of numbers’ that we are talking about? Will I have to sit and do maths again?

The last decade has seen the advent of SaaS (Software as a service) in all walks of Information gathering and manipulation . Thus, Analytics systems now are button driven systems which do the calculations and throw up the results . An Analyst or Data Scientist has to look at these results and conclude / make recommendations for the business to implement. For example, an ICICI bank wants to sell loans in the market. It has data of all customers who have taken loans from it over the last 20 years . The portfolio is of , say , 1 crore loans . It now wants to understand which customers should it give a pre-approved loan offer.

The simplest answer may be – all the customers who paid up on time every time in the earlier loans. Let us call this set of customers Segment A .But on analysis you may find that customers who defaulted but paid up after default actually made more money for the bank because they paid Interest + Late payment charges. Let us call this set Segment B .

Hence, you can now say that you want to send out the offer to Customer A + B.

However, within Segment B there was a set of customers who you had to send Collections teams to their house to collect the money. So they paid Interest + Late payment charges- Collection cost . This set is Segment C.

So you may then decide to target Customers A+B –C.

You could do this exercise using Decision Tree software which cut your data into segments for you.

The last question that we will tackle in this article is – What does the work day of an Analytics professional look like ?

A typical work day may look like the following :-

He will walk into the office and be told about the problem that the business needs his inputs on
He will determine which is the best way to solve the problem
He will then gather the relevant data from the large datasets stored in the server
Next, he will import the data into the analytics system
He will run the technique thru the software (SAS, SPSS, XLSTAT etc.)
The software will produce the relevant output
He will study the output and prepare a report with his recommendations
This will be discussed with the business

The companies which recruit large teams in Analytics include TCS, Accenture (Mumbai), McKinsey Knowledge Centre (Gurgaon) , Genpact (Bangalore and Gurgaon) , Novartis (Hyderabad) , Dell (Bangalore), Capital One (Bangalore ), Capgemini (Mumbai) etc. It is expected that there will be a shortage of Analytics resources in the world (and India) in the next decade.

You can read the next article in this series Is Analytics the right career choice for you?

[Hi this is Shubhashini. I hope this has provided you some clarity on Analytics. Please feel free to contact me for any query or discussion at subhashinitripathi@yahoo.com , 9731107798.]

Next, I will cover,

How to get into Analytics
Analytics as a career option for women

We’re serving Barfi! at the Oscars

Posted on October 1, 2012 by AbhishekAG

Anurag Basu’s Barfi! got the nod to be India’s official entry in this year’s 85^thAnnual Academy Awards. The Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz starrer has garnered rave reviews across the country and seems poised to be remembered for years to come. Barfi! Seamlessly brings together heart-wrenching performances by the actors, while set in the breathtaking backdrops of Darjeeling and supported by an elegant yet powerful storyline.

After the initial aplomb, the movie was talked about in all forms of media- including the ever-growing social networks. However once the news of Barfi! going to the Oscars was confirmed, it has been receiving a lot of flak for being ‘unoriginal’ even to the point of calling some sequences plagiarized. Videos comparing sequences of Barfi! to some scenes from Charlie Chaplin movies, as well as other lesser known international movies have started surfacing. These videos have gone viral and a raging debate has ensued regarding the choice of the movie as India’s Oscar nomination.

Well as I have an aversion towards raging debates, let us try nipping this in the bud right here:

Why Barfi?! : Well this is simple enough isn’t it? If public opinion and box office numbers don’t speak volumes, then we have enough critics to back this movie as one of the best ones this year.

How Barfi?! : As per the Oscars committee rules, the 11-member jury comprising of people associated with films, like directors, technicians etc., watch 20 Indian films in different languages. Barfi! didn’t get all 11 votes, but it was chosen by the majority. It was subsequently learnt that Kahaani, Heroine and Gangs Of Wasseypur were other contenders from the Hindi section of movies. Yes, I was equally surprised to see Heroine in that list!

Who before Barfi?! : It’s interesting to note that of the last 45 movies which were sent to the Oscars by India, only 3 managed to get nominated for the Academy Award Best foreign language film category. Lagaan being the latest after Mother India and Salaam Bombay!

The Academy Award is an award bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors and writers.

Yes, it’s American. So why are we lining up our movies, short-listing them and picking a winner to send to the Oscars? The media of course! For the coveted Best Foreign Language Film award as well as a chance to showcase our movie industry along with the rest of the world.

Why not Barfi?! : In one word? Unoriginal. Not a unique work of art.

Well this seems like a weak reason to slam this movie. Though there are striking similarities in Ranbir’s demeanor in some of the action sequences to that of Charlie Chaplin’s, it’s a far cry from being copied. It is evident that Barfi! is inspired by some of Charlie Chaplin’s works, but that’s all there is to it. Anurag Basu’s masterpiece can’t be tainted by offering minutes of video footage from older movies wherein some scenes may look similar!

Barfi! & Controversy: How can we send a plagiarized movie to the Oscars?!

Well you didn’t seem to notice that the first time you saw the movie did you?

Only after talks about Barfi! being unoriginal started appearing online along with the viral video comparing scenes from the movie, did people start discussing heavily regarding this subject. Every movie can seem like it’s been plagiarized if you spend enough time researching it! The bottom line is that for a movie, which breaks the traditional song and dance routines of Hindi movies and attempts to tell a tale in a different way, Barfi! deserves way more credit than what has been given to it.

