You will be there

Whenever i search you , i can feel your presence ,
stupid talks with unnecessary information ,
Some repetitive ones and some not so new ,
In moments of hopelessness and in moments of joy ,
Tried to ignore with open eyes ,
At times i Could hear you without any voice ,
Somehow i held on and said all will pass.

All i did was was with no bad intentions ,
Felt bad when i did want you to turn ,
On one side i did respect your decision
Felt bad when i could not hold those emotions ,
As you said ," don't want you to see that way "

Why i felt it that way , why i stood there for so late?
May be i don't want to know the reasons.
Why some paths intersect , why some stories intercept?
I know  , I'll never find  some answers.

There are moments when you are missed ,
when i walk with slight slow pace thinking you are by my side
When i try to sing with voice not so nice ,
As i try to correct my bad habits ,
I hear you say , " don't want to see you that way "

I wondered if this search has any ending ,
May be you will never show up ,
I know you will giggle listening this part of the story ,
Anyways, you will know the other part of the journey.

Confusion galore , i know for sure ,
I shall clear the the path we shall walk together,
I will listen more and speak less ,
Will read you and won't bother about writing ,
Caring you will be like getting cared ,
Slow motion it is as i try to peep into my future ,
It feels good , at last , you will be there.

Retail in india : Where we are going?

" Oho Dipika ji...Lijiye aapka sab saaman taiyaar " . This immortal line from that Nirma Ad when the lady visits neighborhood grocery shop. Government of India has taken decision to allow 51% FDI in Indian retail market . No wonder , big debate has been going on , amidst protests and statements from some important and some not so important people. Everyone has own opinion, some can be easily termed as hypocrites who are opposing their own statements they made other day ; some are stupid at best saying they will burn foreign shops if opened . What about the people who will be actually affected? Some will gain out of this decision. Moving away from technicalities and the raging debate , i would like to look into the world where we interact with the traditional Kirana shop and how things may and may not be same again .

The immediate question comes into mind is , what things will not be same?

1: The natural smile of the attendant at kirana shop will be replaced by the artificial smile of the attendants in super malls.

2: You will not be asking new year calendar when you shop on the new year eve.

3: How you can ask for that extra chili for free at the mall after buying weekly vegetable stock? Asking for some stuffs which are given without measurement i.e. ginger for rupee 1 Or mixture of spices for rupee 5 .

4: Can the statement : " you save rupees xyz , if you buy this. " , replace the original form of bargain?

5: You will not be treated like god for being first customer/last customer.

6: What about returning things you bought which is not defective , but somehow you want to return that? Just try returning goods you bought from the super market store and we know how nasty and crazy things can get.

Having said this , buying all things under one roof can be good and bad idea as well. People can defend saying , " I don't have time to look for different options". Next question comes , we are running after what? The joy of buying vegetables confirming the market price by asking from 2-3 shops seems best market practice. They say FDI will improve the infrastructure and supply chain . Can we not understand nuances of supply chain management by knowing how we distribute news papers daily or how the the milk supply chain works on daily basis? But at the same time can there be no alternative path where we can improve the infrastructure without forcing closure of our neighborhood kirana shop or for that matter roadside vendors?

Before closing , i would like to mention here one recent event. Here it goes..

I decided to buy a sari for my mom and to make matters worse , i had to gift this as a surprise . So , i could not ask for valuable inputs from mom i.e. which color , which design etc . Somehow , i could not outsource this work on time and i had to perform this activity. What to do? which shop ? which design? at what time? Of what price? . I knew , i had to explain to mom , this-is-the-best-buy-after-elaborate-bargaining . I started devising algorithm and used delay-and-wait technique. I zeroed on to the tried and tested formula , be the last customer.This happened by constraint , rather than by choice , weird office timing and lazy me contributing to the resultant scenario . I reached the shop at around 10pm . They were almost drawing the shutters down. Did give the specification in some vague words i.e. color , medium price range , it's for Mom etc etc. The difficult part of action point was still with me , choose the best one and then look for bargain!. I did implement the screening procedure , though i was not sure of the criteria, May be it was first view and randomization . After first round short listing , it came to take final decision and bargain price. Thankfully , the shopkeeper agreed to good bargain ; at least it seemed to me , price was reduced by 200 from marked price. So deal was done and it came to completing formalities i.e. Paying the money ,take receipt , packaging. Wait! the situation had to become more win-win , at least it seemed to me . The shopkeeper offered 50 rupee less price than the agreed price , just because i was last customer. The Being-Last-customer situation had worked without me insisting on the same. Technically , i had completed the shopping part and was about to leave. Suddenly , it occurred to me , Man! something is missing!. After slight stress on my memory cells , i got the reason; Mom usually asks for complementary handkerchief at the end of shopping for sari activity . I placed one gentle query before the shopkeeper asking to put one handkerchief with the sari. He obliged with a natural smile. Mom was more than happy when she found that "extra" handkerchief . She knew , what must have happened.

May be , we love to shop in big place i.e. shopping mall, but memories are created in small places. I wish both foreign retail shops and Local kirana stores thrive together, I will see how things turn up.If foreign retail shops are dreams for many including me , local kirana shops form sweet memories. When dreams and memories shake hands , we are not sure which is better.

p.s : As i type these words , the song , "let it be : from movie desi Boyz " is playing on my pnone. My favourite for the moment.

when " what-happened "

This has been a long time since i troubled my blogspot account to make any blog entry. Even if the motivation was there to do so but sometimes not easy access to infrastructure and many times my-lazy-self did help me not to do the same . Last year during this time i was addicted to blogging and i did learn many things by reading others. Many times i wondered how diverse the blog world is with so many special people writing special things. here comes my blog entry after long delay....

Without wasting any more space-time here is what i have in my mind right now as i am trying to give words to my thoughts. This is about strange feeling of not believing in what is happening around us ( in +ve sense ) . We correlate this feeling with some dream . Eyes fail to perceive the reality of the scenario. Ears accept everything in moments of submission.However, in this anarchy exists beauty of the moment. Thoughts come galore to save the moment in most raw form and make it part of in erasable crystal clear memory.

In last 10 days i had many such moments which came after long wait. I can say those moments are easily part of sweetest memories my brain cells have/will-have. Not that every thing went as thought while waiting for the moment. Things just take their way just like flowing water. One can feel that emotions can't be guided according to the plan. At the same time regrets are not associated with whatever happens because it happens spontaneously . The helplessness hardly brings bad feeling about one's self-ability. Falling is not equated with failure in this case . Those who have experience will call, " this happens" , those who go through such moments actually know , " this happens " .

Nothing remains in this world static with ever changing space/time , but we can always savor the sweetness of sweet moments and with time some moments become more sweet when we understand actually what happened .

p.s : what happened has not been disclosed for obvious reasons :)