Premier Rio? What does it mean?

Somewhere floating around in the sea of stories on the super growing Indian auto industry is the news on Premier's re entry into the passenger car scene. For beginners Premier Automobiles Limited successfully manufactured Fiat 1100Ds of 1960s vintage in India till late 1990s. Then it ventured into ill fated tie ups with Peugeot that resulted in Peugeot bidding good bye to Premier and to India!!! And then with Fiat. Both turned out to be negative sum games for the parties involved including customers. And ultimately resulted in Premier too exiting the scene.

And now Premier is back. It is a good time to be making cars in India. It is still maturing and evolving. There are far too many niches that have not been exploited yet. Thus if a manufacturer gets the timing and the niche right, it gets a firm footing in the market, a market that can be conditioned and be hugely profitable. This perhaps explains Premier's eagerness to come back into reckoning as a manufacturer.

There are few interesting aspects about Premier's approach though. All together it is a low risk approach; most of the kit from China, a diesel engine and one that has some brief familiarity with India (TUD5 diesel Engine from Peugeot 305 and also used Zen Diesel) and a product that has no direct competition in India. This formula driven approach should definitely help Premier establish some sort of Supplier, Manufacturing and Distribution network.

But then they have a huge mountain in front to surmount. And what may weigh against and pull down Premier heavily are softer issues and not the heavyweight issues of manufacturing, distribution logistics and getting the car into a showroom or product reliability and after sales service.

Brand - Who would want to be seen in a car that has Premier on the grill? It has practically no recall value and if at all it has any is because of the cabs in Mumbai and the sudden demise it suffered. During its time the Premier Padmini had a reasonable reputation and then it vanished. This robbed it of an opportunity to develop a cult following like RE Bullet or a lingering longing in auto lovers. With none of this they ought to have debuted under a different brand name.

Market/customer Niche - A compact SUV is a very urban product. But what kind of a chance does Rio stand in tier 1 and tier 2 cities which are well penetrated by other Indian and Global majors? Who is the target customer; a first time car buyer? Unlikely. One who is upgrading from a compact hatch? Would moving from Maruti/Tata/Hyundai to a Premier count as an upgrade? Taxi operators? Nay, they have proven options in Indicas and other diesel sedans. It isn't very clear, who is that customer who would stop by the showroom to take a look at the Rio.

Price Points - In India it is the price point that decides who your competitors are and not the product segment. Price takes precedence over utility. On the wrong side of Rs 500,000, it definitely seems overpriced. At that price range customers have far too many options, including used Scorpios and Safaris.

Product Niche - This seems to be the only thing that Premier has got right. There was always this hope that Maruti would convert Gypsy into a 4 door hardtop, go anywhere vehicle with basic creature comforts. Suzuki did have it in its portfolio as Suzuki Sidekick. This never happened and the SUV aspirants in India only had the option to stretch their budgets to a Scorpio or a Safari or look up to the bigger more expensive imported SUVs.

So what next from here? The Rio may or may not sell; it is more likely that it will not sell in volumes and probably Premier knows that. For Premier too it is a low risk game, it just has to show the red flag to the SKD units coming from China. But this is going to make other manufacturers take a more serious look at this segment. The only other attempt at this segment was Ford Fusion which was positioned as a City SUV. We all now know what happened to the positioning and the attempt!!! Some of the big boys of the game like the CRV, RAV4, Outlander all started their lives as much smaller compact vehicles before growing in size with each generation upgrade to finally the grown up look they sport today. Who knows this may just be the beginning of serious SUV business in India.

One curious secessionist movement

I am not a political analyst. But that’s the best part. I can be wrong!!! And still get away with it!!! Okay the issue is LTTE and the stand that Sri Lankan government has taken, that of offensive and a wow to wipe LTTE out. And the question is will, say 25 years from now, the stand taken by the Sri Lankan government be heralded as a path breaking decision? The simple answer is to wait for 25 years. But 25 years from now I will be happier if I am able to hold a cup all by myself and less curious to know what happens in Sri Lanka. And this common human curiosity prompts me to guess. So let us guess…

First LTTE is a secessionist moment than can now only look back and say they had a noble objective, that of bringing the Sri Lankan Tamils what was due to them. But somewhere the capricious brutality took precedence over noble objectives. There is nothing that can explain the barbaric deeds and tactics that has become a part of the LTTE DNA.

