The Art of Storytelling

 It’s the 21^st century- the “Age of Rampant Materialism.” Driven by the vagaries of consumeristic tendencies, the age has seen a splurge of entities, new and old alike, trying to find a niche in an increasingly cluttered world of brand multiplicity.

Evolving lifestyle choices of consumers due to increased globalisation and rising incomes has resulted in an overabundance of brands in the market, the ultimate result of which is – ruthless competition. While new players are trying to find a foothold in the market, already established brands are innovating and renovating to retain their position of eminence.

 

Story telling is a technique brands use as an innovative tool for product promotion.  A marker of  identity in this era of mass production, story telling upholds what can be termed as “brand individuality”. For a given line of product, what makes one brand distinct from the other.

 

When it comes to luxury brands, Chanel is an apt example. Chanel’s well designed website epitomises the fine art of story telling. Encapsulating 24 chapters, with each chapter narrating a distinct story (be it “The Diamond” or “Paris By Chanel”), the website subsumes the reader into an idiosyncratic experience, enrapturing the mind with its appeal to a sense of class and  priceless sophistication. The brand by appearing elusive allures the reader to the “privileged” Chanel brand experience. A perfect marketing technique. 

However, it has its downside: exclusivity can often become synonymous with exclusion. 

 

The enlightened customer of today doesn’t seek exclusion but wants to become a stakeholder. He/She seeks participation and information driven transparency, gloats at the earliest sign of innovation and exercises intelligent decision making choices based on user experience and peer review.

The story telling techniques being adopted by brands today increasingly focus on personalised user experience, uniqueness and quality. There is a heavy reliance on social media and digital marketing techniques, which further amplify the personal experience. It is no more about “possession of luxury” but about “availing the pleasures of the entire user experience”.  Its not so much about products establishing your classas it is about them establishing your identity. 

And so we have niche luxury brands like Hourglass paving their way into the claustrophobic cosmetics market. Combining beauty with luxury, with an array of colours and organic ingredients, the brand has found a voice among the echoes of many.

 

At the core of all this lies the important role played by IMAGINATION. Imagination fuels creativity: the modern customer seeks cultural richness and taste. Any successful marketing strategy calls for capitalising on this demand for a rich aesthetic personalised experience rather than a simplistic appeal to class exclusivity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GHOSTS OF DISTANCE

Scissions of love kept haplessly apart
Festering bruises the pain of longing breeds
Love that felt alive a moment back
Stands on the edge of wavering whims

Of pain and distance and desires unfulfilled
Of songs unsung and walks unfinished 
Of you and me and our sporadic sprees 
Steady love, where art thee?

Love unrealised...is love lost?
As time crunches in ageing chaos
Blooming years of fire & youth 
Enervating in life's withering moors. 

The voice that feels way light years away
The kiss that lingers in impalpable haze
That shadowy face, impeccable when real
Now sways in delusion, in hopeless demeanor. 

Steady love. Where art thou?
I have searched for you in raging bouts 
The penumbra of love lurks about 
The heart dismayed in a dreary rout. 

Love asunder...come around. 
Lurking in the deeps of moldering mounds
Too long have you loomed in spaces dark
Too long have I sought that priceless spark. 

Faithful love. Love in sight.
Resurging memories of starry nights 
Of times when time relinquished its sway
And timeless love had its way. 

For love that's real is a rare find
Colossal visions of immaculate shine 
Tenacious faith finds its way
And ghosts of distance fade away. 

ANTECEDENT LOVE

Memories of a love long embalmed
The shaded lores half untold 
The world deluded in omniscience 
Far from the magnificent core. 

Of love and kisses and lips reminiscent 
A yore of fortune that began 
The lovely tale of a union that spake 
Wreathing destiny in life's vivid wake. 

For love if love can ever be foretold
Lingers in the qualms of the sensing souls
Dreaming beauty surging inside
One look asunder, & love is realised. 

For what is, but is felt not in unison
Illuminates in the dooms of diverging visions
In throbbing heartbeats & pulsating skins  
The epiphany of love is felt. 

Antecedent love. Love unrealised.  
Lurking in spaces vibrant with life
Thriving in the gardens of bounteous grace
Where beauty finds its perfect face. 

