Mother's Day just got over and I read a couple of really beautiful diaries. So how about celebrating Mother's Week. But as they say, onekahani mein twist hai.

In the Indian ethos, Mother or ma is often equated with the Mother Goddess also implying Shakti or strength which I think adds up to the strength of a woman.

How about writing a beautiful diary on a woman who has really impacted you? It could be your mother, wife, sister, friend .... anyone whom you look up to in awe, respect, love. Mother's Day anyone? Woman's Day, hunh?

If you ask me all days are Mother's Day and Woman's Day. So let's celebrate these two days today. Why wait for any special occasion?

So all I request you to write a beautiful diary on the most beautiful woman in your life.

luv

@caretaker

Down with the big villains!
April 07, 2010 03:11 PM | Faisal Farooqui

Most brands have now realised that the consumer now lives in a virtual world which has helped him discover his voice and trying to throttle him is just not the right solution; it will only backfire

I’m no film buff, I admit. I rarely go to the movies but those that impress me linger on in the mind for long.

I’m reminded of a Bollywood movie, Mashaal. Dilip Kumar is a strong, conscientious newspaper editor who writes against Amrish Puri, a liquor baron. Incensed by the former’s scathing attacks in print, Puri leaves no stone unturned to destroy Kumar. These were the good old days of Bollywood when drama was in-your-face and the battle of good-versus-evil was all-encompassing. I distinctly remember Amrish Puri being hung to death on reams of paper. Journalistic justice!
The moral of the story was very simple for me. You do not mess with the printed word; if you do, you end up smudged.

Now the question is, why am I reminded of this Hindi movie years later?
A few days ago, I received an email from a member of MouthShut.com. He was distraught. His email contained a few nervous lines. He had written a review against a leading hospital. The hospital got in touch with him. Initially they were polite, then gruff… you know how it is, the pattern. When the member did not yield to “polite and humble requests,” the hospital asked a local police officer who I assume must have been a “friend” of the hospital authorities to intervene. The member, unsurprisingly, buckled under pressure. He wrote to our support platform several times and marked every copy to me also. He wanted us to delete his review.

I am surprised that there are some naïve brand managers in this day and age who feel that they can get away by pressurising their customers into taking back anything negative they may have written about their brands. Can someone tell them that harassing your customers does not work in the long run? You can harass one customer with your bullying ways but you cannot overlook what is being said about your brand.

Mashaalwas just a movie but it probably was prescient in nature. Dilip Kumar has now been replaced by an average consumer who is honest with his opinions but yes, there are the Amrish Puris who do not want the truth of their substandard products being exposed. These guys in my opinion are not brand managers but big villains who still believe in the autocratic style of handling consumer grievances.

They do not want to listen to the consumer, who is more like a citizen journalist now, prepared to voice his opinion on anything and everything under the sun.
The good news is that the good guys outnumber the big villains in the market. In this era of globalisation, most brand managers are listening to what their consumers are saying. True brand managers are out there, listening to consumers, engaging them and even winning them over. Most brands have now realised that the consumer now lives in a virtual world which has helped him discover his voice and trying to throttle him is just not the right solution; it will only backfire.

Antagonistic approaches do not help anyone. It’s a democratic society where brand building has gone beyond the first screen (television) phase to the second (computers) and third screen (mobiles).

In the first screen phase, brands were cocooned in the safety of one-sided information dissemination. The second and third screens are so interactive that brands have no option but to allow consumers to participate equally and if this means listening to criticism, so be it.

In the movie, Amrish Puri had a morbid end—villains are always vanquished in reel life and I believe in real life too. Getting too aggressive on one consumer might help the big villains for once. In the long run, it does not help. The second and third screens have made possible the resurgence of several Dilip Kumars.
Big villains beware!

moneylife.in/article/4628.html

Hi everyone:

It’s a great Monday and the mind is ticking and alive to everything around it.

Ok lets’ get straight to the point. We’re going to announce a contest soon. Ya so what’s so great in it? Good question. There have been several contests in the past. But this particular contest (details out later) will be different in a real sense.

Now that’s the twist in the tale.

Instead of MouthShut.com deciding on the winners, we shall have a panel of judges from amongst you.Yes, you heard right. A panel comprising MouthShut.com members will select the winnersand submit their names to us. We shall only verify the same.

How is the panel going to be decided?
Well that’s not going to be too difficult. If you are a past winner, let’s say in the last movie contest organized by us and we have a movie contest on this time again, well you will be on the panel.