Secessionist movements are brainchilds of a limited few and do not represent the views of the masses. Secessionist movements tend to be violent too. In India we have our own example of the Khalistan moment. Movements built around a thirst for power by few individuals does not address larger goals of a society and fades away or gets wiped out at some point in time.    

Secondly, what has 25 years of Elam yielded? I am not educated enough on this subject. The little knowledge that I have suggests that good things have happened; LTTE has been munificent in humanitarian activities. But everything still happened under the gory shadow of tactless brutalism. And a social network built on a tainted fabric would not have outlasted its propagators, and would not have taken it into the next 25 years.

I am not sure of the effort taken by the Sri Lankan government to ensure safety and other concerns of the un-affiliated civilians. But Sri Lanka still is a progressive state and not one that is torn down by internal violence. And LTTE has had its time, moments and may disintegrate into mere words when the Sri Lankan government finishes. Will Sri Lankan Tamils face more ostracization, will they continue to face discrimination, and will they have a hero standing up for their noble cause the noble way? No definite answers, one yearns for optimism. Still in a way what is happening today holds a lot of promises for tomorrow.      

Could all of this been avoided through a more peaceful way? There have been negotiations in plenty, ceasefires in plenty, none of which worked. My heart goes out to the thousands of innocent civilians getting caught in the crossfire. They too had dreams, ambitions, all of which lies in shambles.  . But if a different sun dawns 25 years from now they may have something to cheer about.

 

Communism vs. Capitalism

Few days back I was talking to a Russian friend of mine and inadvertently the conversation turned to a Communism vs. Capitalism examination. I think that is a natural topic in these times where bailout packages and layoffs dominate headlines. But what stayed in mind was her last statement, that 10 years from now America will be a socialist state! And so the conversation ended and I went back to my office, but somewhere the thought lingered. Well protectionism is already here. But how much do I know about Capitalism and how much do I know about Socialism/Communism? Perhaps very little.

For a Keralite with some education in Bengal Communism would look like an easy frog to dissect, though not with me. But there is something about both Kerala and Bengal that is disturbing and baffling. That this thought occurs to me only when I am in a revolutionary mood is not to be mentioned here!!! Both the states for the kind of natural resources and intelligent population have not made commensurate amount of progress. While this is not a finger pointing exercise it has to be said that it is a legacy left behind by successive rulers and their policies. I used to wonder is it the influence of socialistic thoughts that caused this.

So this thought was there somewhere in my mind. But as fate would have it I was destined to live in a different place, Maharashtra, industrially and economically more developed than Kerala and Bengal. This was pure destiny and had nothing to do with my preference or non preference for socialism. I observe that while the same socialistic influences are still there, Maharashtra is more capitalistic, the state has a lot more entrepreneurial spirit and this has led to more development, job creation and ultimately more progress. Capitalism is based on the assumption that individuals operate based on self interest and this endeavor promotes the betterment of the society. Let me borrow from Adam Smith to make my point…. "by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." Somewhere an idea was crystallizing that Socialism/Communism does not work and that Capitalism is the way to go. It is something that can ensure quality of life and well rounded development. My theory had enough support from the collapse of Russia and China capitalistic overture.

Not sure when the plane took off and when I landed in the capitalist capital of the world, United States of America. The year was 2008. There was the customary excitement about gleaming lights, fast cars, tall buildings and express highways. All of it slowly waned away as I got used to the lifestyle here. I think time flies faster here, it is almost a year now and it is 2009 now. Bush is now a part of history and so are some of the giants like Lehman Brothers with few like AIG knocking on the doors. This is not a good time to be in the US as a migrant worker. Some days are scary with news of unemployment, collapsing stock market hogging the headlines. There are big debates about bailout packages. There are talks about containing migrant workers, removing tax breaks. The government is having to step in as a regulator and the market is not being the regulator. And I begin to wonder, is this not socialism, is this not protectionism? May be my Russian friend is right!

I come back to my original thought, questioning myself....was I right in my earlier belief that Capitalism is the way to go? Is this a degenerated scenario or is this the future of Capitalism? I realize what I saw in India was Capitalism in its infancy. Would I have asked myself this question if the economy was booming? Perhaps no....but I am sure this question would have popped up some time; the downturn is just a trigger. 

