During workshops, team meetings and lectures, I often write on the whiteboard to emphasize a point. A few years ago, I started noticing frequent spelling errors. It had a pattern. I was mostly missing one or two letters while writing. It was as if my mind was racing ahead even as my hands wrote out...

A cricket fan since the ’70s growing up in army cantonments across India, one country always held my attention – Pakistan. Especially envious of their fast bowling armoury, like many youngsters, I too slogged in the nets, hoping to be India’s first genuine fast bowler! It hurt our masculinity that our quicks were no match...

Do you sometimes feel guilty about being ‘lazy’? The list of what you ‘know’ you should do, getting much longer than what you actually manage to do or sustain? The reason is not lack of ‘character’ – nature has designed animals to conserve energy (or being lazy, if we must judge). Not just physical energy,...

A common and seemingly ‘reasonable’ question you might face when you present an idea/concept. Examples and case studies help us visualize the solution and give us the comfort of proven success. Do you see the problem with it? If brands have done it, it is not a new idea. If they have done it in...

Over the last decade, our studies on him have painted a picture of a conflicted, tormented being.What? Men, in a patriarchal society like ours? Kidding, right? Not if you asked him: Guilty as a son for living in a nuclear setup, away from parents when they need him Stressed at work with rising performance demands...

In 2003, I attended a fabulous 5-day seminar on advertising – Adasia, Jaipur. It had amazing speakers like Ricardo Semler (his idea of questioning the office working hours and employee attendance inspired how we shaped our working practice at Learning Curve 7 years later), CK Prahlad (‘when technology evolves, the middlemen die’), Scott Bedbury (his explanation of the #Starbucks insight I...

  By understanding what makes it traditional in its meaning and reframing that meaning cleverly. For ages, gold jewelry in India has been an important accessory in the construction of the ‘Ideal Indian Woman’ identity. A god-metal that transforms a woman into Grihlaxmi. A bride laden with gold jewelry brings the promise of abundance &...

  Cred’s new ad clearly belongs in the ‘break the internet’ league. The idea of a rude Dravid is interesting & the film is brilliant on all fronts. Understandably, social media is abuzz. It’s the point it made about the brand #Cred that left me wondering. Cred’s previous campaign said – just a damn good service, no...

Papa main class mein first aaya! This might trigger happy (or wistful!) memories for you. Academic success means different things to the different people involved. For parents – it’s acknowledgement of successful parenting and optimism for the child’s future, often compensation for their own relative lack of opportunities and success. For the child – it...

If you follow cricket keenly, you have come across expert opinion on pitches. Typically – Australian pitches are fast & bouncy, English pitches support swing & seam while the Indian pitches aid spinners. On the face of it, these variations are geographical, which is why teams from these countries have produced legendary bowlers accordingly. The...