Why consumers join SNS?

A essay I wrote at the university some months ago when I was in Australia for an assignment and had a perception of Social media based on its impact in India and Australia; but since have read articles like “Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media Marketing?” By Donna L. Hoffman and Marek Fodor and how it is being used in Europe and US as one of the largest and the most sought after space in the world of marketing today..

Europe

I went to Australia, they opened my bags, checked me twice, the immigration officer at least looked at me three times. I go back to India, my own country, hell even there the immigration looks at me as if he is convinced i am the most dangerous terrorist there is and asks the most ridiculous questions imaginable. Then i arrive in Europe. I land in Denmark, stand in line for immigration all prepared with at least 4-5 letters to show for everything, twisting my face as well as i can to resemble my passport photo taken 5 years back. When i reach the officer, i greet her with my best smile also making my best effort to sound most casual and relaxed as if i do this everyday. Boy was i in for a surprise. I am used to women giving me cold shoulder, ignoring me completely, sometimes even passing right through me without noticing. I am used to that. But here i was at the immigration desk hoping for some attention and was rejected outright. The women barely looked at me, did not look at my passport or VISA (which i by the way paid for), stamped the first page she could find and moved on to the next person so fast, it reminded me of almost all my previous girlfriends.

Welcome to Denmark! There is a theory about Danes. Denmark is a mostly a very flat country, with Copenhagen being best. Therefore the entire town instead of spending on cars, rides bikes (cycles for us Indians). So a country where whether its a mother taking her children to the supermarket or an investment banker going to work in his best suit, they all ride bikes. So a city where people get such good exercise at least twice a day are bound to be happy. This i found when applying for Danish VISA, CPR, University application, registration, courses, anything. Danes are so happy, doing things cant get any easier in any part of the world. Two weeks of touring CPH on my ladies bike and i regret not coming here earlier already.

About Living Abroad

I was speaking to this uncle of mine (not my real uncle, just someone i met) and i uncovered some interesting bit of trivia. "You belong with your own people". He, a really kind man, has been living in Australia for more than thirty years, has three kids; once ran a very successful Indian food business, one of the first in town; drives a RA4 and a merc. Loves the weather, the place and claims he is comfortably home. Has become old now, kids born in this country grew up to be more Australian than Indian. Once during our conversation i expressed my desire to go back home once i finish my course and he was amazed. Rightly so, because the India he had left was the one where anyone who got an opportunity, left to never come back. Though his argument to convince me to stay here was that caught my imagination. Uncle: Beta kya rakha India me beta.. Ghar ke bahar niklo, log goli mar dete hain (what is there in India son..you leave the house and people come and shoot you). I thought it was the Slumdog Millionaire effect maybe but then it was'n over. Uncle: wahan toh saaf paani bhi nahi aata, hospital nahi hain, doctor nahi hain, aadhe log toh bimaari se hi mar jaate hain (there is no clean drinking water, no doctor, half the people might be dying of disease). I could'n respond to this one too making him start to wonder if i was telling the trust about being from India. He went on saying - yahan dekho saaf hawa hai, kitna accha lagta hai (look here the air is so fresh and its so nice here). While i nodded my head to this, i had no idea what was coming. After 5 minutes Uncle - In goron ko dekho.. nikle hain party karne sab shaam hote hi.. zindagi toh inhi ki hai.. humare me toh kaam karte aur paise kamate hi zindagi guzar jaati hai.. (look its these white folks, how they come out every evening heading for some party. Only they have a life; we spend all of ours working hard and earning money) and this intrigued me. Why would he say that if he thinks he is an Australian after more than 30 years of staying here. Shouldn't he like all that.

Few more conversations and comments and i knew he wasn't an Australian. He just loved the weather, the beaches, the ever so favorable exchange rate, big house, cars and yet was unhappy. He complains a lot though that is expected at his age, i still wonder why. In marketing their is this concept Hofstead called Individualism/Collectivism. Which basically states the extent to which people in a culture look after their own interests and those of their family and where ties are loose. Simply put it means, that in any western culture, individualism is high while in Indian, collectivism. Uncle came here to make a fortune for himself and his family, he made it, brought them here, allowed his children to grow up in a western society and so could never go back. The vicious cycle of his family made him forget what he really wants from inside and its been so many years that he wont even recognize it. When his elder son refuses to marry and the youngest sits at home unemployed, living on unemployment pension, he blames this culture; blames god. His children are happy; while he is not. He wants nothing but to return home deep inside and yet he cant. He is afraid that it has changed a lot since he left it. It will not accept him anymore. So he disowns it believing its still as backward as it was when he left it. Telling himself that the reasons because of which he left still exist, more as an attempt to convince himself than anyone else. He is stuck in between now. Cant go home while it being the only thing he craves for.