Final Destination

Today I Feel Kerala and one day I will Live Kerala

I woke up feeling Kerala today and one day I am sure I will live Kerala. Kerala is an idea that has grown on me and is like that mysterious lady every guy is enamored with. Perfection is perhaps something that everyone admires but never falls in love with. And it is the lack of perfection that draws people towards it. Kerala in many ways epitomizes that.
By no means perfect, but romantic by all means. I have seen everything, I know it is a dangerous statement to make, but let me risk it, good people, bad people, festivals, big houses, small houses, good roads, bad roads, beaches, mountains, coconuts, bananas, movies - gross to masterpieces, intellectuals to people who never realized they existed, floods, droughts, walking to school in rains with books over the head, crossing canals over narrow coconut trunks, catching fresh fish in your own pond, growing your own vegetables, living without electricity to sleeping in air conditioned comfort, the list is endless. The vast canvas on which the vagaries can be fitted amazes me and makes me wonder about the things that could be hidden under it.
My dream has its roots in the village I grew up in. The vague, almost black and white memories of my village still surfaces in everything I do, think, and lives within me. Waking up within the wooden walls of my ancestral home, waiting for my black coffee in the smoke filled kitchen, watching mama steam idlis and grind coconut chutney is not a day, I know that I can live one more time. I wonder if I will ever get a chance to brush (or cleaning is a better word, because there was no brush!) my teeth with Ummikkari (the ash from burning rice husk) hung from the Uttaram (wooden cross beam supporting a tiled roof) of the Front Varandah. Walking all over the yard with Ummikkari in the left palm and cleaning the teeth with the right index finger and checking the well being of all the permanent inhabitants of the yard- dogs, a variety of birds, chickens, ducks, and even snakes!
The ancestral home used to be surrounded with paddy fields, and used to be lush green during the paddy season. The paddy seasons are busy times for the villagers. But as a kid I had no role to play in it apart from being an intrigued onlooker!! The harvesting activities, all manual, from assembling of the bundles of paddy, to separating the grains from the husk, used to be times of hectic activities and it would stretch into the night and to our delight give us a chance to keep awake late into the night and watch them work. The times used to be busy and stressful for everyone other than the younger ones in the family. This perhaps explains the fond memories I carry about those times!
This was the life in the village, but what made it memorable was the people. By no means different from people one will find anywhere else in the world, there too existed the tales of emotions, love, hatred, anger, jealousy, lust and everything that was as much a part of the daily routines as it would be anywhere else. But in the village everyone knew everyone else. And everyone was known by the family they belonged to. Family tree was a big thing in the village, something that I realized to my surprise, happiness and sadness during one of my few visits to the place I love so much. Few of the humble villagers came and waited to see me and parents, because we are a part of a family tree that was very well respected in the village. Sadness is slightly inexplicable, and primarily because of the longing for the place.
What used to bring structure to the bizarre collage was the temple, the yearly Utsavam, the various festivals Onam and Vishu in particular. The amount of eagerness for the events that was a routine and something that people probably have seen all their lives was a thing that one has to experience to understand. Yes, most people in the village were born and grew up at the same place. The temple, events surrounding the temple, the paddy fields, ownership of the fields, the family structure and familiarity with each other brought a certain amount of organization and sophistication to the village. And yes not to forget the schools that were again central to the scheme of things. Imagine 25 years back, in a far flung corner in Kerala, where Bollywood was virtually unknown and when Doordarshan was taking its first baby steps, they used to teach Hindi in the village!
This discussion cannot be complete without the mention of Onam, the harvest festival, in a place where the life of the people revolved around harvesting! At the mention of Onam, apart from the delicious Sadya (Kerala feast served on plantain leaves) that accompanies it, the word Oonjal (traditional Swing) is something that instantly comes to my mind. Somebody in the family would make sure that there are Oonjaals for everyone in the family, small ones for the little ones to long scary Oonjaals from the tallest tree in the yard for the grownups. But then, the 10 day event with the mythological backdrop of Mahabali and Vamana is too big to be described in few lines here and needs to be given its own share of the limelight. May be we will keep it for a later date.
Even with all its sophistication and organization, the village had its own rustic charm. Rustic as we all have seen on TV and heard from our grandparents, that of wandering gypsies coming to sell their wares to assembling in front of a stretched out white sheet on which a movie would be screened, to listening to aspiring crooners. Somewhere in the black and white images in my memory lies a bizarre auction on one such occasion, an auctioning of a liquor bottle that my father bid and won!
Where is this place? Is it imaginary, real or both? Perhaps the later! This village is Eara, a part of Kuttanad, the Rice Bowl of Kerala, part of Allapuzha district. The place germinated the idea called Kerala in me and grows within me. The ideas that I carry with me and grows within me, may be are just my imagination, it may not exist anymore. Times have changed and I am sure Eara too must have changed. But the idea continues to grow, the fond memories of my childhood and the desire to live that day one more time continues to grow stronger. Yes, today I woke up feeling Kerala and I am sure one day I will live Kerala!

