Sachin Ghanekar aka Sash's name

Its been a good while for me that I didn't really give it a thought of what, how and when you get the good or bad feeling or maybe a mixed feeling for something I may have bought.

Today, something made me think on the above Human emotions. Maybe too much of robotic clutter in my earlier life.

And now, its time to get real with the branding industry an getting an opportunity to see the colors and shades of this fraternity!

Lately, at an event, where big labels and their MEDIA AGENCIES met - Everyone is talking about BIG DATA, marketing analytics, BI (Business Intelligence) and what not.

Importantly, the interactions and conversations at the touch points have been quite INTERESTING and simulating.

And in the midst of that, one of the speaker talked about Consumer behavior and Anthropology.

According to Wikipedia - Anthropology /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/ is the study of humans, past and present, that draws and builds upon knowledge from the social sciences and biological sciences, as well as the humanities and the natural sciences.

This is the meat that caught me off guard and made me get deeper.

We are living in such a fast paced environment that people have no time to even burp! Things have changed rapidly in the last ten years and that decade denotes the entry of technology in our lives. And everything is available (literally) at a click of a button.

It was insightful and delightful to see how the brands talk to the media agencies and how the media agencies react and respond to the brands.

All that each of them were talking and interested were exchange of data and huge efforts being put to gather and collate the data. Everybody talking on creating labels and then creating the demand and maybe that’s like creating an illusion.. Shout MARKETING!!!

Any service or product provider today has been exploiting SEO and SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS only to promote themselves, but does that lead to conversions?

Conversions can be sales, loyal customers, cross sell, up sale, new customers..

I had some real doubts on:

Whether the brands and agencies are on the same page to understand and read the data?

Is this exactly the brands want?

Is this what the agencies can do?

Does more data and BIG DATA really help? To what extent is more important.

Have the brands been producing the product that the end consumer really aspire?

What does the consumer want?

What does the Brand want?

What do the agencies want?

At some point, I thought nobody is talking it REAL and only talking it BIG… Authencity!

So, where are our real customers?

What do you do to identify YOUR customers? How do you do that? Why do you do that? When do you do that? And Where do you do that?... are the questions to be answered.

So start thinking…!! I am thinking too…. and am sure its going to be INTERESTING.

First Leg – Mumbai to Delhi.

New Year 2015 was a good start of the year to have spent time with the family. Spent some time strolling around the Mumbai city, shopping and Indian food! Just one week of the Christmas & new year vacation and it was time to say goodbye and get back to the work land – to the Chicago land!

I have been pretty loyal to few airline carriers like United and Continental in the past, but this trip made me breach the loyalty and travelled on Emirates on the first trip to and from Mumbai to Chicago and return and Air India on my second one.

So, technically it was my first date traveling with Air India and had no pre conceived notions really apart from the fact that I was happy to have no layover in another continent, but a direct flight to Chicago. Generally, I like direct flights so that I don’t waste time in the layovers as the only thing you do is sleep anyways or keep waiting to hop on to the next flight.

AI flight was scheduled to take off from Mumbai and it was going to take me to Delhi for a pit stop of 4hours and then to Chicago nonstop.
Boarded the flight in Mumbai and was happy to see the aisles were broad as my Targus business case stroller easily passed through and never had to lift it. Usually, I couldn’t do this while in United, Emirates and the likes. So, to me that was a good first impression.
The captain announced some passenger names that couldn’t make it to the aircraft in time and therefore had to wait for 20minutes until they arrived. I was like – Okay! Maybe they care so much of their passengers. Until they arrived I was trying to get comfortable into the seats and fidgeting around the TV set and generally everything else.
To my horror - - - Yeah, the journey begins now!!
The two fold tray in front of me looked weird and one of its halves was slanting. As I was thinking loudly, if I place my food tray on this, the base tray which is already not even will not able to entertain my food tray and it literally said to me – Don’t you see I am handicapped? God darn it, go and look for another seat… Ouch! I obeyed the orders.
The plane was not fully occupied thankfully, and I jumped into the adjacent aisle seat. Ripley’s believe it or not, but I believed for sure, all trays were just the same. They also seemed to have grown old, the cushioned seats. Errr… where are the cushions??? OMG!