I don't generalize that every Indian living abroad faces this. But we all leave our homes in search for something. We seek something and soon get consumed by the journey such, that in spite of reaching what we set out to achieve, we keep going. We try so hard to be home where we are that we become scared of going home. "A man travels around the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it" as was posted by one of my friends on Facebook recently. You belong among your people and this opinion is mine and only mine (in case anyone does not agree.

Final dialog:

Uncle: Aap shirdi gaye hain (have you been to Shirdi)

Me: Haan uncle, kai baar (Yes uncle many times)

Uncle: Hume dekho, tees saal se Sai baba ki bhakti kar rahe hain.. roz diya jalate hain (look at me; i have been his devotee for 30 years now)

Me: Thats very nice uncle

Uncle: Kehte hain Sai Baba jab shirdi bulate hain, tab hi unke darshan hote hain.. Hume tees saal ho gaye, abhi tak nahi bulaya.. batao (They say that you cannot visit shirdi till Sai baba himself calls you there.. i have been worshiping him for thirty years now, he still has'n called me)

Me (not out loud): Yes, mostly he sends a return ticket with an invitation letter. I think you should call and ask.

I did laugh on this one; Couldn't control while solemnly making the decision, i am going home mate, i don't belong here.

-MS

Its easy to make a relationship work

Its easy to make a relationship work.

For a guy - Girls are emotional, never play with her emotions; For a girl - Guys are egoistic, always pamper his ego. Follow this to the dot and you will spend your entire lives together. Although right now i may come across as a legless man trying to teach running, this is frightfully true when u test the hypothesis.

-MS

13-02-2010, German Bakery, Pune

Coming back from Soho’s or Kiva’s i would always slow down crossing the German Bakery because there would always be cops or ‘mamu’ as we so lovingly call them. Not one or two but many and your mouth stuffed with mint, your seat belt safely on, you would pray that they would’n stop you. Pune, my home where i have spent twelve years of my life, went to school, college, worked, got trained in drinking, played cricket, football, learned how to ride a bike, to drive a car, had my first crush, my first girlfriend, had my first accident, the list goes on. A city so obsessed with simplicity, with convenience, moving at a casual pace, it almost seems lazy. Almost like a younger brother of Mumbai which worked so hard for all it has while the younger one just borrowed all the style, the culture, the class, the food, the places but still retained its character, its pace. The city i so love; the city where i am still an outsider; a non maharashtrian.

A blast rips german bakery, the town’s favourite place to have breakfast, best place to sit and have a snack in the evening, a stone’s throw from Mochas, right at the entrance of KP. Why should anyone be surprised and take Pune as some place different, i mean Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Banglore, its happened everywhere. I mean Pune has the NDA, one of the strongest Air Force bases etc but so does Delhi, India’s capital. What makes you wonder is why was Pune spared for this long then; and why now. No one has the answer except the man who kept that bomb and killed an IITian from kharagpur who was just sitting with his girlfriend and his sister, a few innocent waiters, even a Marathi manoos. But one would think that on a Saturday evening, Valentine ’s Day eve, there has to be cops there. I’ve always seen them every night in good numbers. But no wait; i almost forgot; one of our superstars (of another religion), an ungrateful idiot said something about cricket and Pakistani players (which i believe a lot of other cricketers and people did and did so openly on TV also but hey, they are’n big movie stars and above all they are not of a particular religion) that it hurt the true Indians, our nation’s pride in patriotism, the martyrs, the Shiv Sena, so deeply, that these fine gentlemen decided to protest against it. These civilised secular folks chose to show their displeasure in the most non violent way (per them at least) that they know; ransacking theaters and attacking people’s homes. What better cause this country needs than putting a tape on our personalities that are not of the same religion; to not allow them to express their opinions like anyone else.

The whole thing was (a very noble cause indeed) such an issue that our government decided that it was against the constitution (how ridiculous of them; what are they talking about) and chose to protect the movie theatres so as to facilitate the screening of the movie in the state. Entire police force of Pune was busy protecting our multiplexes from our enlightened brothers (oh sorry, not brothers, i am a non maharashtrian), our bringers of light from non violently protesting, while some terrorist casually walked into the unguarded koregaon park and killed what could have been my friends, my family, people i love.

