Poem on Enigmatic Europe..

The following poem was composed on a Turkish Airways return flight from Paris to Mumbai, is based on my impressions of the European cities I had explored:                                          

Prague Castle, Czech Republic

Wandering down those eerie streets on a chilly night,
Hunting for a shelter cozy and tight.                                                
Seems like an elusive seductress exuding ghostly aura,
As I gasp in awe, at the splendour of Praha (Prague).

Venice, Italy

City by the sea under sun,
Of gondolas, canals, frolic and fun.
Feels so warm and nice,
In this timeless city of Venice.

Munich, Germany

Iconic city of German engineering,
Running seamlessly like a fine tuned machine.
Crown of Bavaria with BMW its jewel,
Where time is god and punctuality practised as religion,
So perfect, clean and green, that am in love with Muenchen.

Amsterdam Harbor, Netherlands

Air heavy with smoke of dope,
Harbour bellowing with ship horns,
Red light district oozing in exuberance with booze flowing on its streets.
Beguiling and teasing,
Bicycling paradise and fun Mecca.
So tolerant, cosmopolitan and liberal,
That night ambience feels surreal while biking in Amsterdam.

North Zurich Lake, Zurich, Switzerland

Picturesque city by the lake,
With fancy cars plying its streets and splendid mansions dotting skyline,
Sitting on piles of riches and so expensive that I deride,
Thank God, it doesn’t cost to breathe in Zurich!

Roman Colosseum, Rome, Italy

Epitome of Roman wealth and might,
With the colosseum as its icon of indulgence,
That had taken away its upright prudence.
History drips in the city of Rome.


Paradise of music and museums,
An art lover’s manna,
This is enchanting Vienna.

Naples, Italy

So ancient and captivating,
Its Pizzas delicious, mouth watering,
And glancing at it from the top of the fuming Mount Vesuvius is enthralling.
With the ruins of Pompeii beside,
For Naples, my heart starts praying,
To save it from the Mount’s furor and might.

Has gotten better by getting rid of its dreary past relating to Hitler,
Democracy all pervasive with people so helping and friendly,
That one wonders this was once world war epicenter.
Change is what Berlin means.

Buda Castle, Budapest, Hungary

Split into two by the mighty River Danube,
Emerging out of communist past while thriving in the modern present.
Landscape that is mesmerizing and riveting,
A city so welcoming and caring.
That it feels like home in Budapest.

On the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

Sparkling metropolis teeming with life,
Pride of France and cradle of the renaissance.
Victim of its own success, fast losing its sheen,
With illegal immigration on the rise.
Eiffel tower  standing tall and watching it all in stoic silence,
while Gustavo Eiffel is shedding tear and turning in his grave.
As I roam around in Paris…

Poem - The Wanderer

MAYBE I AM FREE ALBATROSS OF THE SEA,
WHO FOUND HIMSELF TETHERED ON THE ROCKS OF COMMITMENT.
MAYBE I AM THAT BAD MOUTHED STUD,
WHO CAN'T PRETEND TO BE A SWEET TONGUED SAINT TO IMPRESS A FEMALE.

MAYBE I AM THAT REBELLIOUS WANDERER,
WHO SUFFOCATED WITHIN THE CONFINES OF MARRIAGE.

MAYBE I AM WHALE OF THE PACIFIC,
WHO COULDN'T AFFORD TO SLITHER IN MARITAL SWAMP.

MAYBE I AM THAT IMPULSIVE OCTANE,
WHO FAILED TO BE INERT HELIUM IN THE LAB OF MARRIAGE.

MAYBE AM TOO HONEST TO MYSELF,
TO FOOL AROUND THE OPPOSITE SEX.

BUT surely I am brave enough to disregard social diktats and live life on my terms in my turf.....

 

-- Satya

 

Beware of Pervert Elders

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to vilify elders but to bring awareness in not blindly obliging them just because of their old age. There are undoubtedly few elders who are exceptions to this rule.

Indian elders have always been revered like demi- Gods. Perhaps because such values get inculcated in early childhood or perhaps such cultural norms have existed since time immemorial, nonadherence to which would most likely invite social ostracization. Nonetheless, that’s the way Indian society has always been. Which is just fine.
But I have a problem here. My problem is the rampant abuse of this social credo by these very elders. I am talking about sexual perversion amongst oldies.  There are off course exceptions but rising cases of sexual infatuation in elders for young girls and boys is a cause of alarm which largely remains hushed up and goes unreported. As someone who has always questioned this status quo, I have been cast aside as a lunatic. After all, who would want a rebel whose statements might make people question this age old norm?