And the Cabin crew announced “Welcome to Air India……” I felt like the hare trapped into the cage and now they are going to show me the carrots!

And the carrots started walking the aisles, I meant the women crew – they were dressed in the carrot colored some printed tops with green or blue (?) laced aprons having long sleeves and black trousers. Honestly, they sucked in their uniforms, the first look at them – and I thought why are they dressed into their pajamas! Ready to go to sleep? I was so not anticipating this!!!

So, I diverted my mind to something that would make me feel better, the TV.

I felt either soooo dated or AI to be hopelessly dated, because I was not able to navigate through the screen, was struggling with its operations. It had a remote but it had options like the old days mouse of a computer. Ahhh, now I got it, and started playing with the options. Had to press hard several times while choosing the right options and finally, I chose the movie I wanted to watch. Yay… I made it to the movie hall!

Wore my headphones and there you go…. The headphones didn’t work. Fidgeted down the hand bar where you generally plug in the headphones to check what was wrong, but seemed there was some connection problem. Still, I braved further to watch the movie with subtitles. The movie started and got over… wow! At this pace, you can watch several movies…
Then, I looked around – the guy sitting two seats away from me was watching a movie too, but on his iPad, maybe he was a frequent flyer with AI smart fella!

I was frowning and was going to wear that dirty look, in the interim the food cart arrived. The not so smiling crew arrived and placed the food tray and also mentioned be careful with the base tray and don’t spill the food. Huh???? Yes Mommy!

Ahead of me, seated a man who gobbled his food like he never had any before and left over some rice because he could not eat all of it with the fork wink emoticon

The daddy crew man came to collect the trash and brought along the same cart to collect the tray. The left over rice man handed over the tray to place it in the cart. Now, I had to handover my tray and so I did. But by the time, the daddy crew man came to collect mine, the left over rice tray spilled from the cart. And now… I gave that scary look to Mommy airhostess; Thought she was going to shout at that passenger now But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Daddy crew man shouted at the cart and shared his frustration with Mommy saying, this is what happens you see… these people don’t listen to me. I didn’t get “which people” he referred to, but I guessed he meant the airline carrier staff. And he said all this in a frustrated mix of Hindi and English. Mommy obliged for no reason and they both just went ahead like happily ever after. And I kept gazing at the rice on the floor, couldn’t believe they didn’t bother to clean it well!!!!

I didn’t want to live the horror anymore, so I slept until we landed into Delhi and mentally preparing for the second leg of my journey to Chicago.

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Second Leg: Delhi to Chicago

“sir…” “sir..” wake up and straighten your seats… knock knock !!!
“huh..” eyes half open… “please straighten your seats, we are about to land in Delhi.

I smiled with a grin to myself and felt a bit relieved hearing ‘Delhi’ hitting on my eardrums.. who would not be!

And while I belted myself and straightened up my seats, the leader of the cabin crew made the announcement “Happy to have you on our flight and we look forward to serve you again in future”.. I was like – Nooooooooooooo thanks!

The crew greeted on the exit with a big smile and I was a bit confused Happy to go home I guess!

Anyways, I was now set for my next leg – Delhi to Chicago.
All passengers walked out the aircraft passing a few narrow gang ways leading us to connecting flights and transfers. While inside there, to the spot where we were looking for that connecting flights sign board, ten of us stopped. The sign board confused us, it showed an arrow right up for transfers, so we walked up to the next level. That glass door was locked and we were looking for help and we realized those were the gates to board on the other side. And one of the airport staff pointed us to walk down again and take a BIG U and that would lead us to connecting flight terminals.

