2012, the year HSBC superseded HDFC

Building a brand is not easy, particularly in countries like India where mango people like me form a majority. Irrespective of how big a brand globally is, it’s not necessary that people in india would have even heard of it unless you would have touched people’s lives or connected with them in some way or other. There can be multiple examples but I would like to highlight the case with which I have my personal experience. HSBC (name changed) as a bank is amongst world’s largest financial institutions, in fact within top 5 globally, but majority of people didn’t even recollect its existence prior to 2012. Infact I myself had hardly known its scale till I started working for it. Things became trickier once I was part of a “brand” which somehow no one recognised and was easily confused with HDFC, a bank which has less than 1/10^th the size of HSBC. I was often frustrated when friends called me thinking I work for HDFC, in spite of having clarified the difference in scale of two banks multiple times. Things become even more frustrating when few friends showed their disgust when I mention the name of my employer, saying that I am of no use and could have been of some use had I worked for HDFC. Explaining that HSBC is indeed a big bank was even more difficult to people who would take pot-shot at banks tagline – “world’s LOCAL bank”. So after multiple failed attempts I gave up, realizing that a single person can’t create a no-brand (HSBC) particularly when the identity needs to be established in front of a BRANDED ITEM (HDFC).

Then came the year  2012, the year of activism and the year in which US Feds started nailing Banks. HSBC was booked for Money laundering and hence begun the publicity. With each hearing and conviction, Indian newspapers published name “HSBC” for free. Offcourse Times of India could not give HSBC priority over Poonam Pandey or Sunny Leone, but it did whatever it could within its constraints of serious journalism. In present age when bankers are considered only next to politicians and lawyers in terms of sharp scoundrel’s refuge, the stories of financial crimes quickly etched in public memory. So the brand was build, only the scale needed to be conveyed which was again facilitated by US Feds who fined HSBC for 1.9 Bn USD, again a news widely captured by all newspapers. Suddenly HSBC got its due and was remembered as bank which was diverse enough to launder money of Mexican mafia as well as Arabic terror groups, has headquarters in London, UK while its name is an acronym for “Hong kong and Shanghai banking corp.”, impressive indeed! Indian connection was still missing, then came our beloved Mr. Kejriwal, who made a revelation that Ambanis have their accounts in HSBC Geneva branch. So finally HSBC also got a reputation of bank which is trusted by India’s wealthiest class for keeping their black money. Thanks to this chain of events which unfolded in 2012, the people around me now know the brand HSBC and they also know that someday if they do great in their careers and have potential of evading taxation on huge sums, they know which is the “best place to bank”.  Numerous terror groups within our country also now know another bank which has the expertise of facilitating their requirements.  

Thanks Mr. Kejriwal, US Feds and above all various employees and designers of operational risk systems of HSBC whose collective effort had made me to see this day when my employer is being finally recognised my everyone.

P.S - Having worked for HSBC bank for a significant period of time, I can say that it is surely best international bank with best of the ethical practices. This is written in humorous spirit with 

Pranab Mukherjee's Secret Diary

Dear Diary,

After decades of hard-work I have finally become jobless.There is a sense of excitement in me as I would soon occupy 200+ rooms palace. I had always envied Pratibha’s life, she did nothing in her whole life still lives in the best bunglow of the country. With god’s and Mulayam bhaiya’s grace I think my name plate will soon hang outside that bunglow very soon. The journey was not easy in fact for a day the dream almost appeared impossible because of that womaniya Mamta, but thanks to filled swiss bank accounts of madamji and empty accounts of Mulayam bhaiya, we could over come that nasty womaniya. Infact ab to main sabki "keh ke lunga".

You might think that this might be end of active political career of mine, but I think it was anyways about to end. I know Indian economy could not have been revived because we didn’t had any interest in it. Well it was a tactical move to let the rupee depreciate. It might confuse you but let me explain, with so many scams pioneered by our government and with each one having valuations running in lakhs of crores rupees, we thought this was the only way by which we could save our reputation in international media as now with dollar appreciating, we reduced the size of scam by almost 25% in dollar terms! Moreover I have had lots of dollars with myself which I wanted to liquidate hence I never complained to this scheme. Madamji’s valuation too has increased significantly in rupee terms, thanks to her dollar deposits in swiss accounts. Valuation is very important for Gandhi family because with Rahul baba totally kicked out by Indian voter, he is thinking of making a financial grant to his home country Italy and then with that goodwill try for Italy’s premiership. Rahul had always been attracted by Italian PM’s job description particularly the components added by Mr. Berlusconi. I just hope his dream come true.

Finally I would also get rid of Manmohan. The dude had outsourced the work of speaking to me! That is heights of laziness, instead of him I was forced to address media and parliament on so many issues that we all had collectively screwed up. I am happy that I would get rid of everything. No more unnecessary meetings with bafoons like laloo or stubborn anna hazare. Just chillout in palace, and evening walks in Mugal gardens....juice piyo, khao aur ban jayegi life!

You will hear from me very soon as making diary entry would be the only thing I would be doing.

Pranab

Wh*re of the Year

With year 2011 coming to an end it is good time to look back at the year and recognize people who achieved new lows across different facets of society. Since these are the people who redefined what nadir means, hence it would be an injustice to them if any word other "Wh*re of the year" is used to recognize their achievement. Without any delays I would start with the awards across different categories:-

Category 1: Politics
This category can have two winners, one would be critics choice, other would be popular choice:

Critics choice: A. Raja for his exemplary performance in 2G spectrum allocation
Close runners up: Suresh Kaldmadi - who made his mark at interntional stage through his stint in Common wealth games

However popular choice award will go to Mr. Kapil Sibbal - Nobody hogged more limelight then Mr.Sibbal who through his carefully crafted statements became the Wh*re of the year amongst politicians. This year number of jokes on Mr.Sibbal rivalled that of Santa/Banta and number of hate pages rivalled that of Ms. Rakhi Sawant, who incidently was disappointed for loosing her place of "most hated person" ,a feet achieved by featuring in multiple television shows.Mr. Sibbal surpassed her by only few of her statements, showing the caliber that he has.