But thanks to the internet that I can now safely express myself now. I don’t deny the fact that experience is the best teacher in the University of Life and as one matures he/she tends to gather more of life’s wisdom. This wisdom shared properly might be of tremendous help to young masses who might be flummoxed at the crossroads of life. But let me add a caveat that most humans fail to gather that coveted wisdom.
Since most humans live unconsciously like a herd of cattle, they end up wasting their human existence. All that happens as they age, that they become a bundle of accumulated ignorance, whims and pent up desires.  
 The more their time continues to expire the more desperation breeds inside to satiate their perversion. It might take the form of vulgar jokes with young or angrily lashing out at others and in some extreme cases sexual molestation and even murder.
Following are a few cases to prove my point:
Old man booked for molesting a girl on a flight: Few months back a businessman named  Rabindra Jhunjhunwala of 62 on a flight from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar was reprimanded at Bhubaneswar airport after the flight landed. He had been constantly touching a young girl throughout the 2hr flight seated in his front seat.
Brave girl kept quiet through the ordeal but the moment flight landed,    
she hit back at the old man while recording it on her mobile and later files a case with the airport police.
Here are the videos shot from her mobile (Worth watching!)  
 Inside the flight 
At airport waiting lounge publicly apologizing for hispervert act 
Here's another appalling case  of a techie from Banagalore who endures sexual abuse from her maternal uncle to educate herself as she was very poor, that the uncle was paying for her education..
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/crime/Techie-endures-sexual-abuse-by-uncle-only-to-educate-self/articleshow/46706373.cms
Retired army doctor held for chopping wife into 300 pieces. Bound to send tremors down the devil's spine, this story is of Somnath Parida who gets into an affair with a young girl to pep up his boring retired life. The girl later starts blackmailing the doc for money to keep their affair secret from his wife. Later wife suspects something hanky-panky, upon which the butcher doctor slices her into 300 pieces and lives with dismembered parts for days until his arrest.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/odisha-army-doctor-chops-wife-body-into-300-pieces/1/284761.html
This high profile case of Anuksha Shankar, daughter of world-renowned Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar disclosed after her father’s death that a close family friend had been molesting her for years as a child. She couldn’t reveal this to anybody because her family trusted him blindly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2278240/Anoushka-Shankar-sexual-abuse-Ravis-daughter-breaks-silence-trauma-suffered-hands-family-friend.html
 In yet another case a 82-year-old man rapes a 15 year old girl twice who also happens to be his relative. Unbelievable!!
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/crime/shocking-82-year-old-man-rapes-teenage-girl/
I can go on and on citing endless stories of elderly sexual perversion that average young human mind can’t comprehend. My blood boils when I see parents forcing kids to trust elders without consideration. 
Even Bollywood actor Aamir Khan in his popular show “Satyameva Jayate(Let truth triumph!)” had also prepared an episode on this topic.
Therefore, we need to safeguard our children from elderly Sexual predators by making them aware, instead of forcing them to blindly oblige everyone.

God men/women of India!

India: The ancient most civilization that has been a spiritual torch-bearer over millennia has also been overshadowed with evil spell of self proclaimed god men for centuries. One common thread that ties all these god men are Sex and Illgotten money. In recent days 2 such creatures Radhe Ma  aka Sukhvinder Kaur Sidhu of Mumbai and Sarathi Baba akaSantosh Raula of Odiaha are hugging news headlines.

           

Radhe Ma: Educated till 10th Std. gets married in adolescence and starts spiritual discourses. Moves into a rich Mumbai business family from her village in Punjab. Recently accused of impersonating revered Indian deities, dancing in fashionable clothes and obscenity with followers.

Sarathi Baba: He was a much bigger parasite preying on impoverished people of a poor state (Odisha). This man a school dropout who claimed that he is God himself as reincarnation of supreme Lord Krishna had his bogus empire to the tune of Crores of rupees. In a way he had close connivance with the corrupt state govt. He had money invested in Ponzi schemes, real estate as well as Sex and extortion rackets. Till he was busted after a photograph of him clad in blue denim and ray-ban glasses in a Hyderabad hotel with a girl surfaced; he was, indeed treated like God by illiterate masses of Odisha!!

Subsequent public outrage ensued which the Government tried to hush with brute police force. Thanks to relentless investigation and broadcast by one news channel Zee Kalinga, thebaba, police department and the state government were all brought to books. After Crime Branch investigation started, in no time lid blew open and accounts of Sarathi's misdeeds were oozing out. Baba's empire of deceit and fraud came crashing down. The fraud man was charged with multiple counts of Indian Penal Code and sent to prison.