Made for Love

He stands proud in that immaculate pose
Definite, distinct, yet succinctly close
The flaming passion on the verge does lay
A moment in time to all display
To all display the glory inside
Yet for 'the one' the passion resides
Who sees the boy for the man he is
The glory inside already his
The valour, the strength, the mighty might
The gust for truth, the fiery insight

One among all, all against one
A burning desire to see the battle won
For battle and glory seem his chosen ways
Yet made for love, the heart still says.

Life in a circle and beyond

Sometimes I wonder about the weaknesses of us humans. Of our imperfections.

We are indeed an imperfect race, clouded by our sense of perceptions, judgements, and rendered essentially unfree by the pull of ties that bind us in a knot of commitment and presumed security.

The promise of commitment is strong, the hope of security real. And the insecure mind trudges along, welding and mending, consolidating what it believes are the points that would make a full circle. The circle of life, as one sees it, as one knows it.

That brings back the age old thought. Life revolves inside a circle.

I wonder, does life revolve inside a circle? Or does it just rotate about itself, spiralling about the contours of our imagination that push us only so far?!

For what is life if not the creation of our imagination....? Not to forget the structures around it that shape and confine it. For life isnt free. So isnt our imagination. Imagination, while liberating, isnt really liberated. It is a factor of our perception, a product of our experience and beyond. And it is in this 'beyond' that our salvation lies. For we can never be absolutely free, but yes, what we can and must aspire for is to be free'er', than we already are, than we think we can be.

Perhaps it is time that we shape the discourse of life differently...time for the circle of life to pave way for an open canvass of imagination where no enclosure is needed, of bonds and links and promises and commitment...where things and people are dots, little spaces scattered across a space that finds no limits, needs no limits...a space that need not encircle but only uphold...a space that is bigger than our experiential realities, capable, by its very essence to enable us to have a taste of that 'beyond' where the drag of bondage begins to lose grip, and the spirit of liberation finds its much awaited flight.

EVOLUTION OF MONETARY POLICY IN INDIA

Monetary policy in India has evolved in keeping with the changing socio-economic and political environment. Monetary policy being an arm of public policy has not remain divorced from the vicissitude of changes that the country has experienced in terms of changes in approaches to policy making. These changes can be broadly categorised into three time periods: post independence period upto 1969, the 1980's and the post 1991 reforms periods. 

Post independence upto 1969

Post independent India was primarily under state control. Gaining independence, India adopted a state dominated development strategy whereby the state determined the allocation of resources and their utilisation. The role of the financial system was limited in this state dominated economy. Capital accumulation remained the primary objective of economic activities; this was to be achieved by increasing national savings by levying high taxes, suppressing consumption and appropriating profits through direct state ownership of enterprises. Public sector enterprises continued to remain the sole economic driver of the economy. In such a context, the role of banks was to act as financial repositories of national savings and to fulfil the national objective of financing of industrial and trade activities. The financial system had a limited role of enhancing capital accumulation for national economic development (to be fostered by state owned public enterprises). There was little scope for role flexibility since interest rates, the primary tool of monetary systems, were not only controlled and regulated but also repressed (to fund public companies). Moreover, the government pre-empted household savings through high levels of statutory and cash reserve requirements. Private sector participation was restricted rendering the entire mechanism of 'price discovery' lopsided. All resource allocation decisions were made by the government which reserved  for itself all financial resources to fund its public expenditure and investment activities. This only diluted the allocative efficiency of financial systems. Banks and financial institutions channelised credit to select priority sectors at subsidised rates decided by the government. The result was banks charging higher rates from other borrowers and offering lower rates  to depositors. These interest rate controls and regulations distorted the price discovery mechanism and rendered the proper pricing of resources inefficient. 

In a closed and highly regulated financial system, monetary policy in India found itself in a subservient position to public/fiscal policy. It was the time of 'automatic monetisation'- in a closed economy where prices of a significant number of commodities were administered, sustaining these prices at a steady level called for subsiding of commodities amounting a ballooning budget deficit. These deficits were financed through ad hoc treasury bills or through borrowings, mostly from nationalised banks. The first led to more or less automatic monetisation, the primary factor behind expansion in money supply. To control this money supply, the RBI had to resort to mechanisms like increasing the cash reserve ratio and the statutory reserve ratio from time to time. Monetary policy thus depended primary in two instruments- CRR and SLR. Markets remained weak due to state predominance; an administered interest rate regime acted as an impediment to the functioning of other instruments like Open Market Operations. 

