Jay Rege’s Blog

Here’s a question to all my MBA friends “How do you sell a small piece of Papaya for Rs. 200?” (For those who are blissfully unaware of how much a papaya costs – you could buy a fairly decent sized papaya for Rs. 20). Well if you are still working out your marketing strategy to sell the piece of the Papaya for Rs. 200, then here’s the answer: Crush the piece of papaya and put it in a small plastic bottle, fill the bottle with some liquid soap and then write on the bottle ‘Facewash with Papaya Extracts’ - :) Yup, now this damn thing could easily fetch you 200 bucks or more. With minor alterations in packaging, shape of the bottle, pictures on the bottle etc, you could pass on this soapy solution as a shampoo, bodywash, handwash, or even as shaving gel. But make sure you have the words ‘With Papaya Extracts’ and a picture of the papaya on the bottle.

Strange, but somehow the humble ‘Papaya’ has made it big in the cosmetic business. Although the papaya has been into existence for many years now, until recently I never realized its true potential. I never considered it anything more than a fruit that I didn’t enjoy eating much. The papaya for me was a poor man’s fruit - nature’s gift to those who couldn’t afford the mango. Papaya juice with a lot of saccharine was traditionally used as filler to dilute mango juice (like pumpkin was used in tomato ketchup). I never knew that the papaya had any other potential, until it somehow found a break in the cosmetic industry. I should say I am really happy for the Papaya.

But the Papaya isn’t alone. If you happen to be an ardent viewer of advertisements on TV (like I am), or walk down the soap/shampoo aisle at a retail store, you will be amazed to see the amount of ‘food’ that goes into these beauty products. It’s strange, but the ad for the beauty soap with strawberry and cream looks yummier than a Baskin Robbins. These days there’s plenty of edible stuff in your beauty products right from the papaya, strawberry, peach, orange, banana, wheat, milk cream, chocolate, avocado, tea tree, green apple, almond, apricot, cucumber, watermelon, jojoba (I have no idea what the jojoba is, but whatever it is, it sound pretty exotic), to my all time favorite the ‘Aloe Vera’. And if for some reason your shampoo manufacturers decide not to add food to your shampoo, they would at least make sure it comes ‘with added vitamins A, B, D & E’, so that you don’t miss out on your daily dose of vitamins.

Well I have a lot more to write on these cosmetic foods, but the talk of food invariably makes me hungry. So I will be back after a quick ‘food’ break (and no. I don’t mean a shower and shave here. I mean a real food break). Ciao.

Education I think is the only ‘service’ that people are more than willing to pay for, but happy not to use it. For some strange reason, your favorite professor in college happens to be the one who lets you bunk classes, or worse, the one who prefers not to conduct lectures at all. It’s ironic, but I have often seen students, and parents too, complain that “attendance is compulsory” in their college.

Well I am not trying to point fingers or accuse the current student generation; for I was no different as a student. In retrospect I feel that it was because I never found lectures interesting. So opportunities to get by without attending lectures were always welcome. But never did it cross my mind back then, to go to the college authorities and demand for better service. Never did I stand up and say “I am paying for education and I demand better service”. Let alone that, I never had the intentions (not the courage either) to stand up to a professor and express my dissatisfaction towards his/her way of teaching. I accepted things the way they were, and the lesser I was officered the better I felt. I wonder why did I not demand more, why did anybody not demand more.

Education is the fastest growing business in India, with costs of education on a steep rise. Wonder when will we see an improvement in the quality of education too? Wonder if a day would ever come when students (and parents) would demand better service and more value for their money? Will someday students really enjoy attending lectures in college or would that require a complete overhaul of the education system itself? Hopefully someday -:)

We were at a restaurant over the weekend with a group of friends and as we were trying to decipher the menu, with the waiter waiting anxiously (rather impatiently) for us to place the order, my friend blurted out the most dreadful question one can at a restaurant “So, what would you recommend?”. I was shocked, rather scared. Scared because, the question was not addressed to me or either of us at the table, but was addressed to the waiter. My mind was like ‘Oh no, no no no no no… what have you done!! How could you do this to us?’

I hate impatient waiters. What I don’t understand is that how can someone who’s called a ‘waiter’ not like to wait. Well anyways, that’s a completely separate issue altogether, let me come back to the mess my dear friend had got us into. To begin with how can you ask a complete stranger, who had no idea about your taste in food, to recommend you something? It’s as bad as asking a chemist a second opinion on your doctor’s prescriptions (I have seen many people doing that too). Well so now the waiter starts recommending you certain dishes and your mind start wondering if he is trying to sell you leftovers from previous day. You start thinking if he recommending them only because the chef really wants to get rid of those dishes? So when the guy says “Why don’t you try the Chicken Mughlai” I hear him saying “Why don’t you help us finish the Chicken Mughlai. It’s been lying in the kitchen for a week now. Nobody’s eating that. Please eat it for us”

So now the waiter has put forth his recommendations, putting you in a real dilemma. I mean how safe is it to reject a waiter’s recommendation? Once the waiter has recommend the Chicken Mughlai, is it OK to say “nah, we don’t want Chicken Moughlai, get us Mutton Roganjosh instead”? Would he take that as an offence and if he does would he actually take revenge? As revenge would he just overcharge you, or would go to the extent of tampering with your food too? You never know what actually happens back in restaurant kitchens. It’s always behind closed doors. But I have seen dreadful things happen back there in movies where they show all sorts of food adulteration tricks, not to mention the ever classic ‘spit in food’ kind of revenge.

