The Buy Sell game

Each time you buy something, you sell something too. I buy a new shirt. I sell my money. Shopkeeper wants money more than shirt. I want shirt more than money. Exchange happens. Both of us are better off than before.

This transaction would be a wee bit unfair if either of us did not know what exactly we are giving......the challange of the other side of course is to underplay what it is getting and hype what it is giving....its a classic game of persuasion......its a game being played with you and me all the time....and even when the domain becomes intangibles, the buy-sell game continues....

Think about it - this post comes with its own agenda to pursuade....to put some of the views I acquired across to you.... if you buy into what I say you might change a few behaviours (which is what I might want you to do....) the game is on all the time......

So one of these many evenings when I was dwelling on the perrinieal question of how much money is enough money, I realised something.....

I realised that I was constantly transacting with popular culture.....and each time I bought into the culture, I had to pay....pay with my money and thus, my labour and freedom.....

I am happy with my 300 rupee jeans I bought at Indraprasth Shopping Center, Borivali Station (West). I see a hoarding...a sexy one... of levis jeans......I dont know what it is about but it is stark....stands out.....I see a few ads on TV......I see a few friends wearing Levis..... I finally decide to go and get my first pair of new and sexy, longer lasting and more comfortable Levis Jeans - 1600 bux.....the price increase somehow doesnt justify the increased utility phyiscally.... a lot of it has now become psychological.......

All this while levis has been pursuading me that its jeans is sexy....paying people to do that....paying channels to carry this message...paying MBAs to execute all of this........

The moment I buy into this idea, I have paid some money of my own.....and to pay money you need to have money....you need to earn it......

So I think back ..... the cost of buying in (not into a single brand of jeans but a whole pile of pop culture brands, ideas and products) is a lot of money that I will need.....and I will HAVE to earn that money......and to earn that money I will need a job that pays as much.....

So suddenly the focus shifts to finding a job that can pay my 'other party' - the ever growing so powerful popular culture.....and the cost of the buy in into that culture starts blurring other factors......and I try to pick a profession that gives me the huge ransom I need to pay popular culture to sustain it....to stay 'bought into' it......

(And in all probablity my job is in someway going to be to make someone else consume more.....PERSUADE someone else to buy into the popular culture.....force seemingly irrational collective agreements on whats 'cool' and whats 'hot')

Of course the excahnge is a valid one....just that the cause has shifted so distant from the effect taht I dont realise that the price of a shopping spree at Westside could be having to take up a certain job just because it pays more......

So I am not saying consumption is wrong.....nor am I saying that this culture is bad or anything....all I vouch for is a sense of awareness....an awareness that buying into popular culture has a price to pay......not directly translatable but the choice of having an I Pod or a Nariman Point flat is traded off ... .you buy it by giving away choices of free weekends or doing something you love.....

With that awareness is born a choice....a choice to not buy in for a change....as someone trying to take that choice I wanna share my experience briefly.....on one end it means that when your batch meets up and people are out with their 6600s, Blackberries and communicators, you need to confidently remove your 1100 knowing that it can make the same phone call.......it means that the label above your ass wont read "Scullers" and nor will your cuff have the arrow.....

And yet on the face of it, it may seem that, but at the back end you've saved up all that you'd have traded....... choices....... freedom to be.....to be satisfied with what you have (and still of course want more).......time......intangibles.........

Let that exchange be a concious one.....and if you can, once in a while walk up and face that culture. When it asks you to trade and you dont want to, just show it the middle finger and walk away. Its a hell of a lot of fun!

(cc) Abhishek Thakore

P.S : As an afterthought I want to touch on the popular culture at IIM B and how it makes you buy into ideas that some types of jobs are perfect for some type of people (sterotypes), some jobs are the best to have and some things are just not done........ going for an I banking job just becuase you have a high CG is like buying something just because you have the money to spend....... try not trade and see what happens....... i'll wait to hear your story.

The need for "rightness"

I think I am born into a world where there is very little space for the wrong.........and a world where rules are more important than reality....

I was watching Nach Baliye.......a couple that could have potentially won the show lost......too bad for them......and as you'd expect any winner to do, they were bravely smiling

I just fail to understand why do we have to mask our emotions.....they felt like losers and I'm sure they'd want to wail and scream and curse their luck and the judges and everything......but all they did was smile and say feel good stuff.................

WHY????

Coz there was really no space ..... no space for the wrong.......

Its crazy because so often we make the rule more important than the reality.....

A rule may be that I cant get attracted to any relative - its incest......the bad words I learnt as a youngster were all about incest - abuses on ma and behen......

And yet the reality may be that I feel very attracted to some relative.......and thats very wrong as per the social rule........

