Marketing Independence

14th August, 2005: Woke up fresh after catching up on about 7 hours of sleep(luxury ultimatus, by B-school standards), brushed, washed, and sat down to study. Study what?! Marketing Management, one of my favourite subjects…or so I thought. I opened that textbook for the first time. My first reaction: Wow! Colour print! Not LPE (Low priced edition)? I checked the cover only to conclude to my surprise, it is LPE. Jai Kotler! What a man; practicing what he’s preaching, differentiating his product by colouring the LPEs.

Half an hour of reading later, I realise I’m still on the first page and not a word’s gone in. Start surfing the book, still admiring the carefully picked colour scheme. Notice every chapter starts with a quote by Kotler titled “Kotler on marketing”. “That’s odd!”, I say to myself, “Is not this book by Kotler? How can you quote yourself in your own book?” That’s when it dawned upon me Kotler is in fact ‘Quote-ler’ misspelled. Ah, a revelation, bas abh mera din safal hogaya! I had exhausted the maximum utility derivavle from the day. So I can be sitting with the book gaping at me all day and not be able to let it have any impact on my knowledge or understanding of marketing. It was a day long session of yapping with my roomy, interspersed with guest appearances by the next door neighbours looking to take a break from being mind-fucked by Qoute-ler.

So after an entire day of bheja frying when,$ at ten in the night, you realise you’re still absolutely unprepared for the big exam the next day. Panic sets in. I throw a tantrum, “Why the hell do we have to go early to KV (that’s where our college is college) tomorrow just to sing the National Anthem? can’t we just do it after the exam?!!!”
My roomy responds in a serious tone, “None of the people would stay back. This is the only way to get them to attend it”.
The neighbour and I respond in chorus, “You shouldn’t have to force people to attend. The entire purpose is defeated if people don’t attend it out of their own will.” One of us, “Do you think just because a person doesn’t stand and sing the national anthem on Independence Day makes him less patriotic? He could be contributing in a much more constructive way to the nation, maybe through donations or social work or something”.
She responds,” It’s the least you can do for your country.”
I continue,”Can you actually disrespect a country by not standing for an anthem? I mean, it’s just a song! Isn’t your country greater than that?”
She reasserts,” It’s the least you can do for your country. And I get very pissed when I see somebody sitting while the Jana Gana Mana is being sung. I’d ask them to either stand up or leave.”
The neighbour and I look at each other wide eyed and mouth gaping in absolute astonishment. Turn back to look at her and again in a sort of a chorus, “What gives you the right to order anyone to do anything?! You just do this because you’ve been brought up to believe that, that is the right thing to do.”
Roomy retorts, “Well, when you’re living in a society there are some rules that must be followed. Patriotism is a very sensitive issue for me and it’d be better if you don’t argue with me about it.”

Her reply was something that reinforced our view of her philosophy, the philosophy we were battling. It was a lost cause, she was too adamant and we had another 8 chapters to go before the exam next day. It was 1 AM. We didn’t have the time. We buried our heads into qoutler again, my mind still whirring aloud.


Music: We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control...

PS: I'm so peeved that this post is two weeks late. Even the event that inspired this one had blurred in my memory by the time i got down to writing about it. There is so much more to be said...but perhaps that will be another day, another argument.