From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

Happenings in the air: India with 6.9% growth rate, second highest in the world after China’s 8.9%, is exhibiting extraordinary miscellany. The gradual shift of economic power from West to East is becoming evident when you hear of growth 1.6%, 1.5%, 1.4%, 0.8% and minus 1% of USA, Germany, France, UK and Japan respectively. Developed nations are grappling with recession and steep unemployment. Something positive is in the air in India, you won’t believe the entrepreneurship among young working class people. They’re not waiting for Government to give them jobs.

In my nonstop research interactions with people in different social layers I find their differences are becoming spectacular and really juicy. The mobile phone and motorbike have become most valuable in money-making for 20 to 30-year-olds in macro-rural areas (70-100 kms from cities). Young professionals like electricians, TV repairmen, plumbers, mechanics and masons in macro-rurals are criss-crossing a large circumference to service their customers. They are working hard, earning more and placing enjoyment as an agenda to be fulfilled. Acquiring an experimenting mindset, their caste prejudices are quickly vanishing. A low-caste barber’s job is viewed as lucrative business. The simple haircut for men has become serpentine. You can charge differently for full hair colour, streaked look, gel finish, curly effect. The post-cut massage has segregated costs too for only head, or neck-shoulder-arms, or extended-to-back. Specialization is clearly the name of the game.

Digital livelihood: The stolid kirana shop, those about 10 million mom&pop grocery stores dotting the length and breadth of India selling daily needs, is changing when handled by the young. Following digital trends, young kiranawalas are proving that virtual power provides better livelihood with services non-existent before. In macro-rurals they are buying Rs 18,000 computers to download all types of music and cinema, from Bollywood to Hollywood. They even have a global collection of pornography. Their open sales talk with knowledge about different kinds of sex acts and exciting virtual fare they’re peddling will make porn-watching Karnataka legislators look innocent. For Rs 30 the kiranawala will fill 2GB space to the brim with porno, movies, songs. If you only have Rs 10, don’t fret. That’s worth one movie or 3 songs. Their consumers are the local Zap generation below 30 years.

Most striking in this new trend is India’s 360-degree shift from a conserving society to becoming consumption-oriented. When I asked how they store what they buy in the Rs 2500 Nokia mobile phone which supports 32 GB only, or even cheaper Chinese mobiles that support 16 GB space, they replied they delete everything after 2-3 times usage. This delete action means throwing money into the dustbin. This is real change. It reminds me of a story a Bengali friend narrated about how a Licence Raj banker, after returning from higher education in England, was given a Director’s position, and he eulogized about bank automation through computer usage. Employees felt happy when he said everybody can now discard their huge piles of paper. The Director ended his speech saying, “Before throwing away all old documents, keep a photocopy at least.” From such a savings mentality to today’s throw-away outlook, it’s certainly been a long journey.

Lipstick is like wall paint: In 1996 when I modernized Lakme brand, 25 to 30-year-old Indian women consumers had said that Lakme is the only brand that understands Indian skin and beauty. They’d attend the research sessions wearing bright lipstick, but this generation has become old fashioned now. Today’s urban young girls below 30 years loathe lipstick. They say it’s sticky, over-painted, theatrical, vanishes when you eat, reminds them of mother’s generation, and doesn’t match their attire. They prefer lip gloss only. This new trend is exclusively Indian, not happening anywhere else in the world. Just to give an idea, Western Europe generates $6 billion per year from lipstick alone, whereas India sells only $81 million (Rs 400 crores) lipsticks, of which 20% is lip gloss. This breakthrough trend doesn’t mean Indian women aren’t alert about looking good. From the language of their body hugging and revealing apparel you can observe how conscious they are of a sexy representation. About 15-20 years ago when the prevalent sari covered everything, you couldn’t gauge a girl’s figure. Today her dressing style demarcates her body shape.

Gold is yellow metal: These same young women have created another disruption in beauty. Earlier, possessing gold jewelry was the biggest craze, to show-off, indicate status, wealth and family tradition. This trend has disappeared among the young. They call it yellow metal, and find it monotonous, traditional, the older woman’s fashion, not for them. Just to satisfy parents at family gathering and weddings, they wear it but are uncomfortable. Artificial jewelry is trendy for them, far superior to mix-n-match with their dress. Enormous choice in artificial jewelry helps them change their mood, fantasize, and surprise everyone around them. If you look at their dressing drawer, you’d be pleasantly surprised. They continuously buy artificial jewelry. In the West I’ve heard women use artificial jewelry for the cost factor, but they still admire gold.

Quantity vs. economy: This young generation is not only changing trends but changing usage pattern too. Their consumption, in terms of both quantity and variety, of face and body lotion or cream is very high compared to their mothers. A pot of cream the mother uses for 3 months, the daughter will finish in a fortnight. They rationalize this by saying they are working girls exposed to pollution outside so they have to protect their skin’s smoothness. The manufacturer of course is joyous, per capita growth is unlimited in future.

In the West, collective trend forecast has been organized industry’s business model, but India’s business houses are yet to develop this practice. In so many different layers of society so many things are happening like a serpentine avenue. If as a manufacturer you’re not curious, you don’t look out for the latent trend, you may lose out.

To download above article in PDF Serpentine avenue of trends

Financial Express link:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/serpentine-avenue-of-trends/913910/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

It wasn’t customers who took the initiative to want quality. Entrepreneurs with business ingenuity, as well as visionary industries seeking an edge in the customer’s mind, surprised them with quality they were not expecting. But today, customers have already lapped up the new that businesses offered them. They’ve reversed industry’s dominance over them. Its quality customers want (QCW), and customers have learnt to command it, making industries bend backwards to provide QCW.

Changing service rules: Let’s go back a century to see how industry raised the quality sense of the customer. In 1907, 19-year-old Jim Casey borrowed $100 to found a six-bicycle messenger service that later went on to challenge United States Post Office (USPO) in existence since 1775. Calling the company United Parcel Service from 1919, UPS totally surprised people with faster and quality home delivery couriers. Just imagine, up to 1906 nobody even bothered to think beyond the Post Office to receive parcels. This quality business model educated American masses that an alternative beyond USPO is possible. It kicked off customer expectation. Sensing opportunity, competition then jumped in with differentiated services. From here, courier service ballooned into a big industry, compelling the Government’s $ 65.71 billion USPO to downsize every year by closing down post offices. Conversely, the top 3 courier companies continue to grow like UPS with $53.1bn, FedEx $ 39.3bn, and DHL $52.76 in 2011. Today UPS alone delivers over 15 million packages every day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries. To stay in business, industry has no choice but to provide better and better QCW, quality customers want.

