The Cexperience

Mid-market restaurants missing in Kolkata

2008-01-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

The other day I had been to Gariahat ... a hustling bustling market place in South Kolkata ...
At any time during the day, you will find atleast 5000-6000 people there. After I finished my work I thought of having a quick bite at some restaurant and then rush back to campus for the lecture.

And I was surprised to find tht there were no decent restaurants where you can order fast food, grab a bite and move on ... I decided to search as many eating joints as possible in that area. Most were unhygienic food shops and there were a few up market restaurants serving exotic cuisines. Then I decided to eat at a road side hawker and that revealed the true reason for the absence of such mid-market restaurants.

Even affluent higher middle class people here prefer to eat at these roadside hawkers. In a way the target segment is satisfied with their current pattern of consumption. I had 2 dosas and 1 idli and it cost me only Rs.15. I had bought a bottle of mineral water for Rs.12 to satiate my thirst. Alongside the dosa stall, there were two ladies which a huge turnout of taxi drivers. They were serving a large quantity of fish-rice. Quantity of rice was tooo much (comparable to the total quantity of rice I have in 6 meals) and to add to it a piece of cooked fish. Being a vegetarian I did not taste it. But still all this in Rs.10/- strictly speaks of the price sensitivity of the people of Kolkata. If we extrapolate, we can generalize this theory to West Bengal as a whole. This in a way explains, how conservative governments have survived in this region for decades, despite of very slow pace of growth, merely by keeping prices of basic necessities in control.

When I discussed this with a few friends of mine, they quickly pointed out that Rs.2 tea is available even in Mumbai. But there is a vast difference here. One that I already pointed out ... absence of mid market restaurant chains like Kamats, Shiv Sagars, etc. which are prevalent in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, etc. Other that turnover might not be comparable to that in Mumbai, where a road side chaiwala can easily sell upto 500 teas between 6am to 11am.

With recent developments and liberalization policies of the left, some enterpreneur might idenitify this opportunity and start a chain of Mid-market restaurants in Kolkata. This knowledge of mine is purely restricted to my observations. May be there would be some existing chain of restaurants already that I might be unaware. Feel free to critic this write-up.

