He then told me tales of the astronomical wealth and privileges that this class of aristocrats enjoyed that would put to shame the czars whom the ‘revolution’ overthrew.

The very next day I read this news item in the Indian media on my internet about the Lok Sabha speaker  Somnath Chatterjee refusing to attend a meeting  of the International Parliamentary Union at Geneva. That’s when my computer conked off. I was in ecstasies extolling Chatterjee for deciding not to waste time and tax payers’ money on yet another fruitless talkfest.

‘This guy is a rare guy. We need more politicians like him,’ I told my wife.

‘Why, what happened?” she asked.

‘Wait till you get my computer working,’ I replied.

A minute later my computer expert wife announced that my gadget was fit for operations.

‘Just visit the India Express website and see for yourself what the greatest Bengali after Saurabh Ganguly in the 21st century West Bengal has done.’

She read with avid interest but as she read, her eyes grew red and her looks intense till she burst out in wrath, ‘What the hell is this? Don’t rush to conclusions. Read it yourself.’

She all but threw the computer at me. It was then that I learnt that Chatterjee’s decision had nothing to do with any lofty sentiments but was because of his outrage at the thought that he would be frisked at London Airport! It was then I thought of what my New York cabbie told me Рthe ‘oligarchs’.

But then Chatterjee is a communist and we claim to be a socialist country. So we may not have oligarchs. But with Indian ingenuity we have come up with a new concept – the elected aristocrats!

Our leaders are given many privileges that would make our old Maharajas blush in embarrassment. The privy purses for Maharajas may have been abolished but there is now institutionalized largesse for our netas.

On my last visit to Chennai, I was shocked at the way policeman skewed me out of the Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai onto the dirty sidewalk as the cavalcade of more than a dozen cars escorted the state Chief Minister. Some bushy-moustached, gun-toting men in jeeps appeared to train their AK 47s on me. I felt I was being suspected of being a terrorist.

Even Robert Vadra enjoys rare privileges including exemption from being frisked at airports. Just as Ganshiji is called the father of the nation, maybe Vadra could be officially anointed as the son-in-law of the nation, rashtra damaab in Hindi.

Come to think of it, Somnath Chatterjee is right. How dare a London security man frisk a Lok Sabha Speaker at whose command many an MP shivers in his dhoti and on whose rebuke MPs from Bihar and UP stop rushing to the well of the House and refrain from wrenching microphones and hurling them at other members!

I recollect seeing photographs of Bill Gates being frisked at Congress where he frequently makes an appearance to give testimony on policy issues. But who is Bill Gate compared to our netas? Just a sidelight.

In the grand tradition of Maharajas giving titles of honour to their loyal subjects, an organization in Chennai has recently conferred some interesting titles to three of the Tamil oligarchy.

Karunanidhi has been conferred the ‘Periyar’ award, his son Stalin gets the ‘Karunanidhi’ award and loyalist Minister for Power Veeraswamy the ‘Annadurai’ award! Veeraswamy gushed, ‘This award is better than a Nobel Prize.’ Nothing surpasses this for sheer nobility!

In tackling the issue of how to compete with the Coke bottle, Sculley made
what is called a metadecision. He asked himself a few crucial questions. What is the crux of the issue? How should problems like this be
approached? He realized that the heart of the problem was not to compete
directly with Coke’s bottle (Pepsi’s focus in the past) but to nullify its
strengths. He decided to approach the problem by shifting the ground rules
to alter the whole playing field, pulling back and asking what the customer
really wanted.

Realizing that his people did not know enough about consumers to identify
what they really wanted in order to take marketing decisions correctly, he
launched a careful test to study how families actually consumed Pepsi and
other soft drinks in their homes. It became obvious that what the customers
wanted was packaging that made it easier for people to get more soft drinks
into their homes. Then Sculley moved into the first of the four stages in
decision making – framing the issue, which in this case was launching of
new larger and more varied packages. Pepsi began a new intelligence
gathering stage, and then, based on the findings, launched a new group of
larger packages and thereafter continued to refine the packaging. The results
were dramatic and Pepsi’s market share expanded substantially and almost
drove the Coke bottle out to extinction. Coke could not convert its famed
hour-glass silhouette bottle into larger containers.

What Sculley did is of immense significance to decision makers – take time
for an initial assessment, in which you ask yourself how this kind of decision
should be made. This activity of deciding how to decide is called
metadecision.

In the metadecision phase, ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the crux or primary difficulty in this stage? Which of the four
stages in the decision making process will be the most important?
2. In general how should decisions like this be made? Where do my own
strengths and weaknesses lie? Where do I need help?
3. Can I draw on feedback from related decisions and experiences that I
have faced in the past?