We were already a bit late as there were only two hours more for the Chicago flight to take off. We had to go through customs and security clearance yet that would have consumed a lot of time. So, all os us hurried toward the BIG U and the amazing race began!
On reaching the Customs clearance area and witnessing the huge crowd, the thought of missing my flight cropped in and I became restless. I saw strict security checks performed on literally every corner of that area having several security personnel deployed everywhere. Not that it was unusual but certainly thought it was not a regular scene. But maybe I was tired and had nothing else in mind than getting passed through that beeline, I didn’t notice much.

To my surprise, I cleared the customs sooner than expected and moved on to the security clearance. Now, this was really bad - there were several people waiting and formed snake lines, I could not make out what part of that snake I was standing!

So, until my turn, I had nothing to do than stand and wait and check out the crowd Almost, after 35minutes, I reached my milestone – security clearance. As a ritual, stowed everything in the trays to have go through the clearance! It funny the way the security personnel perform their tasks… urggggghhh they almost hug you and feel you and they get paid… And to my dismay this guy asked me where am I going in his bad breath before he stamped security cleared on my boarding pass. And I pushed myself back a bit and responded Chicago.. He asked me where again? I said Chicago. He had that FBI agent look on his face with his eyebrows up in the air. I didn’t know what to do… I iterated again Chicago in Illinois. There was his senior (probably) around looking me stuck with a gullible expression walk toward us and asked me – AI 127? I said yes and nodded to me in affirmation and whispered into the bad breathe security guy. That guy smiled at me with apology and said, Oh! You are going to US? And I was like… I think so look on my face and smiled back. Pendulums hitting my braindulums!!!

I didn’t react much apart from a smile and walked ahead to race to the gates. Passed the duty free shopping area, with an eye on that newly launched Fossils men watches selection. I so wanted to check them out but I was running out of time... damn!
Reached the gates area and did a quick time check, I had another 45minutes to embark on my journey. So, walked toward gate 29 and saw another line for security to be passed, yes this was mandatory and not optional. Everybody in the line was talking about it… what the hell??? The security personnel were giving us that cold look and we had to oblige. So, another round of X-ray!
Finally, I reached the gate where I could see 29A, 29B. checked my boarding pass again to confirm the gate number. It said 29 and no A or B. walked up and down searching 29 and couldn’t locate it. So, I enquired with the airport personnel for 29 and he said ‘this is all 29’ , I got that… bummer! So, I showed my boarding pass to him as I didn’t intend to experiment A or B. After he READ all that was printed on my boarding pass, he had a little different answer – go to any of these gates!!!!! I said thankyou.

With only 30mins to take off, I was not sure why am I still at the gate and not inside the aircraft… Did I miss my flight???? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooo..

With that lost look on my face, I enquired about the flight with one of the bystanders. I learnt even he is on the same flight to Chicago and the corner gate is the one where we need to be seated around. I felt like meeting my long last friend who just met me to make me feel good. Sigh!
By the time, we reached to the seats, the screen at the gate lit up and it said the flight is delayed!!!!! Yay…. Atleast I didn’t miss the flight!

I was really tired by now so was wanting to catch on a quick nap. Before I did that, checked with the AI personnel on the delayed time of the flight. And he said, he is not aware of it now but will announce soon.
This trip is surely getting like never ever before! An adventure!!!
I dozed off for a while and woke up with at some loud conversations. Passengers around the security gate really mad at the staff demanding to get us another airplane to Chicago! I was like, am I dreaming of somebody asking for a ride in Disneyland for a extra time… what are you guys talking about? It was Sunday 2:30 AM in Delhi and we were supposed to take off at 2:00 AM local time.

So, I walked toward the gate to understand the problem statement! Yes, that’s how I approach to the challenges… LOL

And the bells jingled in m mind, my flight is re-scheduled to leave at 5pm. WTF.. I had to report to work at 8AM CST! But I was still optimistic that I could make… so much optimism and positivity!

But there were passengers who had connecting flights further to Toronto, Washington DC and Ohio. And they’d already missed this flight and was the reason they were demanding another flight to not have missed their further legs of the journey. I was not angry as they were but they were right! God damn it, people at work were expecting all of us on the first Monday of the new year!