Ulhaas 2007: A conversation

2008-01-03T20:46:00.000-08:00

Alkesh Shah is online.
Virag: hi dude
kaisa hai??
Alkesh: oye virru
majeme
tu kaisa hai
Virag: bus apun boleto
ekdum mast
Alkesh: kya baat hai.. ekdum hich circuit jaise bol rela hai tu
Virag: hehe
apun tereko bola ki nahi
Alkesh: kya
Virag: ki apun ne ek disguised game thru marketing research project kiya
city mein
usmein apun munnabhai aur circuit banela tha
Alkesh: kya bol rela hai bidu... tu munnabhai bana thaa.....
aur yeh kaunsa khel khela tune kolkotavasi-on ke saaath
Virag: hehe
unke drinking habits ke baare mein survey karna tha
Alkesh: heheehe.... ekdum jhakaas characte choose kiya tune
tell me how did u go about organizing this game
Virag: usmein fundoo story line bhi fit kiya tha
Alkesh: kaafi interesting lag raha hai sunne ko
Virag: pehle log apne juekhane mein ghoosne ka
usmein pehle stall mein circuit hota hai ...
woh bolta hai ... yaha munnabhai ka raaj chalta hai
tension nahi leneka ... aaram se khelne ka
Alkesh: juekhane kya hai?
Virag: gambling house
Alkesh: hmmm...
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Sent at 10:02 AM on Friday
Virag: baad mein uske munna money ka 1000 rupiye ka note deneka
fir uske saath 7 Up 7 down khelneka
fir bole to circuit uske batane ka ki aajkal munnabhai chinki ke pyaar mein pagal hai ...
to din-raat daaru pee rela hai ...
to boleto aap munna ko piyeli halat mein milne ko mangta kya??
to usse respondent peeta hai ki nahi pata chalta hai
baad circuit poochta hai ... peena kaunsi age mein chalu kiya
aur abhi munnabhai ke saath kaha peena pasand karoge ... club/bar/pub/5 star hotel/home/etc
most ppal responded with either bar or home
Alkesh: oye..kya sahi idea hai
ekdum filmi idea :)
Virag: baad mein woh jaake next stall mein munnabhai ko milne ka
Alkesh: and munna money to ekdum sahi banaya hai.. authentic hai
Virag: hmm ... usmein munna aur questions poochta hai ... about brand choice
Alkesh: but aise koi tapori log nahin the jo aise hi munnabhai ko milne aate hai jooth mooth me peete hai aise bol kar
Virag: hmmm ...
waise munnabhai ko yeda banana mushkil hi nahi namumkeen hai
baad mein munna bolta hai ki ... chinki ke baap (matlab mamu .. doctor asthana) ko jaake samjane ka ki munna accha aadmi hai
daaru peene se aadmi galat nahi ho jaata
Alkesh: heheehe
Virag: baad mein asthana ... effects on social, personal aur professional life pe questions poochta hai
Alkesh: baap re....
koi dekh le types song sequence bhi hai
Virag: baad mein doctor usko munnabhai gandhigiri munna ke paas bhej deta hai
hmmm ...
waha pe ... usko acchi cheejein sikhayi jaati hai
Alkesh: oye yeh to lage raho munnabhai hai
maine socha munnabhai mbbs hoga
Virag: end mein usko munnabhai chale amrika ka traler dikha dete hai
feedback lete hai ...
aur game khatam
Alkesh: hehe... sahi hai.. pura sequenc hi daal diya
ekdum fundoo banaya hai re
tu kya bana tha
Virag: beech beech mein ... pehla munnabhai ... card game khilata hai
doctor aiming game khilata hai
Alkesh: arre. koi carrom khelna waala tha ki nahin
Virag: gandhigiri munnabhai ...
Alkesh: rani ke peeche bhaagne waala
Virag: independence day ke questions pooochta hai
hehe
woh socha tha
magar carroom order karna bhool gaye the hum
starting mein :(
Alkesh: hehe....
Virag: warna woh bhi daal dete
Alkesh: sahi hai lekin.. very very innovative idea
Virag: apun kabhi munna kabhi circuit banela tha
to bahut maja aaya
do din tak 2 se leke 8 baje tak survey kiy
Alkesh: bole to.. tune ekdum hich fod diya :)
jhakaas
Virag: about 280 respondents visited our stall
hehe
there were seven other teams
doin different surveys
this was done in one of the centrally located malls in kolkata ... between pantaloons and west side and camac street
Alkesh: hmm....
Virag: phew
Alkesh: so it was common public tat had been participated
Virag: hmmm
we also had a gr8 experience and funny storiesto tell while interacting with people
like we sometimes used a slightly abusive language like, "uski maa ka ...", "saala ...", "vinamrata ...", "chemical locha ...", "tapka dalega ..."
etc etc
:)
Alkesh: hmmm.... sahi hai.. and ppl did not object to it at all..bcoz all this was munnabhai style
totally filmi
Virag: hmmm
we did not have such usages in our script
also our script was changed a lot during execution
in fact by the end we had a completely new script
:)
Sent at 10:19 AM on Friday
Alkesh: hm...
still it was a very good script
Virag: hmm
Sent at 10:22 AM on Friday

End of a long day ...

2007-08-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

17th August, 2007

It was a pretty long day today. Had 3 lectures, 1 hour 40 minutes each, today since morning 9:45 am. Had to prepare and appear for two quizzes IGP and Finacc. In the evening there was a presentation by topnotch Consulting firm. So attended the same, got a lot of insights about them and what do they do. Then attended the brand quiz by marcell, scored badly, somewhere around 5 out of 40, I guess, poor knowledge about brands and their advertisements... Thanks to not watching tv frequently. Had Stats tutes to attend, distributions and the related problems are awful. After that decided to participate in Dumb Charades with Vineet and Sumit. We enjoyed a lot during the act, laughed out our hearts but werent able to guess a single movie, simple ones like, Space Jam and Mission Impossible.... Back to room and about to sleep now ... Its already 2 am ... chao

