Friday, March 12, 2004

Lessons in Marketing Management
By a lucky turn of events, I got to conduct a seminar and lecture to a class of business administration freshers on Advertising and Marketing (After all, I am qualified to do that). This was my first time lecturing to students from a college other than mine, so I was a little jittery. As the class progressed, I got a lot more comfortable but it was still disconcerting to note that 80% of the students were from KyeraLa and my exombLes from Tamil TV commerziaLz and radio jingLes were unreazanabLy unreLadabLe.
But the biggest lesson in marketing management was not from Marthandam College, it was from a roadside eatery in Naagarcoil. Late one night after a gruelling day of work, we hopped into what seemed to be the only open eatery that served fresh food. Just as I sat down, I noticed the painted saffron lotuses that adorned the walls all around us. On further inspection, a large sized poster quoting from the Bhagavat Gita caught my eye. On the opposite wall was the National Highways department calendar with a picture of a smiling Pon. Radhakrishnan. The �kalla� table had the usual glass top under which were dozens of pictures of Hindu deities, Bharat Mata, A B Vajpayee, L K Advani etc. We had walked into a BJP place.
This realisation otherwise would be of no consequence, except for the surprising menu in the restaurant. For all the anti cow-slaughter rhetoric of the BJP, the place served� you guessed it: beef!
Kanyakumari district, and especially Naagarcoil has a sizeable population of Christians and other communities who eat beef. At least in one corner of the country, it appears that ideology seems to have lost out to market economics. I can see one local guy smiling big.

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