What say? How do you guys like the idea? Do let me know.

Cheers!
@caretaker (Aps)

One of my earliest memories is of this cold morning at a large railway station (VT?) from where long-distance trains would depart for up-country. My mom and dad were about to board the train for our ancestral village near Varanasi.

I distinctly remember (I was a little over 5 years old)...I was crying as I was not accompanying them. Like a bratty child, I told them I'd stop crying if they buy me some chocolate. Dad quickly handed me a twenty rupee note...kissed me on my forehead and promised that they'll be back within few days. Little did I know that it'd be the last kiss...my dad had a heart-attack the moment he arrived at Varanasi station, and passed away few hours later upon reaching the house.

Don't remember much as to what happened to that precious twenty rupee note, but even today, when I see an old orange-red twenty rupee note, my memories take me back to everything that I can remember of that morning and my dad.

I avoid looking at twenty rupee notes, but I found a scan copy on a currency history website (see pic). I'm going to be brave enough to stare at these pictures for a long time today. I hope your memories are brighter than mine.

Love

--Faisal

Hi:

Summers bring out the child within me. It has got to do with the season. Sunburnt skin, exams looming large, the prospect of vacations, plenty of cool drinks, stints at the homes of various relatives, extended play sessions, comics (may favs were Tintin and Archie), and what not.

Summer vacations meant total freedom, I could get up at whatever time I wished to, sleep at my designated hour. What fun!

Times have changed, but the memories remain. What about you? What are your childhood memories? Dip into nostalgia and write a beautiful account of your childhood.
Your diary would be an interesting read, a great opportunity to understand what stuff your childhood was made of.

Write a diary and take us down memory lane

What say?

@caretaker

Last night at the Taj Lands End, Bandra, Mumbai, MouthShut.com won the Gold for the Best Web Portal 2009 at the first Indian Digital Media Awards (IDMA).

It was a glittering ceremony where Faisal humbly accepted the award on behlaf of all of you. Mr Sandeep Goyal, Chairman, Dentsu Marcom Pvt Ltd gave Faisal his award.

Dressed smartly in casuals, Faisal feels that this award truly belongs to all of you. "It is not my award," he said over dinner to everyone who cared to listen and there were quite a few. "It belongs to the members of MouthShut.com."

I felt proud, not just because I am now a part of this great team led by Faisal but because I am a member of MouthShut.com. quite like all of you. As Faisal was speaking, I said to myself, 'This award belongs to you Aprajita Natasha Singh aka @caretaker'.

This award belongs to me.
This award belongs to you.
This award belongs to all of us.

Together, let's cheer for our favourite website, MouthShut.com.

@caretaker

Hi:
Hope the morning’s good. I got up feeling great about myself and everything about me. Just an intuition and great to have such intuitions, I thought and picked up the newspaper.
Ah! It is International Women’s Day. I should have understood why I was feeling great about myself; I didn’t – I felt a little peeved now and my stomach started churning. No! It wasn’t the call of nature but something about this day.

Hello boss, another caste system – International Women’s Day! Pooh!

‘Hello? What is it to be so upset about? Doesn’t it have to do with celebrating a woman?’

‘Yeah, yeah, sure!’

‘Stop being sarcy.’

This conversation with me-myself was turning out to be nerve-grating but it went on and on.

‘I mean what is there to celebrate?’

‘Now this sacrilege! The whole world is going ga-ga-hoo-haa about it and you find now cause to celebrate?’

‘No!’

‘Why?’

‘If I celebrate today it simply means I am trying to be defensive, apologetic about being present in this male-dominated society.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I do celebrate, but not on anyone particular day but day-after-day. I celebrate each moment of being alive as a woman. I celebrate being born, being the daughter of my parents, the education I got, the career path I have chosen for myself, my body, my sexuality, my thought process, my individuality. I don’t have to burn my bra to prove I’m free. ‘

I’M FREE! That’s it!

End of discussion!

‘Isn’t that reason enough to celebrate? Sorry but my celebrations today are no different from the way I celebrate life every day.’

‘Point taken.’

‘Thanks, now I have to rush to work.’

@caretaker

Holi was manic yesterday. It had to be. After all it was my first Holi in years in India. Stayed over at my parents’ place a day before. My childhood playmates Shweta and Antara came over first thing in the morning. Obviously since we were at my parents’ home, everything was mellow and calm, including the colours.