World Wars raised the quality bar: Two bloody World Wars that claimed ~80 million lives contributed tremendously to industrial quality upgradation. Quality obsession was tremendous to win the war. The Allies were not prepared for Hitler’s war weaponry aimed to prove Germany’s technological power. America had to beef up research to make weapons of higher quality. From 1942 to 1945, Allies vs Axis was purely a quality fight of weapons superiority. Hitler’s ultimate dream was 1000 years of worldwide Nazi rule. Even the simple barbed fence pillars of Auschwitz concentration camp were accurately well built although they were rapidly constructed in 1940. The conclusion we can draw from historical evidence is that defence industry during the World Wars also raised quality bar.

Japanese changed European auto industry rules: Even dropping the atom bomb in World War II could not crush Japan’s human collective ingenuity to come out from the destruction. They have taken a single point value addition to the world which is quality. Europeans invented the automobile, the Japanese invested in QCW. I remember in my different US business trips in the 1980s, I’d become fascinated with Japanese cars booming in US markets. But Japanese cars had a hard time entering Europe as protectionism discouraged a Japanese manufacturing hub here. My French auto dealer would say, "Careful, if you have an accident you have to wait 2-3 months for Japanese spares. Also, insurance cost is exorbitant.” In those days, Europe was selling a bare-bones car; you had to pay extra for option of accessories such as air conditioning, music system, right side mirror, sun-visor, automatic window glass opener and other features. Industries regulations were galore, you had to drive the first 1000 km at a certain speed, service it after 1500 km, pay for the second service starting 5000 km and so on. In one fell swoop of ingenious quality, the Japanese handed over the car keys to the buyer. Fully loaded with all features, the car offered free service after 10,000 kms and you can drive at whatever speed you want from Day One. The Japanese simply showed customers how to increase their "want," established QCW in Europe and changed the rule of the market.

QCW for push-cart or BMW? One day in Kolkata I found a flamboyant person driving a sophisticated BMW convertible. Alongside him was a push-cart with a front-puller, a back-pusher and 3 people in the centre holding the merchandize. Both the rich and poor were enjoying Kolkata’s winter breeze under the open sky. Which customer’s requirement should the QCW of this road be based on, the BMW convertible that needs a smooth tarred road or a dirt road that would be fine for the push-cart? Living with extreme tolerance in India’s diversity, we’ve not been able to appreciate quality at the mass level. These past 60 years the common man’s been dependent on different party politicians claiming to represent the poor, There’s no single point of good and bad, as laid down in non-Hindu, one-God religions, so it’s difficult to identify the quality that politics requires in this multi-cultural society. Similarly it’s difficult to imagine what collective QCW to apply. Without commonly set standardized norms, it’s clear that business houses have a great opportunity to drive the QCW delivery model.

Indian Masses required advanced small machine for livelihood generation : In developed countries, invention through industrial design for different types of machines has raised the livelihood and lifestyle of the masses even during the great depression. India’s masses similarly require modern portable machines incorporated with mechanical and digital engineering for their livelihood.Everybody is not an office babu . The backbone of the country’s working class strength is the small farmer to independent entrepreneurs in multiple domains. This young generation of self-employed workers has huge urge to grow in life but in the absence of proper machines to ease their work they cannot earn more

For developing such engineering products, we cannot always go to developed countries to get designs done as they don’t understand the diverse quality definition of India’s common people. It is time for the Indian industry to lead the way in raising the exceptional quality bar for masses of India. Indian workers quality consciousness has risen from influence of globalization, television and user friendly mobile phones. The Indian industry need to provide these evolved workers high quality standard machines that “reduce effort, increase comfort”. “Reduce effort, increase comfort” is a framework for engineering products I’d established and wrote about in my book “Jalebi Management.” Engineering products manufacturers can apply this framework for designing products this workforce can use. This will make the workforce more skilled with the consciousness of a new kind of QCW that the Indian industry can provide them. Doing so can change the face of the country’s economy in next decade by developing poor people’s working skill. Is it not the time for Indian industry to raise the way UPS and Japanese did ?

To download above article in PDF Intelligent industries pushed the quality button

Financial Express link:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/intelligent-industries-pushed-the-quality-button/910988/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

“Religion is the opium of the masses,” said Communism ideologue Karl Marx. Had he experienced the political scenario after imperialism and feudalism, he may have said politics is more than opium, it’s anesthesia to make the population sleep. However, nobody can deny that a country’s cultural base is always religion.

I’ve been introspecting about why, collectively, India is not quite quality-centric. In business workshops I try to project that as a deliverable’s hidden part is its real quality, companies should stretch to score here. But this non-visible quality area gets scant attention from participants, both senior and junior management. They appear not to seriously consider it. Being at a loss to understand this, let me hazard an analysis with religious roots as QCW (quality customers want) has been this column’s subject these past 4 weeks. Please take my analysis without prejudice; I respect every individual’s faith; that starts from my mother who’s religious.

France, my adopted country since I’ve been 19, is Catholic dominated. Here God is one and good and bad values well established. It’s the only credibly anchored religion existing in exactly the same administrative way for 2000 years in the Vatican. Christianity’s doctrines and dogmas have underlying rational factors that bind Christians (2.2 billion today) in a strong belief system. Catholic rules were so strong that in 1559, refusing to go to church attracted a 12 pence fine. Religion doesn’t allow killing, yet politics found a way to eliminate enemies. They’d legitimized political death sentence by pulling in a Catholic priest to certify that society is sacrificing its evil side. The guilty is told his death has cleansed society. But he’s pardoned with, "God will save you" proving how politics anaesthetizes society beyond religion.

Before the Church gave freedom of expression in art, literature and science in end-15th century, people weren’t allowed to think, create or write anything beyond God. Using this liberalization, Western society mesmerized the world with invention after invention that defied Nature to have control over the universe. But their value system called "valeur rationelle" is always recognizable. All consciously follow cultural attachment to one God, one principal rational belief system to avoid God’s wrath. If you extrapolate Christianity’s single God and belief factor, you will find it exists in Islam, Buddhism, Judaism. These believers in any country have the same understanding because their known, indoctrinated practices glue them culturally. To enter the faith you have to convert through a religious ceremony.  When a mixture of Catholics, Muslims and Jewish live together there’s constant friction, as we witness in Europe today.

