Tag Archives: delhi

Shame, they did it again.

Absence of statements blaming the other party from any political leader on the first day of Mumbai attacks was conspicuous but if you thought Indian politicians have finally learned not to politicize the terrorist attacks you are mistaken. The second day of seize saw leaders from the opposition starting the blame game again. What’s worst is that the ministers from leading party for whatever reasons invariably end up doing “tit for tat”.

Just when I was thinking if and how “Mumbai Attacks” would reflect on the Delhi assembly elections my phone beeped. It was a sms, that read “Atankvad ke virudh apna sangharsh jari rakhen, jinhone atankvad ke liye naram niti apnayee unke virudh bhari sankhya main matdan karen. Mehengi Padi Congress” which roughly translates into “continue your fight against terror and vote out people who took a lenient approach against terrorism”

A couple of hours later my phone beeped again for another sms and this one read “har terrorist attack chunav se pehle hi kyun hota hai ? isme faayda kiska ? Aatank par vote maangne ki sasti raajniti desh ko mehengi padegi” which roughly translates into “why does every terrorist attack happen just before elections, who stands to gain out of this?  the lowly act of asking for votes under the name of terrorism will cost the nation”

It’s a pity that this is the state of Indian politics, they won’t even spare terrorist attacks and shamelessly try to use them to garner votes.

A visit by our local MLA

Yesterday evening saw our local MLA “Jai Bhagwan Agarwal” paying a visit to our apartment/society. It was the first time ever that I was present while someone contesting elections came for a visit as a part of his campaign. It was a different and funny experience. Till now i had seen more campaigning for elections on film and tv then in real life. The cavalcade of the minister was proceeded by various people playing drums, holding banners of BJP and shouting slogans for their leader. Want to know their slogan for this time ?

Rohini ka Obama kaun ? Jai bhagwan Jai bhagwan ” –
Yes, you had to be there to believe it 🙂 Apparently they’ve been using this slogan all around the place.

After the MLA met his supporters who had come to greet him there took place a ritual (which as expected I had no clue about). Its one of those things that are apparently a regular affair around election time. The MLA weighed on a weighing balance and his biggest supporter and friend (a resident of our apartment) donated bags of 1 Rs coins that equaled his weight. I am told its a way to show one’s respect and trust.

Noise and people settled a bit after this and Mr agarwal spoke a few cliched words about how the residents of our apartments are important, how supportive they have always been and we’ll continue doing good things etc etc. The speech(if it can be called) lasted for five minutes before the procession moved to the next apartments leaving behind a few delicious sweet dishes to be circulated among those who had gathered

Disoriented

Yes, that’s what I am right now, “DISORIENTED”. Things were fine till saturday evening, I enjoyed a lazy Saturday morning, met college friends after long and had sumptuous lunch. Everything was Normal and then a friend told me “three bombs went off in cp, karol bagh and gk”. I was then at a nearby Pizza Hut meeting my school friends. Within minutes everyone was on their phone’s calling family members and friends to know if they were fine. Ten minutes later everyone got settled and resumed talks about school, teachers et all. Another group of friends went for a late night show.

Indians are known to be adjusting and accommodating but who thought they could be this adjusting. People who were waiting on the bus stand where one of the blasts happened resumed the wait for their buses half an hour after the blast. Everything seems back to normalcy (assuming there was a disturbance), maybe for good but something doesn’t feel right. Had it been a weekday, with people busy with their 9-5’s maybe it would have been hard to notice any difference at all.

All sorts of questions are haunting me. Not only this I can feel lots of processes running in the background making me feel kinda lost, being there but without really being there. Was discussing with another friend who was equally shaken “What can we do about the whole thing”,  we’ve always been cursing the administration/government for not doing enough but that just doesn’t seem to help and my mind refuses to believe there is nothing we can do about the situation.

“A Wednesday” a film about bomb blasts and how a common citizen tries to avenge for it, comes to mind.

*spoiler alert start*
The story is about a 50+ year old man, a common citizen who is overwhelmed by the sense of insecurity that prevails that he takes law into his own hands and tries to take revenge from those who were behind recent bomb blasts
*spoiler alert end*

The film shows a way in which a common man raises above his existential needs and tries to make a change ,but that cannot be the only way. There have to be more ways in which we can do something about the situation rather than taking a backseat, doing nothing and only to be reminded of it few months/years from now. Its not one of those numerous problems that our country faces, unlike them it doesn’t have an obvious solution(at least not to me). Not sure if  I am the only one facing this but we need to start doing something to make things better and trust me if you think somebody else might do it for you, you couldn’t be more wrong.

The Remarkables: Meow 104.8 FM

Delhi’s Radio space has become quite hot these days with more than 10 FM channels vying for a bigger chunk of the pie. Leaving aside a couple most of these channels are alike(at least to me) and unless you are an avid listener chances are you too won’t be able to tell X from Y.

What really comes out as being Remarkable in this chaos is 104.8 FM or better known as “Meow FM“. Talking about being remarkable, Meow(India’s first just for women radio station) that came to life in June 07 is easily the most unique one. I listen to it every once in a while and what follows are a few things that make “Meow” Remarkable.

Niche Target Audience:
Instead of targeting everyone(which actually means targeting “no one”) they have focussed on Women folk, which is their biggest and probably best differentiator. This is a big plus as now they can mostly focus on airing programs that strike a chord with women without worrying much about the other gender. So now they can host a show like “Mama Meow” and even ask audience to tell “five innovative ways to break news about their pregnancy to their families” without thinking twice.

Different Ball Game:
While other FM channels are busy being better DJ’s(playing music) Meow has ventured into a different league all together. Rather than being just another music station they’ve come out as a talk based radio station which instead of RJ’s has what they call “On Air Hosts“. “Empathetic Interactivity” being one of their core value propositions this makes a lot of sense(even more for a women focussed channel) as
1) Talking/Sharing is one of the basic human necessities/traits.
2) It’s informative(knowledge sharing, listening and learning from other’s experiences and so on).
3) It has a HUGE audience(how else can you explain, people calling even before the host has finished telling the topic of conversation or people trying to call for days till they get to talk ?).

Client Relationship:
Another thing that impressed me about Meow was the way almost all their hosts talk to their callers and build relationships with them. Be it addressing some callers by adjectives like “Darling” or “Sweetheart” or asking someone who called after a hiatus “Why are you calling us after a long time ? Don’t you love us ?”.The way they handle and treat their callers is simply amazing, it works great(especially with women) and am sure they must have made some real(off the phone) relationships with some callers.To summarize in one line “try to make each customer feel special”.
I guess that’s what they are doing and doing it quite well.

Some other things that click are:
1) Good content with a variety to target various sections of women folk.
2) Great marketing(by making a noteworthy statement with the usage/symbolism of word “Meow” and other things).
3) Roping in different people with public appeal like Dr Kiran Bedi and regularly having guest hosts.
4) Anil Srivatsa(those who’ve listened to his show know what I mean).

These are some of things that I think make “Meow 104.8 FM” click, not sure about the RAM stats.They might make things a bit more cheesy from here and attract more earlobes by adding more girlie features on say shopping(discuss things like what you shop, where you shop or reviewing some shops etc) or better a gossip section(share the latest gossip in your office,college etc or in bollywood).

“Women carry the reputation of being talkative, hence Meow. Through Meow FM, we are letting women do what they do best – talk ” – Anil Srivatsa, COO, Radio Today                     🙂