Thankfully this time we were a fairly large group, and we ordered a few dishes as per the waiter’s recommendation, and a few others that were our as per our choice - thus arriving at what I believe was a win-win situation. The food was good. I enjoyed the dinner. Nevertheless all through dinner I was still trying to taste ‘staleness’ in the waiter recommended dishes and ‘tampering’ in the dishes we chose -:)

Its fun to see how people signoff their emails. The most popular being the ‘Regards’. Now to be frank, I have never understood what ‘Regards’ actually means. I mean what kind of a feeling is a ‘Regard’? And while I almost come to terms at accepting a ‘Regard’, some go a step ahead and write ‘Warm Regards’. Now whatever a ‘Regard’ is, I think this must be a slightly heated version of it. But what if I like my ‘regards’ cold? Are ‘Regards’ supposed to be served warm? And then there are ‘Best Regards’. So now there is a quality factor involved too. So now when I see an email signed just ‘Regards’ I think, “Oh, so you giving me un-warmed and not the best quality ‘Regards’. Hmmm, I will keep that in mind -:) “

Then there are some who sign “Best Wishes”, “All the best”, “Wish you the very best”, giving me the impression that I really must be in bad shape that these people are wishing and praying for me. But a complicated version of this one are the ones that just sign “Best” followed by their name on the following line. Now what’s that supposed to mean? Are you calling me the ‘best’, you wishing me the ‘Best’ or you claiming to be the ‘best’ ??

To those who instruct me by saying “Have a good day” or for that matter “Have a good weekend”, I just want to say “Oh, dammit..I was planning on having a horrible day/weekend. But now that you have asked me to have a good one, I think I will try and obey your instructions”. The same applies to those who ask me to ‘Take Care’ or ‘Be Good’. But the most complicated of them all (I think) are the ones that sign ‘Love’, giving me a jittery feeling on reading that, moreover if the email is from a guy. Maybe I am being a little old fashioned here, but please, I don’t need your official emails with a dash of love.

I don’t know why, but some people include proverbs and quotes too at end of their emails. But never mind. Its till better than having an animated cat or a dog dancing at the bottom to some tune of music playing in the background. And I thought I had seen it all, until I received the following email a few days ago:

“Jay
I am in receipt of the CD. Thanks a lot for the help.
I would keep in touch with you and update about the progress I will make.
Thanks once again dear.
Yours
Vikram”

‘Thanks once again “DEAR”, Yours Vikram’. Could it get any better? -:) NO I didn’t send this guy a CD containing a collection of my personal pictures/videos – if that’s what you are thinking. The CD contained ONLY official documents. And I am so glad I didn’t hand deliver the CD, but rather chose to courier it. I don’t think I could have handled a 6 ft, 90kg mid aged guy oozing with gratitude and love, trying his best to express it.

With that I rest my case.

In my role as career counselor I am often asked these questions, both by the students and their parents, “Is it worth studying any further?” “Is it worth spending more time and money on education, or it is better to take up a job?” These questions generally come from students who are about to or have just finished their bachelor’s degree. Both these questions I feel, are difficult to answer.

How do you judge the value or worth of education? Most students try to gauge the value of a particular program by the starting salaries that they could expect after passing out from the program. While this is fair enough, I personally feel that this is a short sighted approach. The purpose of education is not just to get you a job. The real purpose of education is to ‘educate’ you. Your decision behind pursuing higher education should be driven by your desire to ‘learn’ and not just ‘earn’. Earning eventually will follow. But in an environment with so many institutions advertising their programs by highlighting the salaries that their graduates earn, I don’t completely blame the students for thinking likewise.

It is understandable that you went to school, and eventually to college too, because your parents and social factors forced you to do so. You probably chose a stream/branch that your parents, peers, teachers and others felt was best for you rather than the one that you really wanted to. However your decision to pursue a master’s program should be driven by your desire to learn. Choose a program that you would enjoy attending; where sitting in class would be more fun than bunking lectures. The benefits would follow, and not just in terms of your job after graduation. You will experience the benefits of good education all throughout your career and even more. And you don’t have to consider higher education immediately after you finish your bachelor degree. If you don’t feel like studying further, it’s fine. Take a break, join a job. There are enough options and opportunities for studying further.

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In the articles that would follow, I plan to talk on topics related to higher education. Being a counselor of foreign education, my shift would be towards education abroad and a comparison between the Indian and foreign degrees. Most of my blogs would be addressing college students (and their parents) who are exploring options for higher education.