In developed countries, not everyone regularly practices religion or believes in God. But their single minded collective focus in one non-visible God is so strong that everyone can easily strive for one goal. They can cooperatively subsume subjectivity towards a common discipline. Sex is taboo in Catholicism, allowed only for procreation. A section of Christians revolted against this denial of sex and abortion. But in spite of disruptions and perversions, a religious principle binds believers to their non-visible God, His representative sits in the Vatican. This collective “valeur rationelle” has made Western business practices very strong in the objective of providing quality customers want (QCW).

Coming now to Hindu-dominated India, we find hundreds of Gods and Goddesses across South, East, North, West. Hinduism is a way of life. There’s no compulsion from religious dogma. Everyone is a Hindu, every individual’s inclination towards God can differ by personal choice. Inside a region or family, 2 persons can worship 2 different Gods. This miscellany along with all other religions secular India accepts, makes ours a vast multiplicity of people requiring no sanction from anyone. So by religion itself we are democratic, even before we claim being the world’s biggest political democracy. Appreciation of this liberty is the birth of Hare Krishna movement and hippies in the 1960s when Western Christians sought sanctuary from religious domination and materialism. They looked eastwards to find spirituality.

Only in this open-minded milieu of India can you nurture flexibility to drive a $70 billion global business. That’s the strength of India’s IT industry which year on year unleashes thousands of engineers to service MNC companies in every corner of the globe. Free-thinking and tolerance have unparalleled value, however, collective discipline becomes a challenge in this egalitarian culture. Industrial business systems require quality delivery without deviation and quality customers want (QCW) requires collective focus. This is where different people having different interpretations snowballs into a huge concern. India has no QCW standard in any domain. Traditional handicrafts is India’s forte, here your expectation is not quality, but aesthetics. Is Hinduism’s diversity making it more of a challenge to achieve QCW than anywhere else?  My research and sensitive inquiry reveals that Hinduism’s go-as-you-like system is subliminally ingrained in majority of India’s population. So collectively, one standard quality has not been easy to gain.

It’s normal for every company in India to have employees of different religions and beliefs. But as company culture, how do you align them to a single-minded quality drive? In the globalized world where the scale of product and service duplication is the big business game, there’s now a clash of understanding "valeur rationelle" or non-visible quality customers want. The only way to address QCW in India is for every industry to define its quality parameters by filtering the QCW in that industry. An internal process has to then stringently drive these filtered points as a single company culture.

After all, what’s QCW but the straight route to customer repeat purchase? Living in the West has disciplined me to obsessively ferret out non-visible factors that strengthen quality in any delivery. My urge is to always fortify the working process root of every product or service by incorporating quality customers want (QCW). Businesses in India, both domestic and foreign, require huge QCW discipline. Cultural flexibility was thumbs up for the IT industry; QCW is the sure-fire win for each and every company’s growth. Indian companies will succeed in competitive global markets only when employees mandatorily drive each company’s identified QCW parameters.

To download above article in PDF Is quality cultural?

Financial Express link:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/is-quality-cultural/907947/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

When I was a sweeper in a Paris lithography print shop from 1974 to 1976, I sometimes had to rub two very heavy stone slabs for hours to create the texture for lithography. One day, renowned French painter Lucien Fontanarosa who’d come there for his lithography and knew me as a painter, was very sympathetic seeing me, a skinny artist engaged in hard labour. He raised my spirits saying the duplication I was sweating over was very noble work.

Route to industrial duplication=QCW (quality customers want): Fontanarosa explained how duplication first came from German Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press around 1440. Gutenberg made it possible to precisely duplicate written words in large quantities for people to communicate far and wide. Then in 1796 Bavarian author Alois Senefelder invented a method for duplicating paintings through lithography copy by using stones or metal plates. French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced the first permanent photographic image in 1826. Then American Thomas Alva Edison invented sound reproduction in the phonograph, 1877. The departure of duplication for industrial production improvement was introduced by American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor. His famous Taylor System in the assembly line at Ford Motors changed industrial efficiency for all time.

From here to the vinyl disc to Xerox, cassettes, Microsoft to the iPod, a huge industry has been created for large scale reproduction. In the backdrop of such inventions, the biggest headache Western companies had faced was introducing an uncontestable quality parameter. They had to ensure QCW across geographies would always be met. Actually this mass industrial duplication ended up as globalization. Reproductive power was transferred from the West to Southeast Asia, first Japan, then Korea and Malaysia, and now China is the big manufacturing hub churning out high quality duplication. The quality of the duplicated product is often not visible to customers during purchase, but without QCW, a brand will never gain global acceptance. So it’s clear the inventive Western reproductive model simultaneously addresses quality through product durability in its lifecycle. Southeast Asia is excelling in quality reproduction. Will India always remain the user only for lack of quality duplication ability?

In today’s digital world, the QCW concept for industrial duplication has totally changed. From providing durability and functionality in the mechanical era, the quality customers want today is better user interface through innovations such as iPod has provided. Also, digital duplication is easy and cheap now, and in fact can make a bad sound copy into a good one by erasing noise, or cleaning up the background of a picture. However, as industry is still largely physical manufacturing oriented, industrial duplication will continue to need the QCW oxygen.

Mathematical quality system is stale, not QCW: Indian companies often make quality processes boringly routine, akin to pure mathematics which merely gives a count, and never did deliver anything by itself. Mathematics when driven with physics, chemistry and economics has changed the world through human intelligence and inventions. QCW is that vast chemistry-physics-economics combine of the customer’s spending logic and pattern. Traversing its multiple avenues can change a company’s perspection, like Samsung’s meteoric rise within 20 years to acquire top-of-mind in consumer electronics across the world by delivering the QCW value. Upto 1990, people only knew of Grundig, Philips, Sony; now even Sony expects to sell out 50% of its stake in an LCD joint-venture to Samsung.

