Reasons to shop

Brainstorming for ideas for a multibrand retail outlet, we were thinking of the reasons to shop. We sat aroud the table, 5 of us and came up with the following:

Reason 1: You have a birthday coming up.

Reason 2: You have a wedding coming up.

Reason 3: You have a house warming.

Reason 4: Your boss is throwing a party.

Reason: 5:You are meeting old friends.

Reason 6: You have an official trip.

Reason 7: You are going on a holiday.

Reason 8: Your neighbour recently went shopping.

Reason 9: You saw something on the shop window.

At this point, our lunchtime friend, Maria from the finance department, walks in. It is almost lunchtime. She smiles pleasantly and said, "Hey, I I won't be able to join you for lunch today".

"Why?", we chorus.

" I have to go shopping with my mum"

"Oh!Anything special?", ask I.

"Nothing much. You see the funeral of uncle John is on Friday and both of us don't have something proper to wear."

Seeing our bewildered looks, she added," ....you see... in shades of cream or peach....as is custom." 

Reason 10: You have a funeral coming up.

The doorbell

Ding dong, went the door bell.

I opened the door thinking who might be the unknown guest for lunch. No one.

I close door.

Ding dong.

This time I opened quickly. Still no one. But I heard scuffle of feet up the stairs. I walk to the stairs and look up the well. Two heads bob on 10th and 11th floors.

Ah the neighbourhood kids, regular brats. But I had a smile on lips. These carefree days. How I miss them. Anyway, I glance up again and see one head peeping down from the 14th floor.

I keep the door open. After a while I hear steps coming down. I appear at dooway. The boys might have seen my feet. They scuffle up.

I call out, "Bunty, Come here".Bunty lives on 5th floor.

Silence.

I leave the doorway to attend to my cooking.

Two minutes later, I hear Aunty

A quartet stands there with the most innocent faces on.

They pipe up, " Aunty, we didn't do it. its the new boys Aman and Adhnan." We were just going up to babloos place on 14th floor"

It was nice of them to show up even if it was a lie

I kept a serios face although I wanted to hug these little liars.

"See, " said I," There might be really old people in some apartments. If you play with the bell, it is a great effort for some of them to get up and open the door. Dont do it again."

They nodded. The youngest most.

Off they trooped.

Bigest brand of the decade

 

Q. What is the biggest brand of the decade?

A. Covid 19

Why?

1. It is a perfect case study of strategic marketing.

2. World economy was in kind of a rut in latter half of the decade. 

3.Opportunity out of the blue - Covid 19

4. First come the viral videos from a iron curtain country. 

5. People start talking. People get inquisitive. Experts discuss. Time frames are propogated of infection on world media.

6. Manufacturing overhauls. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon. 

7. Antiviral clothes, antiviral food, anviral medicines, antiviral tableware, antiviral beds, antiviral rugs, antiviral anything but sense.

8. Vaccine run begins. Vaccine shortages occur. Brand skyrockets.

9. Version 2 of virus. Aaaah. 

10  Gets still better. Today papers hint about all mutants coming together supervariant.

11. Way to go covid 19

12. Meanwhile, people now take antiviral tours, take part in anti viral ceremonies, go about life and sagging economies start looking up.

Why Covid is good for kochi?

 Kochi, the beautiful city where I live has many unique features and attracts thousands for domestic and foreign tourists each year. However, with the advent of Covid 19, the scene has changed a bit. Ant the torism industry is hit.

But actually, Covid 19 hs been a blessing in disguise to many. Why? Well, it robs you of the sense to smell and that means that the stench from rotting overflown bins, smoke from burnt plastic waste, pollution from vehicles

(now with not so pure fuel- pure one is too precious), blocked canals with untreated waste DOESN'T BOTHER  anymore.

Isn't that a blessing?

Earthquake Earthquake

I get into these episodes of scientific exploration armchair style. And presently, my studies and research is gathered around earthquakes.