Surprisingly, the AI staffs were not getting that point. They were not even sure why the flight was delayed and were reasoning out on bad weather, unclear skies… some more staffs arrived at the gate to take control of the questions, but even they were not able to answer anything apart from the same things above. One of them even said so casually… ‘it happens, all sorts of reasons lead to flight delays – bad weather, unclear skies, crew not reporting to work…’ hellooooooooooo… what did you just say?????? The crew didn’t report… the lady in 40s was loud enough to attract more crowd now.. waving her hands in air.. extremely animistic.. asking to the crowd.. how many women are ready to take the new job for this flight??? Just get us a pilot.

Wow, now the scene was getting hotter although the temperatures outside the airport were low and cold.

We all demanded for another flight for a good 30mins, and then pleaded for another flight for another 20mins. By then, more staff arrived and announced there’s been a bomb threat on AI flights and so all the flights are grounded. There was a pin drop silence on hearing that, and we were asked to go to a hotel where the carrier will helps us get accommodated until the next flight.. so??? Wait… how many hours are we going to be stranded? “don’t know’ pat came the reply and that was quick.
Another waiting of an hour, we were told we will be taken to a hotel in Delhi and a shuttle has been arranged. We need to submit our passports at the exit to the AI staff and need not worry as they are doing it to avoid the whole process again of customs and stuff when you arrive back to board the rescheduled flight. Now, this was so unexpected and out of blue… why Passports????No wayssss!!!

They were so many nationalities traveling together and everybody became one big family against handing over the passports. Finally, a senior official arrived saying that our passports need to be submitted before leaving to the hotel. And we will get our passports at the boarding gates to the flight. All that they handed over to us in place of the passport was a counter foil of the boarding pass. Aghast… totally!!

Like the school kids, we lined up for the shuttle and walked out toward the shuttle. Oh now.. we were lost.. Where are we supposed to board the shuttle? They simply mentioned go this way… but go where, there are so many exits.. Which one? We didn’t budge until the staff came to our rescue. Cold and chilly air swept us outside and we boarded the shuttle
Weird thoughts started pouring in all our minds and became conversations while in the bus to the hotel.

What if we lose this counter foil?? We won’t get our passports?
Were the passports collectors really AI staff? OMG, what if I don’t get our passports?

But there was some one elderly saying – don’t worry, they won’t do this for 125 passengers! We all nodded in affirmation… like we all knew when to nod together!

It took 25- 30 minutes to reach to the hotel. It was dark and cold.. so didn’t know where in Delhi we were exactly. We checked in the hotel, and there again another line, as we were checked with on our counter foils and the handed over room keys.. I was third from the last in that line of shuttle 1. They were 5 shuttles likewise following us heading either to our hotel or some other.

While in the line, I was figuring what hotel have we been TAKEN to? I could see bonsai trees in corners of the lobby of the hotel. Is the hotel name Bonsai Tree? Another 20mins in the line and I got my keys to the room. The clock had struck 6:30 AM now. I had turned into a bonsai after the day s work out; felt like I have been traveling forever… Cocooned into my bed and fell asleep anticipating a call from AI to get back to the airport, all clear now.

Next day (technically the same day) at 10:00 AM: woke up and thought I should check the view from my room. So, curtains opened and welcomed the bright sun in my room. And here comes another shocker… I see some farm fields and further ahead some building construction. Where am I really and what hotel? I was at one of the Hilton honors hotel called something Tree. No wonder they had so many bonsais everywhere. But, why is the city not in the sight??? Called the front desk to know we were not in Delhi but in Gurgaon… Awesome!

Did my morning chores and down the restaurant in the hotel to have breakfast. It was such a good feeling to have been served good breakfast and that was the first nice experience throughout this trip. Got to meet co passengers and talk sanely.