It seems all the education of us Indians is for nothing if we cannot identify the real terrorists. If we cannot see right through this farce of Non mumbaiker, non maharashtrian, non hindu that these politicians are perpetrating. We cry foul over racism on Indians in Australia and accept that a man living in Pune for twelve years can still be an outsider. We need to look inside before we point a finger out. I thank god it’s not someone i loved this time and dread the next; unless we combine our thoughts and choose to change. I had tears in my eyes when i saw the news yesterday because I belong to Pune and even if a lot of people there consider me an outsider, i love my home.

Coming Back Home

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned”

Yes, i picked this up online and how ever cool it would have been, this wasn’t the thought that had come to my mind when i landed back home. India, my home country! After almost cancelling twice, missing the train to the Airport and rushing in at the last moment to find my seat occupied by a really hot British girl, i almost thought this was a sign. “Turn around and go back son”. Well then i thought i might as well go till HK now that i am on the plane (yeah she had the aisle seat next to mine while she wanted the window seat... and yeah i did let her sit at the window...). Finally after 15 hrs i landed in Mumbai (they upgraded me to business class from HK to Mumbai, so i couldn’t really say no) and after a lovely and welcoming conversation with the immigration officer about why don’t i have my visa stuck on the passport and why do they have it online and convincing him of the fact that they don’t allow you to stay in Australia for so long unless you HAVE a visa, he allowed me inside my own country. The first thing you notice is that the people here are more, well ‘people’. You see five guys in a row without a six pack and ten women in a row without the ability to carry a really small skirt off and you know you are among your kind. It is only after you get rid of this insecurity of yours and gain confidence again that you notice the other distinguishing feature that everyone is brown.

I had completely forgotten the kind of welcome you get when you travel in India and was reminded of it in a rather fancy way. At 4.30 in the morning, you walk out of the international airport on red carpet with lights focussing on you from above (whoever thought of that) and hundreds of people cheering around you, dying to reach you while behind red tape and you feel like a movie star. It’s an incredible feeling just to walk out and smell the morning air. Except, when you do smell the air, it stinks (no offence folks, i love my country a lot, but it’s a fact). And then you listen to the cheering crowd around you more carefully and realize they are travel agents and drivers looking to cash in on international customers, screaming to get you to stay in their hotel or travel in their cab. The noise, the smell, the colour of the sky, look of the streets, different as it may feel, never once deters you from feeling relieved, a strong feeling of being wanted again, of being a part of the crowd and not stand out as an outsider. A four hour drive home from the airport to Pune and it felt like i had never left.

We all want to travel and see places, go to another country, meet new people, learn new cultures etc etc. Especially in India, going abroad is the most exotic thing any young boy or a girl would like to do. Every bright kid educated enough to locate ABROAD in the map is looking for a way to go. What calls them is money, civilization, better standards of living, hot white women, or god knows what else. But sadly this only lasts for a few month after you have lived abroad. You start to think that you were better off visiting the godforsaken country as a tourist. The main reason can be explained by asking one simple question – What motivates us? You can say success, power, achievement, blah blah, only if you want to win a beauty contest. What really motivates us is friends, family, your loved ones, people you really care about. You can make friends anywhere you go in India so you don’t feel such a need here. Hell there are so many people, how difficult is to find someone who shares the same frequency as yours anywhere around here. But can you find that same comfort with a white guy? The answer is a simple NO unless you were born there and have grown up with them. The gap in the culture is too wide to fill by the being open minded and being flexible and versatile. Simply accepting change does not change you. The urge is too strong and those who don’t yield to it continue to pretend that they are happy, while not being anywhere close to it.

Well i am home and grateful that i only have another 16 months to go before i can finally be back to the people i care about.

Humor

Oscar Wilde said "Seriousness is the Refuge of the shallow", funny of him to say that, hell he was an artist. Humor is the only act of defense a man knows in the civilized of a world that we live in today. An insecurity that dwells in most minds of average intelligence that they will never be on top and will always have people ahead of them. Yet they aren't last too and are smarter than as many number of people. It really is a funny feeling not to be able to see your self in the shades of black and white and it really gets to you. "How do you hide this mediocrity". Those not so capable plead stupid and wear that title gladly and proudly. While the smart are too busy changing the world and fulfilling their potential, they never suffer from an identity crisis. When you are good; it shows. How does one walk among these men; my fellow mediocres with an identity; a name. How do you explain this limited capability to people convinced that its your fault that you have limitations; well, there comes humor. A medium that shields you against all pointing fingers ("well hey, four are still pointing at you") and all questioning eyes ("would you please stop checking me out, its embarrassing"). You can voice your insecurities, insult, avenge, snitch, ditch, annoy, hurt, abuse, or maybe dump too (most horrible of them all) in the name of humor and get away. We live in the age of mediocrity where competence is either lots of money or just a big burden. Only these two reasons can justify a man not having a sense of humor.