Of course the rule has been in existence for its own reasons but I think its high time we gave importance to the reality and not the rule....when will we have a miss universe who comes and proclaims "I care 2 hoots about those dying children and I dont wanna spend my year caring for them coz I dont feel so.....I love my beauty and I want to be rich famous and beautiful......" The last brutually honest miss universe probably existed before the competition ever commenced :)

In one on one interactions too, there is missing space.....the temptation to agree, to align is so much there.....tolerance for discord is very very low.....rule is you dont fight....reality is you want to.....the rule wins......

I live in a world where its not important what we as people feel - homosexuality....euthneisia.....incest.....drugs.....meaninglessness of religion....

what is more important is whats right and wrong.....

Its about the "Right" all the time......

Like this post may set you thinking is reality.......and yet the final victory shall belong to the rule - the rule that such things are best left stuffed in some corner of the brain......

A simple approach to bargaining

Negotiation and bargaining have always been topics of interest......communication.....influence.....persuasion.....all of that......

Learnt this interesting lesson from the most unexpected source.....

It was a jerky cycle ricshaw ride to the Taj from Agra Cantonment Station.....Om Sharma was peddling Abhishek Thakore......merrily chatting away....

Bargaining is very simple.....when you see anything, before entering into the shop or talking to the seller just make a mental note of how much is it worth to you.....

With your internal benchmark firmly said, it is impactful when you say it too (i discovered that in retrospect)

and then if the seller does not agree to the price, simply walk away....(coz u dont want it at a higher price)....

Extremely simple I'd say....having an internal benchmark also gives you a sense of detachment to the bargain....you can walk away whenever you want to......thats' the kewl thing :)

Interesting how a complex life can be broken down into pieces and be negotiated with just one compass....the compass of common sense :)))

The value of liberty

Its those moments when you least expect it that truth uncannily creeps from somewhere and suddenly hits you........and then becomes integrated....becomes a part of you......

Its this breezy afternoon at Marine Drive....the cloud cover dilutes its effect almost making it eveninglike....

Prerna, Sharnya and I ..... we're sitting on the parapet having one of those fun conversations..... I catch a sudden glimpse of a pair of hollow eyes......dragging her feet, its a little kid who comes to beg....and another one following it....two tiny gals....flashing that look they know will work on a senti cash rich mba like me..... :)

I ask Prerna to shoo the them in her own style.....watching to find out how she does it......and she got into this cute thing with the girls....

The girls very soon figured that we aren't gonna pay a penny....reading body language and non verbal cues comes as well to corporate trainers like me as it does to those girls....survival skills those.....

So this girl points at some trinket hanging on Prerna's bag.....one of those million things a college girl manages to hang on her shoulder bag.....she wants it.....she now flashes the cute girl smile....

I look into her eyes and tell her...."Iske badle mein tum didi ko kya do-ge?" (what will you give me in return)

I get a few moments of a confused stare from the little girl as well as Sharanya and Prerna.....

I suddenly spot bangles in the little girl's hands.....

I say - "Is mein se 2 bangles do aur yeh le lo" (gimme 2 bangles and take this trinket)

Unexpected, the girl, without even saying "DEAL" accepts it.....

I feel I've been taken for a ride so like a smart customer i say "Both bangles of the same colour"

She struggles to remove the first bangle.....and breaks it in the process

"Tuta hua nai chalega" I say, really into this trading with the beggar thing.........

She looks at me sweetly...Prerna helps her pull the bangle out.....the second one....

Meanwhile the second girl is shying away with her piece of the trinket....I call her back - she has metal bangles....I ask her for it...one of them....and she willingly gives....

So here I am with two tiny bangles in my hand - neither of which I can wear (or have any intentions of wearing).....

The girls are walking away....

Truth hits suddenly...uncannily....when I least expect it....

Its the first time those girls have TRADED, not begged......

They feel equal.....they dont have to feel below me to get what they want......the spontenous jump on the deal.....EXCHANGE.......

Yes I respected the begging girls.... I did not belittle them by my charity.....instead I acknowledged their self esteem by engaging them in trade.....

They were happy with the trinkets......I was happy with two bangles and a story.....Prerna promptly claimed the bangles....sharanya flashed her saintly smile......

As I looked at the girls they looked back it me surprised.....by my simple act of exchange I had liberated them, even if for a moment, from the status they lived with to survive...... a little part of the beggar had died.....a trader was perhaps born.....


Abhishek Thakore

P.S : What would happen if, for example we would train all the beggars in Mumbai to be entertainers - with various instruments and singing....suddenly train travel would not be a nuisence with some great live music playing....I'd not mind paying for it and many others too.....we would have transmuted another nuicense....