As the process of selecting a movie and sending it to the Academy is based on a vote (Just like our esteemed and beloved political system), the results are never quite satisfactory.

That should not be a major concern. The industry maturing to a point where we get to see movies such as Barfi! is reason enough for celebrations!

Personally I’d have preferred to see Gangs of Wasseypur 1 & 2 sent as a package deal to shock and awe the Academy, but that’s just me.

Global Consumer Confidence INDEX

Posted on September 5, 2012 by IBSAdministrator

Global consumer confidence dipped in the second quarter from the previous three months, according to a published survey which also showed that Indonesians have overtaken Indians as the most upbeat consumers.

Consumer confidence fell across major emerging economies China, India and Brazil in the second quarter, according to the survey by global information.

A worsening Euro Zone Crisis, sluggish U.S. jobs growth and slowing growth in China and India combined to dent consumer confidence globally in the 2nd Quarter 2012 with concern over the economic outlook and job security the biggest concerns.

53% of Global respondents were optimistic about their personal finances, but that was down 2 Percentage Points from the first quarter. Asia-Pacific respondents reported the biggest decline in favorable financial perceptions, declining four points to 59%.

The Global Consumer Confidence Index dipped 3 points in the 2nd Quarter to close at 91. A reading below 100 signals consumer is pessimistic about the overall outlook.

There was however no increase in the number of consumers who said they were in recession, which stayed at 57%.

“Things are not necessarily getting worse for the average consumer, they just aren’t getting better. That number, however, could change depending particularly on how the situation in Europe evolves,” said Venkatesh Bala, Chief Economist at The Cambridge Group.

The survey was conducted between May 4th and 21st (2012) and covered more than 28,000 consumers polled on the Internet across 56 Global Markets.

U.S. Consumer Confidence fell by 5 points to 87 in the 2nd Quarter 2012, one of the biggest decreases globally.

INDONESIA RACES AHEAD
Indonesia’s shift to top spot in the survey was a further sign that the country, with its big domestic economy and an expanding middle class, is weathering the global slowdown better than some other emerging markets.

“In Indonesia, consumer optimism has been evident all year fuelled by investment rating upgrades from Moody’s and Fitch,” said Catherine Eddy, Managing Director, Publishing House, Indonesia.

“The market is very buoyant among consumers and investors right now and with a population of 240 million, Indonesia is possibly the next big bastion after China and India.”

In Egypt, which elected a new president last month in its first free elections, consumer sentiment leapt 6 points, pushing Egyptians into the top 10 most optimistic consumers globally.

Hungarians, beset by a weakening economy and uncertainty about whether the government will secure an IMF aid deal, remained the most pessimistic consumers for a fourth straight quarter, their score dipping from the first quarter.

Confidence in Italy, which has been forced to announce new austerity measures to tackle its high debt, also dipped and was the third-lowest globally.

Euro zone peers France and Greece, which both held elections in the 2nd Quarter, saw big rises in consumer confidence but both still ranked in the bottom 10 globally, as did Spain and Portugal. Japan and South Korea have also seen persistently weak confidence in recent quarters and stayed in the bottom 10 rankings.

Global Consumer Confidence Index in the 2nd Quarter, 2012 (Change from Q1, 2012 survey in brackets):

Global Consumer Confidence Average : 91 (-3)

United States : 87 (-5)
Germany : 88 (-2)
United Kingdom : 75 (-2)

By Manas Patra, IBS Bangalore (Class of 2000). Manas is based in Shanghai, China. You can reach out to him at pmanas1@rediffmail.com

Independence Day #66- Start your fight

Posted on August 14, 2012 by AbhishekAG

So year after year the whole nation gets together to commemorate India’s independence from the British rule and its birth as a sovereign nation. The beloved tricoloured flag adorns every nook and corner of the country. As a community that loves to celebrate, we take full advantage of this national holiday as well. I can already foresee a barrage of sms’ and every social networking site flooded with patriotic messages. From songs about our country’s greatness to movies portraying the heroics of our soldiers, Independence Day truly captures the whole country’s imagination.

For one day.

Even though this is the 66^th time we are celebrating our independence, we seem as confused about it as the first time. We embrace the diversity that exists amongst us, while glorifying everything Indian and basking in our pride of being part of such a great nation. We forward messages and wish each other a ‘Happy Independence Day’ while remembering our past struggles and how we overcame them.

But, the very next day we go back to living our lives.

Freedom is an elusive term:

The state of being free or at liberty rather than inconfinement or under physical restraint.
Exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
The power to determine action without restraint.
Political or national independence.
Personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery.

Of course we are celebrating political and national independence, but are the other interpretations of freedom impossible for us to achieve?

How free are we?

Are we really exempted from external control, interference, regulation?

Can we actually determine actions without restraint?

Finally, is every individual of our country liberated from bondage or slavery?

I don’t think so.

I don’t have a solution, or a practical approach to deal with any of these issues (if we can call them that).

However I do believe that on this day, when we remember history and all that our forefathers stood for, we should realize that some things are worth fighting for. And fight we must.

Let this day be a reminder to constantly struggle against any form of oppression. Our freedom struggle was characterized by the absence of violence and that is a great distinction to have, but it’s imperative that we embody the soul of freedom and fight for our rights. I do not want to highlight a particular cause that needs attention and help. I implore you to look around and inwards and find that cause.

And start your fight.

IBS India Blog

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