Ma offered everyone sweets and gujias and once we filled our tummies we went out. Let me mention, Shweta and Antara are married and have cho-chweet children of their own, but this time they were behaving like teenage giggly-heads. We went and met a couple of other college friends and played Holi with them.

“Bhang! I want some bhang,” Antara kept parroting but we would not let her have her way. She frowned and we found her grumpy face extremely funny.

Around noon time Shweta dragged us to her place. After lunch and some masti with her bachcha Ankit and hubby Prashant, I went to Antara’s place. “Shaam ko kya karna hai?” she asked me. I nodded half asleep, “You decide, it’s your city.”

“Party!” She shrieked and I ran for cover.

PARTY!

I did party late into the night. Shweta and Antara invited everyone they considered to be a friend and we went to a pub. It was fun and naughty (wink)! And I’m not going to shell out the details (wink, wink, wink)!!

My Holi was delirious. How was yours?

How about writing a diary about how you spent your Holi. Who knows it could soon be a Featured Post.

Likho yaar and let everyone know about the fun you had on Holi.

Cheers!

@caretaker

Over the years, your favorite website- MouthShut_Official.com has evolved in to what everybody is now terming as a 'pioneering social media platform.'

Ab aap isey Web 2.0 kaho, ya social media platform ya review site (trans1) for us it is MouthShut_Official.com

Our platform design and appearance has changed over the years. But one thing that has remained steady and I promise you will remain steady is our commitment to you, members and visitors, to provide you a free website for voicing your opinions with a dedicated and loving Support Team that will never falter.

Jasmine our long-time Head of Support and Member Relations has bid us good bye. But we have a winner in the form of @caretaker
Aprajita or "Aps" as I call her has been a long-time MouthShut_Official member. I remember the time when she would M2M me from Australia in 2003. And she tells me that she fell in love with MouthShut_Official the day she registered on here. I am convinced that @caretaker who's now heading the Member Relations team here will work closely with all of you to make MouthShut_Official more relevant and useful for everybody.

Please join me in welcoming her. (No please don't trouble her with too many mails and M2M;-)

Love you all,

--Faisal

(trans1) whether you call it web2.0 or social media or a review site...

6:45 am The alarm on my mobile phone rings and there are thousand bees buzzing in my head

7:00 am I finally get out of bed and gulp down my customary glass of warm water

7:30 am Do a bit of stretching and yoga. A part of me worries: “The bai hasn’t turned up.”

7:50 am The bai does arrive unapologetically late. I frown but she hardly notices me. I give up and rush for my bath.

8:15 am Someone gifted me a bottle of “itr” I decide to try it out for my first day at MouthShut.com.

8:20 am White oats and papaya for breakfast. “Cut the papaya properly,” I shrill to the bai who just does not bother to respond. I assume the silence to be a “No” but I hope it is a “Yes”.

8:30 am Off to work. Thankfully I find an auto .

9:15 am I am in the premises of MouthShut.com. The HR takes me into a nice glass cubicle for induction formalities. I bump into Jasmine

10:30 am I’m still reading documents and signing papers. Jasmine is edgy. She pops in and asks the HR: “How much time more?”

11:00 am I am through. Phew! I am led into Faisal’s room pronto by Jasmine where I meet him and the head of communications. We shake hands and its business time. Faisal takes me through MouthShut and my role. Jasmine shares her experience with handling a community. For the first time I understand what happens when you sit on the other end of a community.

1:00 pm Meeting over. I am introduced to the rest of the guys.

1:30 pm Lunch time. I have a major craving to smoke. I am taken to Shivsagar by some of my colleagues. En route I puff on my ciggie. Don’t frown.

2:15 pm Back to work. The product team explains the nitty-gritty of each and every feature on MouthShut.com

4:15 pm Jasmine shows me an interesting email. A member is angry that we do not have real gifts on MouthShut.com. Jasmine asks me to tackle this issue and I jump into it headlong.

5:00 pm Faisal calls me for a quick chat. He informs me that we are going to give Jasmine a nice farewell party. “Don’t tell her. It’s a secret.” “As if she does not know,” I quip.

6:00 pm Jasmine has posted her farewell diary. I am responding.

6:30 pm I am exhausted. It has been a long day. I sip on tea and smoke another one

6:45 pm Party time. “We will miss you Jasmine” is written on the cake. Aww! Jasmine talks and touches us all. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

7:15 pm Time to head home. I hope the bai has made something interesting for dinner otherwise I will have to do with noodles.

8:00 pm Jasmine sends me a message. “You’ll do a gud job. All d best.”