First travelogue!

Every time someone talks about Orlando, I get reminded of a friend, a first timer to US, who landed in Orlando, while his original destination was Miami!!! That’s was his first reminder that it is a different country and not another place in India!!!

Hmmm….how did the Orlando plan begin? I think all the credit will have to be given to Vikram and Reeta who were keen and were keen to have me in tow. I had no hand in the planning, booking, logistics or anything other than going and coming! Infact I have not yet paid Reeta yet for the expenses incurred! Thanks guys, it is one of the most memorable trips I have ever had and the first theme park visit too. I made it a grand double with Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios!!!

It begun on a tough note for me. I had to wake up early to catch the bus to Orlando, and the prospect of missing the bus is unimaginable. Back home in India there is some hope always left in your mind that some way you will be able to make up, catch another bus, take a rick and chase the bus or something. But here, and I think that’s where the discipline sucks, you miss it and you miss it forever. So I was late to bed and I think I was convinced that I will not wake up at 4AM. So what did I do, set an alarm, only that this alarm was a little different, asked my mom in India to call me up at 4AM EST!!!

With great reluctance I woke up and called up Reeta and Vikram, then called a cabbie. I still remember the cabbie very well, for a change he was not a Latin American! At the hotel after these guys woke up we had a little round of photography, that was also the first time they were seeing my new camera, just to get the story line for the Orlando visit going.

The bus journey was nice. The bus was nice, comfortable and clean. They had aircraft like announcements, small LCD screens like in planes, announcements and even toilets. I did not venture into checking out the toilets though. And I guess men would have missed the airhostesses too J Midway through the journey, I had my first brush with a highway breakfast in the US. And I think for someone who grew up thinking the dictionaries should replace the word breakfast with idli and sambhar, it was one experience. It was burger king and there was nothing vegetarian on the menu, okay let me try non vegetarian….what? only beef and pork???? I was disappointed and finally did with a beef burger and some hash brownies. The rest of the journey was very peaceful, it was through a serene looking country side, greenery all around and all the hoardings screaming they had the cheapest tickets to all the theme parks in Orlando. The best part of the journey was the final announcement made by the driver….he said all those who are on package tours prepare to be received by the tour organizers as kings and princesses!!!!

The welcome was a pleasant one. They stopped by a motel, it looked to be one where only buses stopped, there was a restaurant, super market, souvenir shop, wine shop all rolled into one and plenty of parking place. We were received by a man, who spoke English with some degree of difficulty and were joined by three women, apparently the daughter, her daughter and mother who were also headed in the same direction. We went to Magic Kingdom and on the way seeing the road signs I realized I am in the capital of theme parks and I am just scratching the surface of it with Magic Kingdom and Universal. Between look here, look there, we caught our first glance of the entrance to Magic Kingdom. I was confused with my camera settings and hence quickly put it into point and shoot mode and complete the snap.

The driver, unfortunately I forgot his name, was very helpful, it is his profession, and explained what we need to do, what we should not do with clinical precision and then let us out into, what I will never forget, something I had never imagined, but explained to me at the first sight why people from all over the world thronged to Orlando. It is a dream, a real fantasy that was been sculpted into reality with meticulous precision. I had always noted the castle behind the Disney logo and had never bothered to find out what that is. And voila!! it was right there, the Cinderella castle in all its glory, in front of me. And we had the good fortune of being in front of it during the day and at night too when the fireworks lit up the sky. And to say that it looked beautiful it a huge huge understatement and doing the creation a lot of injustice.