Leaders unnecessarily force an inside-out approach: Often your company’s quality system may compel you to follow an “inside-out” approach which you may not like to disturb as it puts you in a comfort zone. At the same time you’ll be asked to create differentiation in your product or service delivery for better market share, growth and profit. The root cause of why many inventor companies like Polaroid or Kodak in the photography print domain have become obsolete is sedimentation in their QCW delivery. Today’s digital technology world is bringing newness every fortnight. Only an “outside-in” approach cannot measure up to market reality commanded by QCW. The QCW quotient is changing very rapidly too as customers are experiencing products and services from diverse trend setting industries such as mobile phones, cameras among others.

Be sensitive to the unseen side. QCW also means addressing areas that are not visible or apparent. In different engineering workshops I’ve taken an expensive brassiere to demonstrate how women are ready to flaunt money on the quality value to get tremendous inner comfort and beauty in a garment that’s not exposed to the public. Why do women spend on non-visible fashion? This just proves that a product’s hidden glamour can evoke extreme hedonistic desire. The inner finish of products often lacks QCW. If you were to lift the smart seat of a stylish car, and it doesn’t look as terrific on the inside, wouldn’t you be disappointed? These industrial duplication areas require huge improvement in India. As do mass service areas like toilets with imported German sanitary-ware in our new malls and airports that you cannot enter because of the stink from poor maintenance. So service that has to be reproduce-able also has a front and reverse side, and both merit to have QCW.

The unseen part of the product or service creates customer trust, “I believe in it,” bringing in repeat purchase. "It works well for me" is the customer’s functional usage advantage while “It looks good” is the emotive pull. From stone lithography to carbon copy, cyclostyling, photocopy to digital scan reproduction shows that functional excellence upliftment with better technology easily makes the old obsolete. My priority in working for Indian companies is to sensitize them to make the QCW (rational) attribute as infallible for industrial duplication products and services for the masses. Duplication is an inherent part of business so driving QCW practice with latent trends into your industry will always be relevant to bring the future near and create the nextmark.

To download above article in PDF Industrial duplication needs QCW oxygen

Financial Express link:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/industrial-duplication-needs-qcw-oxygen/904994/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

You can have multiple ways to look at quality customers want (QCW). Appearance, functional experience and trust of any product or service are QCW parameters. When you see a cart vendor shining his customer-facing apples to always look inviting, you know it’s not just an ephemeral emotive factor, an apple looking good gives quality assurance. So you want to instantly bite it. Its appearance seduces you to buy it. When you devour the apple experiencing its succulent taste as functional quality, you’re simultaneously convinced psychologically about the high quality of this breed of apples, which was not visible at the time of purchase. But on biting, if you didn’t like the quality of experience, you’ll automatically stop eating it, and lose confidence on it. So only looking good is never enough to win the trust of quality. From looks to the bite function upto the root that allowed quality growth, all have to be orchestrated for the customer to experience quality. There could be a catch on bite enjoyment, which can be disastrous if the produce is bad. Or another nuance could be customers preferring a different type of taste. Some like the juice to sputter when bitten, others like a grainy bite and so on, proving that one quality parameter cannot be suitable for all.

That’s because customers have 4 types of requirement: expressed need and desire, and unarticulated need and desire. Products or services in a category always require different pricing segments. For example a woman’s handbag can cost Rs 200 from street vendors and upto Rs 200,000 from Louis Vuitton; both are available within a short distance in the same market. Today we also have trendsetters like Apple, Google, Facebook, Nike and Samsung among others, that influence every industry. They’ve changed the customer’s habit, perspective and expectations in everyday use products and services. If you use the QCW framework, it will oblige you to very specifically diagnose the customer’s psychographics in micro detail. Let’s elaborately look at the 4 types of customer need.

Expressed need: Women’s consciousness about hair is more imperative than men’s. Can she ever accept going bald? So any therapy on hair care is an expressed need. Science can continue to evolve on how to protect hair fall because there’ll always be market scope here if the scientific believable factor with naturalness is tangible. This market often faces a traffic jam with multiple lifestyle advertising showing beautiful women with plenty of hair. But is it so easy for the many brands in this category to make customers believe without proving their tangible benefits? Customers will never pay attention if products in expressed need areas are not disruptive and scientifically proven.

Expressed desire: When people learn to walk at childhood, their first desire is to run. Professionals set the running trend; people follow them in the hope of overcoming health issues. That’s when intelligent industries put the treadmill in the market. Continuing running from open natural surroundings to a treadmill in the gymnasium’s limited space is the real conversion of expressed desire. This expressed desire, which is another angle of QCW, can be further uplifted to become more desirable. So the treadmill can be made to calculate performance, body and pulse movement, even putting a touch screen TV system for continuous addition in the expressed desire category. In future you’ll be running in a treadmill in front of a virtual life-size screen image taking you to different countries or situations virtually.

Unarticulated need: After Thomas Alva Edison invented sound duplication in the 19^th century, the entertainment industry expanded with endless varieties of music, with phenomenal array from rhythm to cultural contexts in different countries. When we have so many collections of old vinyl records, cassettes or CDs, will we ever listen to them all through different playing instruments? Will we ever have the time or inclination to go back to different periods of our music collection? By simplifying all applications, Apple iPod responded to this unarticulated need of experiencing any part of one’s own musical collection anytime, anywhere, with a finger tip. We can carry diverse, unlimited musical entertainment in the pocket. Apple did not invent any musical paradigm, merely catered to an unarticulated need.

If perfectly designed with simplification, any unarticulated need product can make obsolete a lot of standard systems in the world. The iPod practically killed the cassette Walkman and CD player. You as an entrepreneur can always create a new habit by giving birth to a new unarticulated need in any domain if you have the urge to grab society’s latent trend. But you have to submerge yourself in a continuous QCW bath.

Unarticulated desire: You cannot ignore the human desire to see everything in big size. Pulling the chewing gum to experiment its stretch-ability, or blowing bigger and bigger bubbles in the mouth is an unexpressed desire. That’s why inventions like the magnifying glass, binoculars, telescope, even the microscope, have been so successful, and used for diverse purposes. All these enlarging habits already exist. Taking habit and putting it in the telephone screen is unarticulated desire. By inventing the picture or text enlargement system in the mobile phone, Apple fulfilled this unarticulated desire. With two fingers you touch an object on the screen, move your fingers apart the picture will enlarge. This action feels truly hedonistic. This trend has become like a need, so people have the tendency to see if this progressive enlargement is there in other products where there is a virtual screen.