1951-1970 was thus a period of restricted monetary policy functioning. Monetary policy remained dependent on fiscal policy with no independent functioning of either its mechanisms or its instruments. The period was a time of heavy reliance on the public sector which was expected to bolster economic development through bringing about fruitful industrialisation. The Mahalnobis Plan introduced by the government focused on large scale public investment in industries to bolster the productive capacity of the economy. Huge public investment entailed deficit financing, which resulted in monetary policy bias against interested borrowers who had to pay higher interests in order to offset the debilitating inflationary effects of a public sector directed expansionary monetary policy. 

The 1980s

The year 1985 saw India's formal change to "monetary targeting with feedback". The recommendation for the change was made by the Chakravarty Committee, a committee set up to recommend changes to improve monetary regulation and thereby bring about price stability in the economy. The late 1970s and 1980s were years of high inflationary pressures on the economy. This was primary due to the expanding and intensifying government borrowing program which resulted in: 1) increased credit flow from the RBI to the government to fund the latter's economic investment program, and 2) an increase in the SLR requirements of banks to meet the government's borrowing programs. 

Increasing prices and an unstable economy resulted in the constitution of the Chakravarty Committee which suggested the adoption of a 'monetary targeting' program. Monetary targeting refers to fixing ex ante the most favourable target rate of growth of money supply in the economy as the foundation of the policy of monetary regulation.  This was an important recommendation since price stability is influenced significantly by the growth of money supply in the economy.

The Committee stated that an average increase of not more than 4% per year of the Wholesale Price Index should be treated as acceptable. However, this target was not rigidly set, unlike was the practice in other countries.  The Committee recommended an uncommon strategy- monetary policy targeting "with feedback". It recommended that the targeted money   growth should be 'modified' based on expected increase in output and a tolerable rate of inflation. 

                       =>The Committee envisaged formulation of monetary policy in terms of broad money stock (M3) as the target. This target was to be attained be keeping into account three factors: a) growth of expected real output b) expected income elasticity of demand for money c) tolerable level of inflation. 

As per the above Framework, for example, if the expected real output growth is 5%, income elasticity of demand for money is 1% and tolerable level of inflation is 4%, then the targeted growth of broad money supply (M3) would be 11%. Depending upon the changes in the above variables, monetary targets can be revised during the year. 

A crucial assumption of this framework of monetary policy was the stable relationship between money, output and prices- the money demand function. It was assumed that by changing money supply, it was possible to bring about effective changes in output and prices. 

Despite the move towards monetary targeting, no specific target in India was set during the second half of the 1980s. The "Monetary Targeting with Feedback" approach had to be reviewed as the nature of the economy transformed further. The 1990s saw the advent of the age of economic reforms accompanied by the liberalisation of financial markets and opening up of the economy to the world economy. 

The 1990s Reform Era 

The 1990s was a period of changing economic circumstances. As the economy opened up (though only in a piecemeal fashion), the important role of interest rates in determining monetary policy became self evident. Thus, besides real income and output, interest rates came to be increasingly seen as influencing money supply. Hence, from 1998-99,the RBI endeavoured to follow the 'Multiple Indicator Approach' (MIA) in which a number of macroeconomic and financial variables are considered while deciding upon the course of monetary policy (rather than a single M3 aggregate as in the past). These variable include- interest rates, rate of return in different markets, bank credit, fiscal position, foreign trade, capital flows, exchange rate, etc. The approach provided necessary flexibility to RBI to respond to changes in domestic and international economic conditions more effectively and efficiently. 

This was an important period in the shaping of the monetary policy of our country. It affirmed severed the Reserve Bank's historic subserviency to public policy (as seen in the withdrawal of the mechanism of automatic monetisation of fiscal deficit in 1997). The Ways and Means Advances mechanism was a major step in the affirmation of the integrity of monetary policy framing. The mechanism with a fixed limit for every year provided for meeting the temporary mismatches in the liquidity situation of the government. To a great extent, this measure helped (and has helped) to control the adverse effects of fiscal deficit on monetary policy functioning. 

The Reform period ushered in an era of a liberalised interest rate regime which further loosened the hitherto administrative grip on monetary policy. Interest rates were deregulated, so were prices (except certain essential commodities). SLRand CRR began to lose importance as the primary monetary policy instruments, and Open Market Operations gained prominence. The LAF, Liquidity Adjustment Facility was operationalised in 2000. Monetary policy now had repo and reverse repo rates as its primary policy instruments.  As the economy ventured to become more market oriented, new schemes were introduced. The Market Stabilisation Scheme was thus launched in 2004 to strengthen RBI's ability to influence exchange rate and monetary management. The new scheme enabled the central bank to manage liquidity in the economy- MSS securities were issued with the objective of providing the RBI with a stock of securities with which it could intervene in the market to manage liquidity. These securities were not issued to meet the government's expenditure. 