60 years of independence ... some thoughts

2007-08-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

15th August 2007

Aaj bahut dino baad mein jaldi utha ... to attend the flag hoisting ceremony at IIMC.
(Delibrately started with hindi our mother tongue, before most of us forget using it)
I was immediately charged up when I reached that place. The flag hoisting ceremony was followed by inspirational speeches by our Director, Dean PI, Professors and others. Everyone cribbed about diminishing importance of this day among the youth, but they also portrayed the positives that we can take from India's 60 years of independence. While most of the stuff like growth, emerging market, etc ... seemed globe (universal gyaan ... that is used to fill pages when one doesnt know a precise answer ... fart in iitb lingo) to me, I did agree
with a point of view of our economics professor, who termed this period as an experiment of implementation of democracy on such a large and linguistically diverse population which stands unmatched in the history of mankind.
The truth still remains, the common man hasnt really tasted the priviledge of indian independence so far.

This reminded me of an article by Deepak Nayyar on "Globalization, history and development: a tale of two centuries". The article criticizes the concept of globalization by bolstering some figures and some hard truths. It stresses that, we people who have the required skills which are desired in most developed nations are the ones who have benefitted from the process. But are we doing anything to make sure that the other people, our under priviledged fellow countrymen, also get the benefits of the process. It has been noticed that the proponents of globalization were the people who saw their benefit in doing so. Also the growth figures from history show that the world economy has indeed slowed down due to globalization and the rich-poor divide has increased even further. Also unemployment have risen in the developed nations due to globalization.

The speeches were followed by a sweet distribution break. Savoured the bengali delicacies with chow... JBS BaroC presented songs Vande Mataram and Yeh Jo Desh hai Tera ... Choreo club featured an amazing dance performance, which was very well received by the audience... Dramatics Club presented a play "Aakhri Salaam" which featured the plight of soldiers during partition, where they were made to fight with their fellow military friends who had fought together during the world war ... The prize distribution ceremony followed the performances. Top 20 academic rank holders were given prizes. Chitresh Kumar Sainia from our wing received the prize for the 20th rank. His feet was amazing given that he had scored a CGPA of 6.5 at the end of term 1.

World War - Tyre raid

2007-08-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

5th August 2007

The most exciting event of the world war was the tyre raid. Our hostel team had to dig out a 200+ kg tyre from the hallowed grounds of WH (White Hostel aka Tagore Hostel). Actually the ground was muddy and the leg gets buried till the knee as soon as you step on it. All the drainages were blocked by cement. The agenda was that our team (OH = Old Hostel = Ramanujan Hostel) had to dig out the tyre in the shortest possible time, WH team would make our task difficult by pouring 100s of litres of water from the hostel terraces through huge drums for the initial 90 minutes.

I was in the tarpoline team. My job was to hold the tarpoline above the digging grounds from one of the corners. On the corners the pressure was tremendous. Below the tarpoline the digging process had initiated already and the job of the tarpoline team was to ensure that no water enters the tyre area. When NH (New Hostel team, the third team in the event) had come to raid OH, we were able to destroy their tarpoline twice. We did a good job and our tarpoline was unbreakable. I have some cool videos of the water getting repeled through our tarpoline.

Enough of the tarpoline story. After the 80 minutes I assisted in clearing the drainage so that the water can be drained out of the area. There were more than 15 people involved in this process. Once 90 minutes were over, I came to the digging grounds and started helping the team with startegies to dig out the tyre. The instruments were too slippery to handle because of the muddy hands. So we initiated the clearance of the dug out material through hand. Once enough tyre was visible, we tried to push it from one side. But after some more digging, we attached ropes to the tyre and everyone gave an attempt to pull out the tyre. Unfortunately the sturdy rope broke and most of us fell on the muddy grounds. We immediately gathered together and without getting disheartened started pulling the tyre from another side and out came the tyre. We won .......................................... Our time was 2 hours 37 minutes, the next best team had ticked 2 hrs 45 minutes. It was a great satisfaction. We made our seniors proud and ofcourse we demonstrated great team spirit. Each member of the team had a role to play - some were involved in tarpoline, some in clearing drains, some in digging and some in refreshments. Everyone gathered their act together and made this win possible. Great show ...