The possibility of transferring some human habit in one industry to another industry can change the whole category. If QCW drives your quality process and discipline in your enterprise, you can address perceptible value in any of the 4 needs of the customer.

To download above article in PDF Quality beyond its process

Financial Express link:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/quality-beyond-its-process/902404/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

The biggest hunger of global brands across industries is on how to make low priced products that have “QCW,” quality customers want. This is the key to repeat purchase.

Impacted by the high standard of global brands in India, customers are experiencing and getting habituated to elevated quality where the efficiency of rational factors is exposed. Let’s take 3 sectors where QCW is enjoyed at affordable rates: McDonald’s offers an American burger lunch at Rs 25 in air-conditioned, extremely hygienic setting. French Hotel Ibis provides perceptible quality comfort and ambience at 3-star hotel rates. Toyota’s Quality Revolution is setting benchmarks for the automobile industry.

This QCW illustration shows that in any given category customers have their own or influenced perception of the quality spark. Switching to QCW brands, customers are making several Indian brands ruling the roost in the Licence Raj era lose their market leadership. In automobiles or consumer electronics, Hindustan Motors or BPL, Videocon, Onida and Godrej dominated the market till the 1997. Today people willingly pay a higher price for competing foreign brands but they’ll haggle with Indian brands in every market segment when QCW is not perceived. Sony, Samsung and LG conquered the consumer electronics market, bringing in new technology, customer focus and perceivable sparkling quality from reliability (rational factor), functionality and the aesthetic (emotive) edge.

The clash emerging now is that India is following the lifestyle of developed countries where rational factor efficiency is very high. Take a look at QCW illustration Point 3, of industries that impose the trend. Examples of trendy brands are McDonald’s in fast food, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Rolex in luxury products, and Apple, Google, Nikon, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung in technology. In personal care its L’Oreal, Forbes and Vogue among magazines, in financial institutions HSBC, American Express, in apparel Zara, Esprit and Hugo Boss while vehicles coveted are Harley Davidson, BMW and Audi and sports wear Nike and Adidas. Through inventions that go against Nature, Western society created products and living style that reduce effort and increase comfort for people in every domain. Whatever social culture we may follow, we cannot ignore the comfort standards provided in the refrigerator, automobile, mobile phone, the lift to Facebook among others in our daily life. The more our country develops, it’s obvious we’ll minutely follow the well defined materialistic lifestyle of developed countries. So the only choice Indian brands have to sustain in the market is to uplift the rational quality spark.

Every company has to take into account the customer’s perception of quality, the competitive environment and trendy industries that influence the customer. My priority in working for Indian companies and their employees is to sensitize them to make infallible the non-visible rational attribute of a product or service. Employees have to be trained on QCW beyond any standard quality process. To actually achieve quality customers want, the company has to inspire and control its vendors on the QCW definition with precision in the purchase order. Most global brands outsource from China giving precise quality parameters, and China delivers accordingly. But Indians often criticize Chinese products, which may not be China’s fault as they admit they’ll compromise quality standards based on the cost the manufacturer bargains for.

Offering high salaries, multinational companies in India are stringently imposing their proven processes and customer centricity to bring global quality standard. I’ve heard that Indian professionals are leaving MNCs to return to Indian organizations, that have since revised their salary structure to keep up with MNCs, to get better freedom at work. The catch here is if “freedom at work” means ignoring QCW, how can Indian companies improve? According to me, business cannot sustain, whether it’s corporate performance, the brand, industrial product design or organised retail, if the quality spark is missing. Indian brands need to ignite QCW to ensure repeat purchase and be globally competitive.

To download above article in PDF Ignite QCW, Quality Customers Want

Financial Express link:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ignite-qcw-quality-customers-want/899725/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

Indian industry is married to quality processes, but not to perceptible quality in the customer’s hand that Japanese and Korean companies deliver. Implementing quality process engineering is a hygiene factor that delivers no competitive edge. Unless the society’s state of mind is driven by the consciousness of quality supremacy, no quality system will fall in place for Indian brands to meet the challenge of global competition. Quality in customer hand first creates trust; in long term usage it becomes believable. It’s totally non-visible, a hidden factor. The customer experiences this quality at the discretion of the enterprise providing it.

In postgraduate institutes or customer centricity training workshops for Indian companies, whenever I’ve tried to expose the hidden quality factor that creates customer trust and loyalty, I’ve confronted a wall called quality process. R&D engineers, marketing, customer service and top management revere ISO, TQM, Deming or Six Sigma quality which translate to working in a system that brings discipline and defect free processes. But when every company follows the same system in a category, does it create differentiation that the customer receives? As a product’s repeat purchase is dependent on customer choice, surely the customer’s appreciation of the “quality spark” beyond any process is the paramount quality parameter to run after?

Some of my professional friends who’ve undergone my training sessions and are now working expatriates in Germany and Korea, have called me to endorse this “quality spark” that customers want. They’ve said they’re actually experiencing what they couldn’t appreciate in India. Realizing the value of quality as the rational factor for a customer to confidently and repeatedly buy a brand, they’ve said, “Developed society is highly differentiated, products are matched minutely to specific customer unstated needs. Their eco system is driven by quality that world class products and technologies compete in.” Another comment was, “Pent up demand is huge in India, and low price is the driving factor. Indian industrial development has accordingly been based on need, not experience or expression. Products are considered okay when it satisfies the basic intended purpose.”

Neither manufacturer nor employees easily understand or focus on the hidden rational quality. They call Mercedes, BMW, Louis Vuitton, Mont Blanc among others as costly lifestyle and status brands, but never ask how they’ve become so recognized globally. No education or training system has apprised them of the invention, innovation and sustaining quality guaranteed on the lifecycle of these products. I’ve never heard anyone here talk about the many trials, failures, tests and customer clinics these brands have undergone. They admire the brands only from visible glamorous advertisements.

That tells me that India’s cultural experience ignores the grid of quality excellence. In general, saris sell on weaving style and folkloric designs from different states. Sari shops give no guarantee on color as they say there’s no single, processed cleaning system. Consumers happily street-shop beautifully designed footwear at amazingly low prices. They don’t bother with quality, just design and color. In jewelry, weight of gold is the first check, next is design. Rarely do women focus on the clasp’s robustness which is intrinsic to quality. Unhygienic selling conditions at mom&pop stores or small eateries are tolerated if the food tastes fine. These few examples among others show that quality consciousness is vulnerable. Will Indian brands sustain the future when global brands fiercely compete in India with sparkling quality, affordable price?