The next 12 hours were the shortest of my life. We had a tough time picking up the right places to visit, making sure that we do not miss out on any of the important and most visited ones, and making sure that all the three of us had our dreams fulfilled. And that really is a challenge as all three of us came from different background, one a tamilian born and brought up in Chennai, a half tam half mallu (or so he claims J) born and brought up in Bangalore and the third one, that’s yours truly for you, a mallu with half the life spent in Kerala, a majority the remaining half in Maharashtra and the remaining fraction all over India. The only thing we had in common was that we all worked for the same company. But I guess that was enough as we smothered the challenge of having to fit in all the spots into the available time rather smoothly. The 12 hours took us through a house built on a tree (I later realized that the so nearly real looking tree was actually cement!), a ride over what was supposed to be Aladdin’s carpet, a ride supposed to simulate a space craft ride, I felt cheated at the end of it as I saw everyone else in the ride go above me L A ride through pirates of the Caribbean land, a ride through Winnie the Pooh. I think I am forgetting a lot of the fun we had there as it has been about few weeks since we completed the trip. And my unbeatable laziness kept me from putting down all the experience into words.

But I will not forget the boat ride through the Congo River. While I knew there is a river by the name Congo and using the knowledge that the two countries Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo both happen to in the Central to Western side of Africa, I inferred that this ride must be a mock ride through the rain forests of Africa. While we got into the boat we had no idea what we are going to be experiencing, the ride reinforced all the dormant memories of the African Rain Forests that probably crept into some corner of the brain while watching Nat Geo or Discovery. I think a little has to do with the Tintin comic strip too!!!! The ride was full of surprises, though there was nothing nasty. It was a boat with about 20 odd people captained by a crew who looked like they are on a real expedition through the Rain Forests, on either side the vegetation was dense and it almost gave the feeling of being a real dense forest where a leopard could take a leap at you any moment. Everything else that we saw on the way from the old dilapidated temple, the crocs rushing at you, the remnants of the crashed aircraft, the snake dangling from the tree, the African elephants, the Asian elephants (wonder what the Asian elephants were doing in an African Rain Forest!) made us duck for cover and forget the fact that we were in a fantasy park. The only difference was we knew they were fake and perhaps that made us stick to our seats. But the real fun part of the ride was our host and he does deserve a special mention and unfortunately I do not recollect his name L He, made fun of everything that came on the way, all the people in the boat including himself, kept talking nonstop for all the 30 mins, narrated incidents, most of them made on the spot! Without missing a breath. And he had this uncanny sense of humor, something that is so akin to what people say is my sense of humor!! And if I have to put it in Manoj, my friend’s words, it is a collection of unlaughable jokes. One of them he cracked deserves a mention here; he pointed his finger to a random direction and said that the flower there is Hibiscus. He did this with so much conviction that people who did not even see a leaf there nodded in agreement. And without flinching an eyelid comes his next line, what is the flower next to that? While people are still wondering where the other flower is (I am sure many of the others were still wondering where the first flower is), pat came the answer, from out guy of course….that is the Low biscus!!!! Well that’s sense of humor if you are still wondering what the joke is!!

Now this guy in my opinion has the toughest job in hand. I know how difficult it is to crack a joke when someone asks you to crack a joke. For him he does it every 30 minutes day in day out. And I am sure he is naturally skilled. One cannot follow a script for cracking jokes!!!

The other point to be mentioned here is all the boats had names of females. One of the first boats we noticed was named Amazon Annie! It sounded so much like the cabaret dancers of South Indian movies of yore like Silk Smitha and Disco Shanthi that we had a hearty laugh even before got into the ride.

Food is an important ingredient to making an occasion complete, and that really becomes a challenge when unseasoned people like me (and my friends) go to any place in the US. There was hardly anything that was made for an Indian palate. But not to take anything away from the place, there are plenty of eateries in there and plenty of choices. We found out a place….arrghhh….I lost the name of the restaurant….and had the omnipresent chicken wings and fries. One of the grossest delicacy that I saw people have was, can you imagine a feet long turkey thigh? Now imagine a grilled one, deep brown in color and served with tissue wrapped at the bone end of it and to be eaten just like that! It looked to me like a real Stone Age thing. But looking at the number of people who were having it, it really looked to be a fast moving consumer good!!

Can a visit to a Disney theme park be complete without a visit to a Mickey and Mini dens? Yeops….it is not. Can you imagine the Mickey and Mini household that we have seen umpteen no of times on TV in skin. If you can’t, and my bet is on that, come straight down to Magic Kingdom. See the entire setting of the cartoon strip recreated in cement, wood and plastic.

Phewww…..Need a break now!!!