Following are a list of his ill-gotten wealth uncovered in just 10 days:

300 plots across Odisha and neighboring states.

10 crore rupees and still counting in 12 bank accounts.

3 large bungalows.

Dozens of luxury cars and buses.

Pounds of gold and silver.

Remember all this in one of the poorest states of India(Odisha).

Last year another such old man named Asaram Bapu, was jailed for raping minors at  his ashram. Similarly the list is endless.

But all this fiasco raises one pertinent question, why India's serious obsession for such people? A land with rich spiritual heritage (science, arts, philosophy) are part of main stream culture, what could have gone wrong?

Answer is simple. Its miserable life of an average Indian. With a an ever-increasing population putting tremendous crunch on resources and infrastructure, rising unemployment, huge social/family expectations are all proving huge drain on citizen's mind.

With little or no respite in sight, many seek escape in frivolous religious activities. Such masses easily fall prey to some preachy hypocrisy by a scoundrel parading as a guru. Thus only getting into vicious cycle multiplying their drudgerymanyfold in the end.

This has always been and will continue to be as these tetra headed monsters keep sprouting one after another, as miserable social living coupled with a long history of cultural superstitions keep providing fertile grounds for such men to flourish.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

&

JAI HIND! 

Cola Wars in Europe, Pepsi Vs. Coke and how David wins over Goliath!

Global Cola market is more or less an Oligopoly market with two major players, Coca Cola and the other Pepsi. Smaller players have either surrendered to these juggernauts or have been simply ousted from their respective markets.

But what happens when these  giants clash for defending their respective turfs from each other? Precisely that happened in a big way in Europe with some quirkiness beforehand in Latin America. Here our main focus would be the battle in Europe.

Pepsi's rising status in late 1970s and 1980s: 

By 1976 Coca Cola was faltering because of increased clout of Pepsi in US market when growth rate of Coke dropped from 13 percent to a meager 2 percent. Adding to Coca Cola's woes came the Pepsi challenge tests that showed a clear preference to Pepsi taste over Coke taste. Coca Cola in defense conducted it's own taste tests but alas it produced the same results of preference to Pepsi over Coke. By 1979, Pepsi was closing on the gaps faster by Coke leading with only 2.9 Percent over Pepsi whereas it was leading over Pepsi by 14 percent a decade before. What was baffling and worrisome to Coca Cola was it was outspending Pepsi in advertisement expenditures by $100 Million more while it's share was dwindling.
In this time of upheaval by 1980's Coca Cola was getting ready to welcome it's new head on board, Roberto Goizueta. Goizueta son a of a wealthy Cuban sugarcane plantation owner had studied at Yale university who mastered English by watching Hollywood movies in short span of time. With Fidel Castro seizing power in Cuba and advent of communism, Goizueta fled cuba with $20 in his pocket to the US in search of better fortune and found his niche in Coca Cola. He was to be the man who ushered in a new era for Coca Cola with his business acumen and proved a tough nut for Pepsi to deal with.

Introducing a New Flavor for Coke in 1980s: 

Despite superior advertising and distribution, Coca Cola's diminishing market share was intriguing. Taste was suspected to be the culprit and Coke was relaunched in the market in a much sweeter flavor to regain its hallowed lead over Pepsi. But such a desperate business decision backfired on Coca Cola with nationwide protests over such a Coca Cola decision with thousands of new protestors joining each day echoing similar sentiments of Coke ditching them and hurting the national sentiments with Coke sales plummeting further and cheering Pepsi all the way through. But Pepsi's gloat was short lived when Coca Cola alarmed with it's blunder made a smart turn around by launching the original Coke alongside the new flavour which helped it regain its popularity and it's sales soon soared! Coca Cola kept making heady progress till 1997 in international markets with Pepsi's market getting constantly eroded by a hard driving Coca Cola.

1998 and Troubling times for Coca Cola: 

By 1997 the era of legendary Goizuerta was over and new chairman Douglas Ivester had taken over. In June health scares started spreading after Belgian children became sick after consuming contaminated Coke. Soon after hundreds of sick people in France were blaming their illnesses on Coke consumption. France imposed ban on Coke cans from Dunkirk plant in Belgium. Soon Germany and Luxembourg also imposed selective bans on Coca Cola products in their countries until health scare subsided. Some 14 million cases of Coke products eventually were recalled in the five countries, and estimates were that Coke was losing $3.4 million per day in revenues.
Finally Coca Cola swung into action for an uphill task of clearing it's name of the contamination scares and rebuilding trust in European markets that involved a personal apology message from the new Chairman, a special consumer hotline, free 1.5 liter Coke distribution in 4.37 million households. By the time Coca Cola was getting over it's crisis a new problem started staring over it from Pepsi's side.