My long European society experience has taught me the importance of hidden quality that’s their cultural phenomenon. On curious probing, I always got the answer that keeping historical records meticulously creates the grid of benchmarking with the best. It established that Mozart remains the master music composer of all time, whereas George Stephenson is respected for his invention of the steam locomotive, although that’s since been bettered with the Chinese CRH380A becoming the world’s fastest train running at 302.8mph.

Industrial production of unlimited quantity made the West conscious of customer expectation of unquestionable quality that sustains the long term and becomes widespread. Product development with differentiating character requires time and money. The more solid and unparalleled the quality of reproduction compared to competitors, the more can you eventually sell. The product’s market longevity improves to encash high return on investment.

"It works well for me" is the functional factor of a customer delivery. Functionality is the prime criterion of a selling proposition. Human society development always happened with excellence of functional upliftment eg. From stone lithography copy to carbon copy, cyclostyling to photocopy to digital scan reproduction shows functional upliftment where better technology easily makes the old obsolete.

The key factor is rational, which I’ve found very difficult to make people here understand. Rational means non-visible quality support for emotive and functional attributes to sustain product longevity eg. In the hospitality industry, if a hotel uses sophisticated German sanitaryware but maintenance is poor, you have to close your nose to get rid of the stink. This totally bypasses the rational factor in the service industry, and mitigates the heavy spend on sanitaryware to look good.

The “looks good” factor is the fragile emotive attribute that instantly differentiates a product or service. But repeat purchase cannot happen if functionality fails, eg. If a perfume bottle looks beautiful but the spray jet, the functional part, hurts your body, you will never buy the perfume again. To make the functional part soothing requires superfine technology that customers cannot see. This non-visible rational part is the manufacturer’s discretion to make the spray system acceptable.

You can experience functionality upfront, see and appreciate the emotive factor, but you have to trust the company’s brand for the product’s intrinsic quality at the moment of purchase. How do you build that?

I don’t believe people regularly buy a product or service based on emotion through its ad or sophisticated presentation. Customer believability for repeat purchase lies on “sparkling quality” that’s non-visible. Quality is the assurance of the product’s functionality during its lifecycle. So you need to define “QCW” (quality customer wants) specific to your brand.

To download above article in PDF Sparkling quality a global nextmark?

Financial Express link:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/sparkling-quality-a-global-nextmark/897050/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

Consumers in India are suffering unhygienic experiences, erratic price and irregular availability in daily food and FMCG products. Small farmers are suffering the middleman who’s depriving them a fair price. Political opponents to allowing FDI (foreign direct investment) in multi-brand retailing are shouting that mom&pop stores need protection and consumers will be cheated with high prices. Is that really so?

India’s allowed 100% FDI in lifestyle sectors such as automobiles and consumer electronics among others. That’s raised consumer choice and desire levels sky-high. Speedy foreign motorcycles and cars are dangerously dashing down appalling road infrastructure in urban and rural areas. Consumers are flouting minimal safety and traffic control norms, hiking up fatal accident rates. Before allowing this FDI, did the government first secure the roads, safety and traffic control measures? Did political parties make a noise then? Yet when consumers and farmers would gain price advantage rather than remaining in the sacrificing dock, some political parties are barricading FDI in multi-brand retailing. Of course the powerful trader middlemen will be eased out when this happens, is that the stumbling block?

Countries like China, Vietnam and Chile that initially hesitated but have since opened 100% FDI to multi-brand retailing are today enjoying the investments, job creation, introduction of technology, processes and infrastructure. Consumers are benefitting better pricing, better quality, better shopping convenience. As per Chinese analysts, entry of Walmart and Carrefour has changed the way Chinese companies manage business, from farm procurement to logistics. Local Chinese retailers like Shanghai Bailian group, Suning, Gome and Dashang still dominate the retail market as they’ve quickly learnt how to set up new supply chain systems. In fact small retail outlets have risen in China from 1.9 million to 2.5+ million since 2004. US market researcher RNCOS has projected that Vietnam’s retail market sales will increase from $39 billion in 2008 to $85+ billion by 2012. In 2009 alone, FDI in Chile was $6.21 billion. Similarly Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, and Thailand have allowed 100% FDI in multi-brand retail since 1990s. According to a Columbia University study, 10 years after Indonesia opened FDI, small traders continue to retain 90% of the business.

The large majority of farmers in our agrarian economy own a mere 2 acres of land per family of about 7 members. They barely generate Rs 50,000 per year, input costs can reach Rs 30,000. Poverty deprives them of transportation means, so they’re dependent on intermediaries to sell their produce. In a bumper harvest, wholesale market prices dip drastically, leaving the farmer unable to recover his cost. For a kilo of tomatoes, farmers in Barpeta, Assam have even got only 50 paise, whereas Guwahati consumers buy that kilo at Rs 25. Farmers may even jettison unsold produce, as carrying that home would entail transportation cost. Both farmers and consumers lose here, the chain of middlemen dealers from farmer to consumer clearly wins.

No government has resolved unemployment, so common people set up mom&pop stores as a route to survival. The Government grants their license, but without establishing any inspection system on the conditions under which they should sell products. Take the case of edible oil where about 68% is unbranded and sold loose. Mom&pop stores are a kind of godown for simultaneous stock-and-sell. Unhygienic conditions prevail in a large number of mom&pop stores because commodities sold loose from sacks and tins attract rats, lizards, cockroaches and other insects. It’s been reported that when a rat falls into the open loose oil tin, retailers merely strain out the oil. The poor consumer becomes the victim when there are no mandatory checks on quality standards. Unlike organized retails where you can interface what you buy, mom&pop stores actually exercise an anti-democratic consumption pattern. Manufacturers spend excessively for brand promotion, but consumers are always dependent on the counter salesman’s recommendation at mom&pop stores to get the product, especially if they don’t know a category.

Organised multibrand retails, particularly hypermarkets invented by the French, have the extraordinary mission of benefiting consumers through lower cost, higher quality. Economies of scale make this possible. Large retailers go directly to the source, especially with food products. Here the farmer, retailer and consumer all benefit with competitive pricing. In the West, such retails became gigantic only because consumers defended them. From the 1980s, when retailers found that manufacturers were continuing to raise prices for their own interest, they challenged them with the “private label” concept. Retailers created private label brands in different categories and offered them to consumers at 30% lower cost from national brands. Consumers found no quality deficiency here and lapped them up. The result is that FMCG category private labels comprise nearly 60% market share in developed countries.