After that good breakfast, guess what??? There were few passengers who had their passports. So, passenger’s original boarding location as Delhi need not submit their passports… The conversation got into heavy mess with only questions and no answers. What was the logic? Everybody started calling AI and the unknown news struck us – The real reason behind AI flights being grounded because there was a hijack threat issued by airport authorities on all AI flights. An unknown caller called informing the same mentioning there could be danger to AI flights plying between Delhi to Qatar; Delhi to Kolkata and that Air India office in Kolkata was going to get bombed. All the hells broke loose!

No wonder, there were so many security personnel and checks performed… now the puzzle was getting its right blocks. So they knew this well in advance before even we boarded the flight from Mumbai. Why did they not let us know while in Mumbai? We would not have gone through all this… sick!!!

Through all those hours, Air India never communicated with passengers nor with the hotel staffs to keep us updated and posted. We learnt this from television news and the Air India websites. Their emergency numbers were busy and although the officials had our hotel numbers, they didn’t bother to inform. Hopelessly careless!

By 1PM, all passengers gathered at the hotel lobby to inquire about the shuttle as we were told that the flight was rescheduled to take off at 5PM. The hotel staffs were now on the radar. Poor guys had no answers and we were told to have lunch and go back to rooms and that they will keep us posted. Again, good food satisfied the hunger birds and we went back to our rooms, glued to television sets.

At 3PM, we were informed that we need to get ready as the flight is tentatively estimated to take off at 6PM. And we got down the lobby with our carry –ons as the checked in bags were still at the airport.
A shuttle was already in the porch and the first thirty of us boarded with a ray of hope and smiles. The next thirty waited for their shuttle giving us that jealous looks. And while all of us were seated still without a driver in sight, one of the hotel staffs announced us to get down the shuttle as they were just informed by Air India that the flight is now scheduled at 1AM next day. The jealousy worked and there began the HUNGER GAMES fight!

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The day was gloomy as the skies were unclear and cloudy.

All of us were now looking forward to reach to the airport and no matter what to at least get a glimpse of the airport and airplanes so as to convince our minds – Yesss, you will make it to your flight with some hope!

Twenty five minutes ride to the airport and there you go…. We reached to the Delhi airport!!!!

As we got off the bus, we saw four groups of thirty each maybe already at the airport and circled around the Air India officials. That made things easy for us to go where we were supposed to have our reunion smile emoticon

To our surprise, there were only two officials to handle a crowd of so many passengers. These two stooges were carrying polythene bags and guess what it had? – Our Passports!

It appeared like they were about to feed us - the famine affected population. Seriously??? How the hell they could get our passports without any security out of the airport on the sideways to distribute (that’s the right word) to us?????

They read out the names on the passports and started handing them to passengers. One of the co passengers said to me – “I don’t look anything close to my passport picture anymore”, I had my mouth opened that didn’t close for a good forty seconds!

It closed when they shouted my name and I collected my passport in disbelief. What the fuck would have happened if the passport is handed over to the wrong person? Looking at the polythene – I doubted their security and provisions of keeping those passports safe.

Air India – You guys are sooooooooo irresponsible….! And you are a national carrier! LMAO… (thoroughly annoyed, agitated, angry and what not…!)

I was a bit relieved to have my passport back and the new boarding pass. Wait…. But weren’t we supposed to get a special entry through the gates and handed over our boarding pass and passport at the boarding gate to avoid the process again?? With these thoughts, I looked at the boarding pass and it gave us all another shocker – I noticed the departure date printed was day prior to the current/new departure date.

Air India – you guys suck big time and FO!!!

The security guys at the entrance were smart – they didn’t allow us to go inside as the dates were wrong and one of the security guys even exclaimed, “you missed the flight” and one of the passengers shouted - “we all missed it yesterday”.

Back to square one – Stranded again!

We called one of the stooges from the passport distribution team to help us let go inside the airport. He spoke with the security guy and the guys grinned at us and let us go. I felt like slapping him as he grinned!

Now, while inside, we all stood in distorted line and waited for us to pass though another clearance. The wait lasted for 105 minutes.

Till then, everybody was happy to see other as if we were lost in a fair last evening and got separated. The talk of the town was passport distribution process, press visiting the other hotel to talk to the stranded passengers, and the horrifying stories if the passports were lost.

