22 Crossroads

An established brand changes its brand design/ logo, and there you have it – the eternal debate between the old and the new, the classy vs. the peppy, the understated vs the wannabe. Usually its just a manifestation of people wanting to cling on to something they loved, but sometimes the rolling stone gathers a bit too much moss. GAP and Tropicana have learned the lesson the hard way , and judging by the initial reaction to Airtel logo (on Facebook and elsewhere), I guess things might just be heading in similar directions. So what is the deal with a brand logo? My very limited experience of presenting in a couple Ad-Design competition had me memorized (more or less) my introductory speech when the logo part came in. A logo is judged on its aesthetic values – the colors , the fonts , how it fits with the overall brand image , on reproducibility and on the story it tells (I believe that every logo should have a story). But I guess, in the end its just one thing – RECALL VALUE, RECALL VA...

An Open Letter to the Scholar’s Avenue Team (In Response to your cover article in Feb 24 Issue) since an e-copy was not available I could not post a link Let me begin by saying that, on the face of it, I am both saddened and upset by this article. Upset by the twisted interpretation of the facts. Saddened because the article portrays the Soc-n-Cult GC as demon that it certainly isn’t. LOST IN SPIRIT – the title of the article offends me – both as a participant and as (perhaps) the most hated face in gymkhana sub-coms. As a participant I have seen examples of this very spirit being upheld on many occasions. I have seen the entire Netaji Auditorium applaud a performance, not once – but twice. I have seen actors and performers being the first ones to go out and congratulate their opponents after a good show. I do not disagree with the fact that the GC is witness to its fair share of chaos. What is baffling is that the author has assumed a moral high ground without checking the facts. You...

Won my first individual event ever in college. Since no one else was blowing my horn, decided to do that myself. So here is my gold winning speech :) Since you might get bored half way through the speech, let me thank the people who need to be thanked right now itself: Apurva, Myth, Zoo, Xar, Kamra, Harsha and even Bishnoi :) Motion: Increasing national security and surveillance is a cosmetic response to any extremist activity in a democratic and tolerant society . :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Let me start with a very clichéd “Picture this”. I am a 7 year old boy and I behave like any 7 year old does. I hate milk and I throw a tantrum when I see a glass full of that filthy white thing. As a seven year old I probably don’t know the words tantrum and filthy, but this ignorance does not save me from the wrath of my father. He takes less than 45 seconds to get that milk down my throat. I certainly don’t like it. Thankfully, sometime later my mother explains to me why I need that milk if ...

Disclaimer: I am not a sportsman. I am slightly obese and overweight and I couldn't probably walk 5 kms on a stretch. Still my dream is having a 70inch (not cms) LCD TV in my home and watching India win the Cricket World Cup some day, again! There is a certain charm in getting up at 1300 Hrs on a Monday. Primarily that means not being bugged by the so called Monday-morning-blues. So I wake up one such Monday "morning" and misty eyed as I am, I log on for my daily dose of news online. Usually that means something like – "9 Blasts 14 Injures", "Dhoni pulls out of test series", "Shilpa ready to rock Big Boss" and "Nothing can stop me from becoming PM : Maya". It is not everyday that an ordinary Indian like me [here] , wakes to the headline "IT'S A GOLD: BINDRA BAGS INDIA'S FIRST". I cannot even begin to imagine what an Olympic gold would mean to a sportsman, and there are not many Indians alive to tell you that eithe...

Patriotism. What does it mean to us? We are the youth of the country, the supposed to be future of the nation. What do we make of these three syllables? We are the progressive section of the society, marching forward, taking India to a better and brighter future. But have we really ever paid any attention to it? Have we ever spared even a figment of our fertile imagination for the same? Let’s have a look. I am twenty one years old. That’s right, old enough to be legally married under the laws of the state. I have no future plans. My future is as directionless as India’s foreign policy. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, apart from earning money. I study in an institution that runs on the ever cherished, ever cliché taxpayers money. My tuition is subsidised. The dollar-face Lincoln says, "Ask not what your country has given you. Ask what you have given to the country". Rather than giving anything to the country, right now I am actually taking away a large chunk of th...

Where does the need arise? Where is the desire born? The desire to know the meaning, to understand the realms of the so-called reality, to know the answers, to comprehend those answers and then to create meaning out of it. The greatest mysteries of life lie hidden – hidden beneath the soul. And while man reaches far and wide in search of answers, resurrecting and devouring all that lies in his way, he is too naïve to look within. For there the answer lies – the answers to the quintessential questions, plain yet profound, simplistic to the limit of being outright trivial, and yet governing the unfathomable , unreasonable method behind our madness. Why are we here? Why were we born? What makes us special? Herein lays the desire. Herein lays the hunger, the yearning – to be someone, to make a difference. How wonderful would it fly! How wonderful would it be to be invisible! How wonderful would it be to be invincible, to be able to bend space and time, to walk through walls, to hold fire i...

Foreword: The following piece was written on December 22nd 2006, but wasnt posted due to lack of internet connection. So it goes here *** Well, it is the end of the year and almost everyone is coming out of their winners of the year in weirdest conceivable categories. So while it may be the recipe of the year or the best and the worst dog owners of the year, some more cliché categories are still more fun. NDTV is still in its pursuit towards finding their Indian of the year to succeed a certain Mrs. Sonia Gandhi (yeah right) ... but they have already come up with their song of the year. And that is what has gotten me started on this column. They have chosen "Masti ki paathshaala" from Rang De Basanti as the most defining song of the year ... or at least I guess that?s what the title means. Had it just been popularity charts a certain smoking number (pun intended) called beady could very easily have upstaged the winner. So is Paathshaala the song of the year. On first no...

Dear Michael I don?t know why I am writing this for you. To begin with I didn?t like you that much. When I started watching Formula 1, you were the guy who was winning all the races. You looked arrogant, conceited and just too proud of yourself. Watching you win all the races was becoming boring. And there was Rubens, the guy who was somehow suspiciously the bad luck magnet of the team. He had all the mechanical failures, technical failures, engine blow ups and anything that could go wrong in the book. The Austrian Grand Prix of 2004 didn?t help to dispel the suspicion either. I always felt that Rubino was never allowed to achieve what he deserved. While he was flamboyant and carefree on the circuit, you were clinical and precise and seemed just too bothered about wining races. But there are moments that define history. The one I remember and cherish the most might never be mentioned in any discussion about the greats, (after all it happened in a qualifying session), but that was t...