Like several developing countries did, India will gain from 100% FDI for multi-brand retailing as it’s the biggest sector for the economy’s growth. A new hygienic discipline will be put in place for everyday consumption products. Consumers will enjoy outstanding choice in a self-help purchase pattern, competitive pricing of national and international brands, highly discounted private label pricing and a regular loyalty program. Small farmers will get a fair deal in directly selling to retailers. Retailers will have massive control over short duration perishable products. Current mom&pop store employees with their acquired knowledge of retails will get better jobs in organized retails. Intelligent mom&pop store owners will learn how to convert to elegant convenience stores by selecting the “in case” requirement of consumer merchandize or become franchisees of foreign convenience stores. Their standard will improve, they’ll not be wiped out.

Consumer demand is so high in developed countries that industry, government and politicians cannot ignore it; they have to respond in accordance. Actually it’s not only manufacturer magnanimity that offers consumer benefit, huge pressure from consumers has ensured that consumer benefit becomes the bottomline in retailing. The time has come for Indian consumers to stop sacrificing and start demanding. Let’s enjoy 2012 with 100% FDI in multi-brand retailing, freedom of choice and spend less money at the multi-brand retail.

To download above article in PDF Why should the consumer sacrifice

Financial Express link:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-should-the-consumer-sacrifice/894283/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

Unforgettable memories are all we’ve returned with from Madhyapara village outside Dhaka. For my father, this was a nostalgic return after 63 years to our ancestral home they’d abandoned during Partition riots. Hospitable occupants at our lost home were inviting my parents to spend more time here, but unknown to us, a hostile undercurrent was gathering momentum. They were afraid we were coming to repossess our 400-acre mislaid property, especially as Bangladesh Parliament had recently passed an amendment to ease “enemy property” recovery. We later heard they were livid with the man who first identified my great grandfather. They mistakenly thought we’d bribed him to help us reclaim our land.

My father’s childhood memory determined the places we’d visit. He recalled the Padma river ferry junction from where they’d travel to different places like Faridpur, Madaripur, Barisal. I later understood his main intention was to re-experience Padma river hilsa (ilish in Bengali) fish, the benchmark of all hilsa according to East Bengalis, although West Bengalis may not agree. A Bengali is identified by his love of hilsa fish. Eating Padma ilish at the ferry-ghat is a tradition, even public buses advertise ILISH in large letters across the bus-body to entice people to this fresh hilsa destination. It reminded me of how everyone rushes to eat fresh oysters on-the-spot at San Francisco wharf as the fishermen haul them in. Unfortunately I had to brutally stop my parents enjoying the freshly caught hilsa displayed in rows, cut into slices, marinated in turmeric, invitingly ready-to-fry. Because hygiene was doubtful here with swarms of flies partaking of the fish first, and the oil and frying pan over-used and black.

Back in Dhaka, my father was enjoying a green mango drink in a modern cafe. He asked for one more, but without ice. The café waiter flatly refused, saying the drink formula called for ice. Surprised, we explained once again, but he was adamant. Then he came near me, switched to a very local Dhakai Bengali accent, and confessed that without ice, the tall glass will look vacant as it’s the ice that gives it the big size impression. My father gave a mischievous laugh at the boy’s honesty, and happily accepted the iced drink. In fact I noticed my father was continuously embracing people of Bangladesh, as though they were a part of his family. This was clearly a psychological connect, I’ve not witnessed it in him in West Bengal.

Nor have I ever seen my father making a tantrum to go to any place. But Armanitola in Dhaka he absolutely had to visit. He perfectly recalled his last journey here as a 10-year-old after his father’s death, from Rangoon to Kolkata by boat, then to Gualnanda by train, by ferry to Sadarghat in Dhaka to stay with relatives in Banshibazar and Armanitola. Then from Sadarghat, they’d reach Madhyapara by steamer, where you can now so easily go by road. But the traffic jam in Dhaka city is unimaginable; traveling a kilometer takes an hour. Our dead-slow car ride to Armanitola was to find a field where he used to play with his relatives living there.

When moving tortoise-like, you have to toggle your mind-gear to enjoy the jam session street festivity to avoid boredom. Were Dhaka’s auto-rickshaws obsessed with safety? They have a metal mesh as in police vans carrying convicts. Suddenly a 3-wheeler auto-rickshaw sidled up to the side, a bird-cage door opened, passengers started emerging. My eyes were riveted there, I counted one, two, three ….a total of 8 people were traveling in that auto-rickshaw, and they all reached their destination. With nothing to do, I was calculating the high efficiency of these 3-wheeler transport cages with the luxury of the Pajero, Land Cruiser, BMW among others that were stagnating along with us in the massive traffic squeeze.

My father was totally disappointed when we arrived at Armanitola. We couldn’t find the playground, nor his relative’s house. I suddenly awoke to the name Armanitola. Does it have anything to do with Armenia? Armenians had come to India much before the British for trading mostly in silk, muslin and jute. There’s an Armenian church in Kolkata and other cities. My on-the-spot Google search confirmed that Dhaka has an Armenian church built in 1781. After Madhyapara, this beautiful heritage church is now etched in my mind. The kaleidoscope of my Armenian connections in Paris appeared before my mind’s eye, they are all highly rooted to their homeland. Even Patrice Civanian, who’d worked in my company, is from Armenia but born in France. His parents had told me that Armenians came to India as early as 327 BC, with Alexander the Great.

That evening I met an Armenian gentleman who’d come to pay homage to his ancestors at Armanitola church. He knew little about Bangladesh, the tourist guide informed him he can experience golf and rickshaw at the same time. He said he wanted to take home a beautiful decorative pedal rickshaw displayed at our hotel. He thought it was to draw tourists, and had no idea that the livelihood of poor people in Bangladesh depended on rickshaws.

It’s time to say "au revoir" to my erstwhile native land where I experienced my life’s 5 most memorable days. On the 30-minute flight back to India, it felt like we were distancing ourselves with thousands of kilometers in-between. This feeling was reminiscent of the romantic-heartbreaking Hollywood movie Roman Holiday starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. After a short but intense relationship the couple knew their parting was inevitable. That was a story, but this, my respected readers and victimized brotherhood, is my real life experience of discovery and loss. The unwanted political separation in 1947 turned so many of us into beggars, homeless, suffering tragic deaths, a situation I’ve never been able to accept. I’m sharing my small Bangladesh experience with all of you who’ve lost everything during Partition, as though we’d been in the Holocaust.

