26 Years since i was born.

Ya well as the title suggests i am 26 years old, no its not a sudden realization nor is today the day i was born. Just so happens that i had a really random thought, an awkward realization, one which you just play in your mind and then gallop across to another random thought but the relevance makes it stick and stand out in the otherwise dreamy, hypnotic background of, well, random thoughts.

Being 26 is a difficult phase, maybe second only to the teenage years in terms of change, life defining realizations.

My friends are getting married left, right, center, above, below...god 2 of them even got married in a palace!

i feel perfectly between 'i wanna have fun, enjoy myself, meet new people' and 'i am so happy my life is so stable and i have someone to come back home to'.
I keep getting thoughts of how it would feel to be independant, on my own, without something i am committed to, left alone just to wander, just to experiment and free to do as i please, no one to answer to and to have no one whose life is so deeply connected to mine.
I think its just human to dream of freedom, more so in males who like to think of themselves as young, strong stallions galloping, sprinting across a green thick field and feeling the strong gust of wind in their hair burning their eyes stretching the skin to the back of their heads. Well you get the point.
But then you take a look at the woman you love and it makes you feel like a child again, waiting to get to his mother, to climb up to her and disappear in her lap. You think of how stressful your job is, how much you hate every bit of it and how your stomach feels like a student riot every time you are accountable for something going wrong at your workplace. You crave for that space, that touch and that voice that relaxes, calms you, the person who when opens the door suddenly changes your memories of the day. Suddenly your boss, the traffic goes out of the window and you know in her smile is the key to your happiness. You look at her and you thank your stars. you dont burn with teenage excitement you just warm yourself with her smile and you say to yourself 'This is home'.

I am sure anyone whos been in a management school has heard of the SEC classification (Socio economic classification).
In India its a standard classification for demographic indication.
Unilever is the only one that uses another standard called the LSM.

SEC is used in each and every market research study to group respondents based on their education and occupation into a social class.

I work for one of the world's biggest market research agencies and during the course of my work i come across new ideas, new ways to conduct research. The consumer is changing at a rapid pace and if marketers need to keep a tab on the pulse of the market, research assumes great importance.

For certain categories like fashionwear, sport footwear etc a classification like SEC doesnt make too much sense.

Therefore would it make sense to have another classification for certain categories which are more youth oriented?

I have toying with this idea and an idea struck me which is purely a result of ideation, blue sky thinking if you may. Its not tested or calibrated and might evensound absurd. But i feel some categories can definitely use this criteria for segmentation. This could serve as a lifestyle indicator.

Lets call this MMB classification (Movies, Music, Books). I feel, based on three parameters it could be possible to create a segmentation which can be used to certain youth sensitive categories. These are:

1) Movies people watch (directors they idolize, movies they collect, they recommend, they feel are a part of who they are).

2) Music they listen to (the bands, the genre, the history)

3) Books they read ( genre, writers)

I somehow feel people who tend to like the same books, movies, music can be termed homogeneous in their outlook towards certain brands.

Maybe cus these three are in many ways linked to ongoing fads and hence they could be used to determine a person's preference in a category that itself is linked to fads.

what do you think?

Lessons from the diary of an apprentice

Okay, so I went with my better half for the zillionth time for what women call 'A little bit of shopping'. Now I must confess my girl is definitely much better than most of the women out there when it comes to this scary activity but she is a girl at the end of the day and so I bore the brunt of all that aimless walking, gallavanting from one stall to the other this Saturday.

After all these years of accompanying women while they display their biggest skill outside of their resume, I decided to change my attitude from that of irritation and frustration to that of a young apprentice ready and eager to learn the secrets behind it.

some questions to start with...

Where do they get this burst of energy you never thought existed?

How do they know so many colors?

How do they know what cut, what fabric is latest when they have been spending all their time with you and you definitely haven't been watching stylecheck or partying?

So we went to Hill road in Bandra to buy some shoes, now Pema already has at least 20 pairs of shoes but obviously she doesn't have the one in 'light red, 3 inch heels'
And this time I decided I would observe and learn and get all the answers that have eluded males for eternity.

Some big learnings:

-Beware of the 'Why progresssion'
What is a WHY PROGRESSION? well we all studied AP, GP, HP. To all males interested in pleasing his girl by seeming genuinely interested in what she buys and ISN'T this is the most important progression, more important that all the bloody AP,GP,HP.

It starts like this: You try to sound interested, want to give your inputs, opinion during her purchase process. Now all women love to ask questions, and specially questions they know their poor, hapless bawfs have no clue of. This is just a way of getting a one up by making the guy feel he doesn't take ample interest in things she likes!
Anyways, so she's been evaluating a red shoe (I don't have the description, they have more names than punjabis harminder (happy) lakwinder (lucky) etc), so suffice to call it a red shoe. Now this unsuspecting red shoe doesn't really know whats going to happen to it in the next 10 mins or so. Its gonna be a hell of a ride mate! First you go to the gravel, all sorts of feet (big, fat, ugly, dirty, smelly) (My girl has none, she takes good care of her feet you see), well yes all sorts of feet get inserted into it it doesn't matter if they can fit or no, even if a woman knows its not her size, boy shes gotta wear it and see, I guess she needs to know by how much is it bigger or smaller. After this my dear red shoe you might be forced to walk on the road spoiling your shine, then you are airborne once again only to be twisted, turned and poked in order to see if theres a defect.

Boy, am I glad I ain't a red shoe, or any shoe for that matter!

so yes the male try to act all interested and therefore begets the question:

What do you think of it?

to which you answer

mmmm.. I think its not that great..

to which they ask another question

Why? what don't you like?

to which you answer

I don't think its very office like...

to which they ask again

Why?

Beware my men of the WP, you have fallen for it and now there is no way to exit, trickier than the Chakravyuh, more confusing than a golf game and much more life threatening than an Aftab shivdasani movie, this is the WP.

why*why*why*why........n times = why^n

common multiplier = why

Simplified, for every answer you give thinking its going to earn you some brownie points, you are posed with an even difficult question (kind of like the GRE). And the question quite simply is WHY?

KEY LEARNINGS FROM THE WHY PROGRESSION:

- Please continue with the act of nodding your head, what the male species has been doing for centuries before women rights became a fad.
- Do not use words EVER! just nod, she doesn't want your opinion anyway. Trust me a girl knows whether she wants a shoe or not the minute she gets down from the auto rickshaw and sees the shoe stall a km ahead.
- If you want to speak speak in some unknown language, invent some new language. Try it.
- DO NOT try to show her that you are evaluating it, she knows you don't give a rat's ass just by looking at you. Remember you are just a male, a mere mortal, she has powers you cant comprehend or fathom. So forget that approach.
- Think of some answer that cannot have a WHY multiplier thereby bringing a premature death to the sequence. Maybe, 'I think they look good on your feet, your feet are just perfect for these shoes, see that spike in the front, I think your small feet look pretty there. She is not going to ask you WHY. Well you just said her feet are pretty and perfect for something. She cant question that. Though you never know. They evolve faster than us. By the time I have thought of this as a perfect excuse Pema (who is quietly reading a book beside me) has already thought of a possible WHY.

So to all the men out there, BEWARE of THE WHY PROGRESSION! ALWAYS!!