Monetary policy thus came to assume a relatively independent functioning, as it moved towards catering to newer concerns pertaining to a liberalised market oriented economy. 

In the given context of complex economic changes, monetary policy thus worked in tandem. From a state subservient mechanism, monetary policy evolved into a facilitator playing its part in both the growth and stabilisation of the Indian economy. The Multiple Indicator Approach was not the end point in a series of significant changes. With its focus on multiple variables, the approach did not pre empt the primary role of monetary policy in our country, that of "price stability". However, that our monetary policy framework did not obsess itself with the single variable of price stability was reflected in it focusing on a myriad of policy objectives, viz. interest rates, exchange rates, etc, within the overarching objective of the growth and stability of the economy. 

It was only in the beginning of this year that the RBI entered into an official agreement with the government whereby it has adopted "Flexible Inflation Targeting" as its sole monetary goal. The move is significant (and will be discussed in another post) since it narrows down the central bank's role to that of solely maintaining price stability. While the move is strategically a departure from the hitherto followed "Multiple Indicator Approach", it is not a significant policy departure. Price stability has been the concern of RBI since the time of its constitution. The difference now is in the focus of approach: from a more general objective of maintaining stability in the economy, the RBI is now to pursue a more specialised and clearly demarcated objective of targeting the primary disrupter of an economy's stability- INFLATION. 

THE DAY HUMANITY FAILED...

While India hails the glorious affirmation of the freedom of expression as upholded and further strengthened by the recent decision of the Supreme Court to quash the controversial Section 66A of the IT Act, another parallel incident, close to our neighbourhood hails, both horrendously and shamelessly, what is not 'freedom of expression' but an outright and outrageous 'murder with expression'.

I recently read of the news of the brutal lynching of a 27 year old Afghan woman named Farkhunda for the proposed allegation by the staunchly religious community  of her ostensible burning of the Quran. Yes, we are back again to the old enemy that has been crouching under our beds all these long years, waiting to crawl out the moment we turned the lights off. The barbarious act that led to the open lynching and beating to death and subsequent burning of a woman accused to be blasphemous revealed, in a shameful exposure, the veneration by men of religious fundamentalism over what constitutes the basic essence of human existence: Veneration of life! In a humiliating blow to mankind, barbaric death was upheld as the only just answer to ostensible blasphemy. And what made me almost choke with this feeling of humiliation was the manner in which the expression of public outrage was played out, and was mindlessly recorded.

It was murder. Murder with expression of rage. Murder committed mindlessly.

Mindlessly! A word with close resemblance to another that defies all reason. Rightly said, madness has no direction. Madness has no way. And madness held reigns that ignominious Thursday when an entire mob pounded on a woman in the name of preserving the sanctity of their religion.
Some have "condemned" it, others feel "bitterly conflicted". And then there are some clerics who have even approved it.! 

But then there are others too. I read some women in a unique display of solidarity had stood up for the woman and had insisted on carrying her body to the cemetery...to atleast give her that deserved 'last ritual' that every human being is entitled to from the time they are born!

What will happen ahead, well the newspapers will tell. Or perhaps you will read about it on Facebook.

The future course no one can ascertain.

But what is certain is that a fellow human was murdered. By fellow human beings. In the most disgraceful   manner that would make one shudder with the sheer inhumanity of it all!

Did the woman really burn the Quran? Was she upholding blasphemy? Or was she simply mentally challenged, as some claim?  

You can go ahead, explore the newspapers and our social media as you read this.

You will surely find some matter there.

But what we really need to do is ask ourselves, that fundamental question that would rip all religious fundamentalism down to threads. 

"What have we become"? 

Someone asked a friend once, "what if God was one of us?" And the gibe came, "He would be killed in a bomb blast". As events unfold and humanity rears its ugly head, perhaps we can safely say now that  'If God was one of us, he would be lynched!'

That fateful day, while our ordinary lives went on, somewhere in the world humanity died. And humans saw it all. They did it all!

IS ANYONE LISTENING….?