Category 2: Sports
Category had many nominations from the pakistani cricket team, with Mohd. Asif leading the race for entire year, but last few weeks delt a big blow to Mr. Asif chances when out of nowhere Andrew Symonds swept everything away. Not only Symonds redefined what a new low for a cricketer can be but he also showed what a cricketer can be reduced to, if he fights with team management. Andrew Symonds not only played the role of Gabbar singh but also danced in artificial rain, on bollywood numbers in the show which is surely mother of all ridicules, Big Boss. Symonds surely has earned his position as Wh*re of the year in sports.

Category 3: Movies
In this category winner is King Khan, who achieved this feet while making his dream come true, dream being RA-One. Mr. Khan campaigned very hard all round the year and hence ensured through the promotion of Ra-One, that he is ridiculed in every household, across all ages (specially kids) and across all social classes. There has been rumours going round that Mr. Khan wants to retain his award for next year and hence is making a sequel to RA-One, which according to sources will reach new heights of agony. In his own words Mr.Khan claims that it will take indian cinema to another levels just like RA-One did this year.

Category 4: Business and Economics
Again the choice would unamious amongst everyone. Nobody did bigger harm to the position of IMF then Mr. Dominique Strauss Kahn (DSK). Who through his sexual advances on a maid of a New York hotel, showed that even Economists are capable of achieving lows in the field which is commonplace for public figures of all fields

There can be other categories as well and surely I would post them as and when they come to my mind.

Mother of all entertainments

Yesterday I was watching television and instantly came the thought, which show has been the biggest entertainer of Indian television. For answering this question I thought I should go genre by genre and identify the best in each class, and then make comparisons of the winners. So if I look at drama, then certainly the recognition will go to one of Ekta Kapoor production’s series, though I have never seen any of her masterpieces, but have read that Ms.Kapoor has the gift of creating tragedies and have perfected the art of elongating these creations.
I then moved to detective series, my personal favourite . Under this category, there was a tough call between Byomkesh bakshi and CID. While the former was Indian version of Sheralock holmes , solving cases by his brilliance, the latter had ACP Praduman solving every case literally by the swing of his fingers . Against my will I had to sideline with CID as it had been pulling out absurdity for years and hence should be the bigger entertainer .
Then came the third genre to my mind, mythological drama. If religion is opium of masses, then mythological series would be “opium joint”, as it was through these series only you get introduced to religion. The genre had a tough fight too, between Mahabharata and Ramayana, while the former was technically superior and had a more appealing script , thanks to Ved Vyas! But the latter was first of its kind and pioneering, and hence had its own charisma. Here I ruled in favour of my favourite Mahabharata.
While thinking all this, I was also swapping channels. During this surfing I stumbled upon the clear cut winner, to which none of the individual category winners could have competed on standalone basis. The biggest entertainer of Indian television is - Corruption of 2010-11, televised through Indian news channels.
News had always been the biggest entertainer, but presently the entertainment quotient has magnified, probably because for the first time, the recipe of each genre has been mixed into one and hence has produced the biggest episode, the Corruption 2010-11. It has every possible ingredient. If one is interested in emotions, we have Mr. Karunanidhi and one of his wives, publicly crying for their daughter Kanimozhi, who has allegedly been falsely imprisoned. The story is loosely influenced by Godfather, so we have an Italian leading the whole rig through a well established public face. Family emotions along with mafiaso and oppression is indeed a brilliant blend. However there is more. If one looks for excitement, then there exists the question of over 200 crs whose mystery is yet to be solved. There are brilliant investigators engaged in this case, along with multiple teams, led by Mr.Rajdeep Sardesai, Mr. Arnab Goswami Mr. Pravin Chourasiya etc . The whole bunch has repeatedly proven their acumen by raising issues which no one would have ever imagined, could be worth giving second thought.
If one is interested in court room and diplomatic drama, then we have the case of Mr. A Raja and guest appearance of our very own Denny Crane, Mr. Ram Jethmalani, who appears randomly on few television channels, calls everybody else stupid and pledges to support someone till the last drop of his blood. We also have Mr. Kapil Sibal who questions the legality of every issue raised by civil society. He also brings to the table the legal ploys. So signed affidavits to gain advantage in parleys along with few others tactics, were Mr. Sibal’s contributions to the whole entertainment package.
The only angle which was missing from the scene till last few weeks was spirituality, now thanks to Baba Ramdev, we have that too in place. He not only bought spirituality but also action and element of mayhem to the whole episode, thanks to his midnight run away from the shamiana in ramlila maidan and active cooperation from Delhi police . Motto of delhi police is , “in your service always”, they lived their reputation on Baba’s call and added the spice of action to the whole picture.
Since entertainment should not be discriminatory on sexual orientations, hence Baba Ramdev also introduced cross-dressing so that “differently” oriented too have something to look forward too. Thanks to him, now even Rohit Bal will have something to look in entire saga. But in the end how can any entertainment in India be complete without an item number. Feeling left out , this responsibility was taken by Ms. Sushma Swaraj, who gave a stunning performance at Jantar Mantar. Just as is the case with any other scintillating performance, it was mired with controversy. But in the end everybody silenced themselves, after all the act was done “for the team”.
The best thing about this whole package is, it is fast paced, has brilliant actors as actions are mostly live and is covered 24X7! Corruption 2010-11, indeed is the biggest entertainer of all times.