The four stages of decision making are:

•    Framing – it determines the viewpoint from which you look at the issue
and set the parameters as to which aspect of the subject  you will
consider important.
•    Gathering intelligence Рgathering knowable facts and options, and
evaluation of unknowables.
•    Coming to conclusions Рa systematic approach to taking a decision.
•    Learning from experience.

Metadecision Vs. ‘Plunging’

Meta decision should take place before you frame the issue. ‘Plunging’ into
the various stages of decision making can lead to disastrous consequences.
Not devoting sufficient time and effort to this phase may lead to you solving
the wrong problem thereby exacerbating the actual problem.

Take the case of a bank branch that was losing market share to its rivals. The
branch management decided that the only wayout was to aggressively
‘plunge’ into a marketing exercise. The officers were asked to jump headlong
into a ‘deposit mobilization’ exercise and virtually three quarters of the
branch staff were in the field all day. At the end of the two-month exercise,
the deposits actually fell further. When I was asked for advice I sat with the
branch officials and initiated a study involving customers who had closed
their accounts during the last year. The study revealed that they were
dissatisfied with the quality of customer service at the branch .The branch
thereafter decided to stop their outdoor marketing exercise and devote their
efforts to improving the level of customer service to existing customers. This
led to a significant growth in deposits.

In another instance a consumer durables maker approached me with his
problem – falling market share. His company was benchmarking against its
nearest competitor on all the major parameters and despite his quality and
other initiatives he could not improve his market share. I asked him to do a
metadecision exercise involving a survey of existing and potential buyers of
his product. This metadecision exercise turned out a new and profound
understanding of the market. The company implemented a plan of action to
solve the many hassles the buyers faced before and after buying the
product. The results were astounding. The company had as a consequence of
the insights from the metadecision, bypassed the competition.

A few insurance marketers approached me with a request to guide them on
how to market their insurance products in the face of growing competition
from the LIC and several other private sector players. They educated me on
the marketing strategy they had been taught and which they had been
following with limited success. It was apparent that they had followed a
strategy of ‘have product will sell’. They had been taught to ‘plunge’ into
action after gathering enough product knowledge, and follow the usual
marketing and selling tactics. I told them to take the metadecision approach.
They interviewed several existing and potential policy holders. This
metadecision stage revealed several insights as to what people expect from
an insurance policy—something that these advisors had not been told about.
The entire strategy had to be revamped and the majority of them have met
with commendable success.

In an article in The Hindustan Times, television star Barkha Dutt contrasts presidential debates in the US with poll campaigns in India.

I notice that, on most occasions, when Indians (including yours truly till I moved to the US) compare India to the US, they go misty eyed, gushing with total admiration for the US and serious regret if not condemnation for India. I can’t really blame them. After all they form their opinions based on what they have heard from the media, their friends and relatives, and of course from Hollywood.

Invariably, one forms an opinion that is at best partially correct. The opinion leaders may not have or give the correct picture. They may have their biases and prejudices with their own frames of reference. They may have limited knowledge and experience or may exaggerate. Barkha Dutt’s article needs to be read with a pinch of salt.

She gushes at the way the presidential debates in the US deal with ideas in contrast to India where election speeches are peppered with references to religion, caste and such other topics. Dutt asks if we will ever have candidates talking of serious matters like Kashmir, nuclear deal, etc.

Well let me tell you what I see, read and hear in the US media these days.

At the start of the campaign season, the issues that were debated by the candidates were the ones that are close to the American heart Рreligion, gay rights, Darwinism Vs. creationism, Christianity Vs. black liberation theology, Obama’s pastor friend, Obama’s early adulthood friend who went on to be a radical, an Obama friend who was later accused of being a shady guy, McCain being old and a liar and Obama being a part-time Muslim and so on. You get the idea.

It is only now, with the Wall Street crash that the candidates have started talking of the economy to a limited extent.

As the election day draws nearer, I can fairly confidently predict that the quality of debate will be no different from the tu tu, mai mai kind all too evident in India.

In fact, there are uncanny resemblances between the events in the two countries.

A report in the US media says that Obama’s list of donors contains names of non-existing, bogus or benami donors. Sounds familiar in India? Does it remind you of Mayawati?

It has been announced officially that the voters’ list in Ohio has many bogus voters РBihar style!

Sex, sleaze and other salacious stuff have tumbled out in election campaigns in earlier years. One can never know that we will not see an outbreak of such titillating stuff as the election day approaches.

Maybe Barkha Dutt might have something else to tell us then.