 Pepsi had less than 10 percent share whereas Coca Cola was omnipresent with more than 50 percent share in Europe with the rest 40 percent share fragmented among many smaller players. Coca Cola was anyways ahead of Pepsi across the globe, not just Europe but here the difference was phenomenal and most importantly due to Coca Cola's interference in twisting consumer's tastes with its tactics.

Having stated that, the question arises how did Coca Cola manage to pull off this behemoth task at all? Well the answer lies in Pepsi's business diversification into snacks along with it's beverages, something that would make Pepsi bleed in the hands of Coca Cola in future.

Big fast food chains such as McDonalds, Burger King and Dominos offer Coca Cola exclusively. Whereas Pepsi's strong hold lied with it's formerly owned companies Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC.. Pepsi alleges that Coca Cola got Pepsi comletely eliminated through independent food service distributors to the former chains that by offering Pepsi they would only be helping their competitor. This gave Coca Cola unprecedented power to control prices and even eliminate competition all together.  In past Coca Cola hadn't enforced such exclusive contracts but in 1997 owing to increased competition from Pepsi it asked these distributors to adhere to its terms or else they would be entirely cut off from Coca Cola supply. By then Coca Cola had been such a success with cult following that not obliging to Coca Cola's conditions would have proved detrimental to these fast food chains business. So they relented.
This sent jitters in Pepsi's top level management. As 90% of fountain business came from dispensers in fast food business, loosing out entirely to Coke didn't make much of a sense. Apart from this in bottled Cola market, Coke was way ahead of Pepsi in all but most markets. Therefore loosing out to Coke in fountain dispensing business sounded like death knell to Pepsi. 

1999 and filing of Anti Trust Laws by Pepsi against Coca Cola in Europe:

In late July 1999, European Union officials raided offices of Coca-Cola and its bottlers in four countries in Europe—Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Britain—on suspicions that the company used its dominant market position to shut out competitors. According to Pepsi, Coca Cola had adopted unfair trade practices to restrict reach of Pepsi to consumers through soda fountains and food chains. 


This allegation from Pepsi came at a time when Coca-Cola was still trying to recover from the contamination problems, which was a cruel blow.

The major suspicion was that Coke was illegally using rebates to enhance its market share.
The several types of rebates under investigation were rebates on sales that boosted
Coke’s market share at the expense of rivals, and rebates given to distributors who
agreed to sell the full range of Coke products or to stop buying from competitors.
Coca-Cola’s huge market share in most countries of Europe fed the concern.

Pepsi also filed a complaint with Italian regulators who were soon to act and discovered Coca Cola had violated anti trust laws by abusing its dominant position through rebates, bonus and discounts with retailers to entirely get rid of Pepsi in Italian market.

Coke in the New Millennium:

Coke cheered with growth rate of 18 percent between 1990 and 1997 till its growth rate fell to just 4 percent while Pepsi outperformed its ace rival in overall growth if not in Cola business!
The following comparative statistics show the slipping performance of Coca-Cola to
PepsiCo over the five years to 2004.

With the dawn of the new century and increased health awareness, popularity of carbonated beverages were fizzling out. Pepsi so to say kept abreast with changing times with non carb drinks such as Tropicana juice, Gatorade sports drink, and Aquafina water which were billion-dollar beverage brands plus had its Frito-Lay Division with snack foods such as Lays, Doritos, and Baked Crunchy Cheetoswhile while Coca Cola was still firmly entrenched in Coke.

The following shows the breakdown of sales and profits for Pepsi’s four major businesses as of 2004:

October,2004 and Pepsi wins over: 

Finally after 5 years of probe the European Union arrived at a settlement that would result in Coca Cola change it's sales practices, end exlusivity agreements with food service distributors and allow competitors products in Coca Cola's refrigerators for up to 20% space, all of which had made  Coca Cola acquire 50% of the gigantic 17 Billion Euro carbonated drinks market in Europe.
Adherence to these reforms would spare Coca Cola of any fines and further legal wranglings, that Coca Cola willingly accepted.

And Finally David wins over Golliath!

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Thanks,
Satyajeet.