Apparently, some media visited the other hotel and the passengers spoke their hearts out and it got covered – no idea, where!

While we were there, we saw another group of about eighty passengers waiting inside for a flight to UK and we got to know that they were stranded in Delhi for three nights!!!!!!!

OMG – this made us lose our hopes and all of us had one expression – horrified with our eyebrows up in the air! And the game slowed a bit.
And now, the crowd got really mad and demanded the high authorities to come and address us. In twenty minutes from then – some officials arrived only to tell us that flight will leave at 2am and started the process of immigration and the routine checks.

Then we got to know that the reason we are getting on to this 2am flight because they cancelled the existing one, so... Meaning the passengers supposedly travelling today won’t be able to. Wow!!!! Totally Jinxed….

Whatever it was – with new ray of hope, although dead tired of standing and waiting in the line for almost two hours, we started walking and passing through the checks. Passed through the duty free; yes the watches were still taming at me but I had no energy to flirt with them anymore – exhausted to the last bone of my spine and legs.

And we almost reached to the new gate to pass the last check post. Having gone through so much, we had to go through the x-ray check post one last time just before crossing that line to reach to the gate. The checkers there, looked at my passport and didn’t could not locate what they were looking for? He was literally checking all visas that were stamped and looked everytime he did that. And finally exclaimed – “you travel a lot, so many visas?.. ouch- didn’t know what and how to react.. Smiled at him to my best and shouted at him “none of your business” in my mind of course wink emoticon And he let me go, and another security guy waiting to hug me and feel me tightly... I was like – no more, not anymore please… I beg you! But again, I went through that torture, the guy leaned over almost hugged and I could smell the oil he applied to his hair. Urgggghhhh.. would have thrown up..ewwwww! could not breath for seconds…. Sigh!

Finally I reached to the gate to read “change of the gates”… Looking at my expressions, the elderly passenger comforted me saying “ don’t worry, I am with you and the gate change is no for our flight but maybe the previous flight” . Maybe? So, you don’t know for sure, I am not taking any shit for maybe’s until AI 127 takes off from Delhi.

In half hour, we all boarded the flight and it did take off… we all were so happy !!!! smile emoticon

The moment I got seated – I checked the tv, seats and cushions and all… they were just okay, nothing good. But, I was sooooooooooooo tired that I fell asleep. Not interested in watching movies, talking to anybody or even watching the new carrots!

Woke up after six hours in the flight, looked here and there, smiled at some known faces. They smiled back too and felt at peace for the first time.

With that smile on my face, I turned on the TV to check navigation map, just to know where we were and……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… yeah that’s what appeared! I checked with my fellow passenger to check on his TV and ………………………………………………………….. the same thing appeared. So, none of the navigation maps option worked on any of the TVs… woah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we were in the same boat.. errr... same flight!

I was like – does the pilot know where we are and hope we are heading to US only and not anywhere else!

At once, I stopped one of the carrots passing by and asked where have we reached? A cute smiled appeared and said we will pass the UK in two hours from now.

Air India – you guys need to really take your business seriously. Your navigation maps don’t work!!! what the heck?????

And I went back to sleep because I knew there would be another horrifying story sessions of ifs and if nots. Had some lunch in between, slept again and was wide awake for the last five hours of the journey.

Seats straightened, belted and 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0…. Air India flight 127 just made it and landed into Chicago Ohare international airport runway!
All of us clapped joyfully and I texted my wife – “just landed and taxing” yeah was still not sure, when we would get off the flight. But everything went fine hereafter, collected bags at the carousel and walked out. Felt like the Chicago land was waiting to welcome all of us with snow and temperatures at negative 19 deg F smile emoticon

It was 6:45AM on Monday, reached at my place at 7:15AM. Had a quick hot shower and made it to work at 8:00 AM on the Monday morning half exhausted, tired but looking forward for a good working week!

Readers – Thanks for reading through the amazing journey smile emoticon hope you liked it!