To download above article in PDF Father’s tantrums for Armanitola

Financial Express link:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/fathers-tantrums-for-armanitola/891734/0

From Discomfort Zone column by Shombit Sengupta in Financial Express and Indian Express

“Shani kheer (milk dessert) turned upside down will never fall, it’s like a thick plate,” is an incredulous childhood image that’s etched in my mind. Mutually doting on each other, my grandmother Nalini Bala had re-lived her erstwhile luxurious life in Burma and East Bengal before becoming an impoverished refugee in India, by brainwashing me with myriad little stories of that fantastic time.

Last week we took my parents on a nostalgic trip to retrace their original home. Untangling our car from the perennial Dhaka traffic jams, we drove with bated-breath anticipation to Madhyapara in Bikrampur just 35 kms away. In the backdrop of my father’s wistful recollections expressed in peaks and troughs of emotion, we discovered that the Buri Ganga bridge had deprived us a steamer ride from Dhaka Sadarghat that he used to enjoy. His running commentary said we’d cross Kirangunj over two Dhaleswari rivers, enter Munshiganj district to Siraj Dikhan police station. The region, famous for early Buddhist scholarships, is the oldest capital of Bengal since the Vedic Period. We’d read about Buddhist scholar Atish Dipankar from Pala Empire, scientist Jagdish Bose, freedom fighter Chittaranjan Das, and Benoy, Badal, Dinesh (after whom Kolkata’s BBD Bagh is named) who gave their lives revolting colonial rule. My grandmother would say they’ve all originated from Bikrampur, but I’d never believed her. When their courageous tales were endorsed here, you can imagine how Nalini Bala was accompanying me to our lost home.

Our Bangladeshi navigator stopped at a 100+year-old local sweetshop. A hard, yellowish, 6-inch-dia, milk sweet on a banana leaf totally displaced me, my grandma’s voice reverberated in my body and mind. So this unique shani kheer, available only in Siraj Dikhan enroute to our village, was for real! The heritage sweetshop owner even recalled tales of the revered Raisaheb Ruhini Sengupta, my great grandfather.

Going forward, our contact hailed a 95-year-old Hindu religious man in one of those extremely colourful rickshaws that dot both the urban and rural Bangladeshi landscape. Everybody knew that he survives on fruits and knows everyone here from way back when. Visiting after 63 years, my father started recounting long-lost experiences. The spritely, wrinkled swamiji, his forehead vertically divided by a 1×3 inch thick vermillion streak upto his surprisingly natural black hair, corroborated each recall just as enthusiastically, and they’d hug each other like long lost friends. I’d never witnessed my father express such bonhomie. Swamiji embellish my father’s childhood tit-bits with detailed information on Ruhini Sengupta. He also mentioned that Bikrampur’s Durga festivities comprised 80 pandals before Partition, now only two Pujas are celebrated.

The road to the village was extraordinary. Arched trees on both sides touched one another to filter in patches of early winter sunlight to welcome our disoriented homecoming. I recognized the “shanko" my grandmother had described, the single bamboo walkway with bamboo railings that connect houses separated from the road by water bodies. People would balance tightrope-like, walking with perfect grace, even with large bundles on their head on upto hundred-metre shankos.

Veering into a small brick road alongside paddy and potato fields interspersed with water hyacinths, my heart skipped a beat as this signboard appeared: "Madhyapara Union Parishad." Our navigator escorted us to the local village Chairman, Mohammad Azim, to make us acceptable here. Chairman was waiting with several old people. He honored my father, making him sit on his tall Chairman’s chair. Myth-like stories were emerging of Raisaheb Ruhini Sengupta’s prosperity, power and fame. My father would start a topic, “My grandfather used to walk….” and old Karim Mia would excitedly continue, “…and if turbulent oxen are fighting there, they’d stop, and respectfully step aside to let him pass.” This reunion in the Chairman’s bureau reminded me of Mafia recognition methods where two unknown Mafia-men on a pre-determined meeting are each given a torn currency note. If their 2 pieces converge exactly, the men know they’ve correctly found each other, and can proceed unhindered. The spontaneity of my father’s memoirs was as incredible as the response from the increasing number of white-bearded, henna-ed men over-crowding the room. I was just an open-mouthed listener matching their conversation to my grandmother’s stories.

In extreme brotherhood terms we walked the next 2 kilometres to our lost ancestral home "Subal Dham." Amid lush greenery and mustard fields, several questioning people kept joining our party. My father’s eyes moistened he saw his 400mx100m “dighi” or fishpond. He was shocked his large red mansion was demolished, sprouting in its place small tin houses. All that remained of his homeland gone adrift were a set of red British-style steps that jutted into the pond, and a concrete bathroom for women at the back. A current inhabitant of our property, Md. Mofiz, recounted the heritage property of Raishahib Ruhini Sengupta, which amounted to 400 acres. He said, “The 360 degree horizon you see would have belonged to your family.” I was utterly shocked. After the Sengupta family was forced to flee during turbulent times, the Government appropriated the property, cut them into bits and pieces for many to occupy. Mofiz also knew that this was only the country house of Raisaheb, that his principal home and property were in Rangoon, Burma. My great grandfather was initially a PWD worker in British times. The British rulers rewarded him with the Raisaheb title for his excellent performance as the principal engineer in constructing the Burma-China border road. He maintained a high establishment in Burma, and my grandfather was the eldest son of his 10 children. My grandfather became a successful advocate in Insein, Rangoon, before he suddenly died, leaving family with his father.

As my father narrated childhood memories sitting atop the red steps, occupants of our erstwhile property crowded in to hear him. I’m grateful to Chairman Azim for smoothening our visit. Some people were scared that we’d come to repossess our 400 acres. We had to re-establish that ours was an emotional nostalgic journey to discover our vanished legacy, and not to reclaim our 400 acres that got branded as “enemy property” and auctioned off after Partition.

To download above article in PDF Red steps to reminiscences

Financial Express link:http://www.financialexpress.com/news/red-steps-to-reminiscences/889011/0