So, I delve through sites and books giving me some information of Mother Earth's  shudders and tremors. Interesting stuff. And being just like an armchair scientist, I yap about my discoveries to anyone whether they are interested or not.

So last Christmas holidays, when I went home, I started off to my dad. He braved for 15 minutes then finally asked me to listen for a change.

He was in Uzbekistan for a Indo soviet tech exchange programme. They were invited to a wedding. The Uzbeks are crazy about Hindi film music and happily the whole team and Uzbeks danced to the bollywood tunes. One wrong step and down went dad. he sprained his ankle.

The Russian interpreter cum guide took him a hospital and he was nicely bandaged and advised rest.So the team was trying to be as helpfu. Dad being lazy, acted much pain. Coffee, food and drinks were brought to bedside. What fun!

Two days later, he was being crooned on . all gang had surrounded him when it started. The table shook a little. the mug fell off. Pause. again it started to tremble. Someone yelled , it is a quake.

Dad was the first person out of the building. He literally flew over a buddy, ran down the steps and made to the clearing before anyone. Others followed, laughing. Some gave him friendly jabs calling him the lazy actor.

So, if an earthquake happens, all else doesn't matters. Find way to open space if you can in shortest time.

Importance of Red

Scene 1: Apartment Day celebrations. Couple of men are drunk till their noses are RED
Scene 2: The music is on but the songs aren't being started by the orchestra. RED with anger, one flings a spoon at the videographer.
Scene 3: The Secy. blushes RED and tries to remove fellow from scene.
Scene 4: Fellow's wife is now RED hot with temper
Scene 5: She troops off with friends. Fellow comes back and hits Secy whose nose bleeds RED.
Scene 6: Secy. shows RED signal causes prog to stop
Scene 7: Public is RED with anger, demands restart.
Scene 8: RED changes to green , prog restarts and ends with dance and fun.
Scene 9: Next day, many see the day as a RED letter day and demand resignations.
Scene 10: BotheRED, the pres. calls for an open forum.
Scene 10: Committee does a RED tape on the issue
Scene 11: Some stop paying dues. Their status underlined in RED
Scene 12: 6 months on, their facilities are withdrawn. RED with anger, they blockade gates and gherao
Scene 13: Case is filed and now to their chagrin, the finances regarding cases are in RED for all concerned.


Lesson: No wonder, Statutory warnings are in RED

Shh...Don't talk about it

It was bright day. There was a kitty party at a friend's. That meant"No Coooking". Yippee. The theme for the day was white. So I fished out a white salwar kameez from the big dump in the wardrobe and started brushing my hair. The TV was on and was enjoying the live telecast of Asian Games. Suddenly it struck. A shooting pain in the .....you know where. Again and again the spasms took the breath out of me. Though we all say the sentence each time someone is unpleasant, I knew for first time how bad it can get.

Tears rolled down without even crying. The pain was excruciating. I called my friends to let them know that I would not be able join them for the party. Immediately, they wanted to know the reason. Now how do you tell another person that you have a pain ....you know where. I said" tummyache". They said they are coming over to enquire. I could not stop them. So I gathered my courage to spell it out. They came with medicine, one of them being a doc's wife. I have pain around the openings , I said. Openings...what openings, the engineer's wife wanted to know. Thankfully the other understood. She was a Gastro's daughter too.

The pain was unbearable now. So I called hubby and he came over. My friends were there. I lost shame in pain. I burst out "My *&# is paining". Poor guy. He turned the deepest red. I could not stand straight. They helped me to the lift. On ground floor, the caretaker wanted to know what the problem was. Before I blurted out anything, poor hubby said "backache". At the hospital, the first attendant was a male. Hubby had gone to park the car. So this time over he was lucky not to hear it. They gave me an injection, ran me through tests including a scan and found nothing significant. But the pain killer helped. And I learnt the meaning of the oft used phrase.