Youth Curry - Insight on Indian Youth

I finally laid my hands on Nestle’s Probiotic dahi. You know, the one with 100 crore friendly bacteria which will help my digestion.

Noble cause, but I’m afraid you can only digest what you swallow and I could take no more than 3 spoons of the stuff. It looked strange. It tasted strange. Ordinary dahi will do just fine, thank you.

Whatever Nestle might believe, I don’t think we are ready for biologically enhanced curds… yet. Heck, we aren’t even fully ready to embrace bazaar ka dahi!

I mean for centuries now, we Indians have been dutifully culturing our curds. No doubt we noticed the tetrapacked variety in foreign supermarkets and enjoyed them. But that’s yogurt.

Dahi is different. Dahi is roz ka khana and that’s something you take for granted. It’s the stuff you expect, by constitutional right, in your humble kitchen. Must you really pay for it?

Well, yes, say the companies. And commerce creeps in to every crevice of the Average Indian Home. The market for bazaar ka dahi is estimated to be 40-50,000 tonnes. Which sounds like a lot but is still a tiny, tiny drop in the ocean of dahi we consume on a daily basis. But of course, with time, that will change.

Proposition 1: Convenience over careful planning
Thought dahi jamaana was easy? It’s a fine art! Kam samay rakho, dheela reh jaata hai. Zyaada samay rakho, khatta ho jaata hai. The stuff our moms did without us ever knowing - I tell you!

Proposition 2: What’s the price?
This is where the slip up lies. I wouldn’t mind picking up dahi every two days, along with my loaf of bread. But at Rs 15 for 400 gms most bazaar ke dahi are priced on the high side. An entire litre of cow milk costs Rs 19-20, so in effect you are paying a 100% premium for your baahar wala dahi.

And while price may not matter to yuppie couples and singles who are simply grateful that such a convenience exists, your average housewife will slot bazaar ka dahi into the ‘rainy day category’. Something to buy only during emergencies.

But the even bigger block is this: the bazaar ka dahi does not ‘taste the same’. At times, it’s good. But often it’s not. The consistency, the texture, the smell, the taste - it is just not uniform. Of course, it’s the same story with ghar ka dahi. But hey, when you pay for it, and it’s slightly sour or a little bit watery - heaven help. Humko nahin chalega!

And that, ultimately, is the problem with this probiotic thingy. The dahi we sampled was a bit ‘loose’. And whether imagined or otherwise, it tasted ‘different’.

As much as we all care about health, I think most consumers believe dahi is healthy in any case… So why bother to go probiotic? Unless you have a specific problem such as lactose intolerance.

Meanwhile, companies plod on. Trying to convert us to a commercially produced ‘just like home experience’. Here’s another other example:

Krd Rys : pre packed South Indian style curd rice or thayir sadam. This is the world’s first ‘branded curd rice offering’ from Hatsun Agro. Currently available in Tamil Nadu.

Methinks the average curd rice eater is a bit of a finicky eater so it’s gonna be an uphill journey. Unless the taste and freshness exceeds expectations…

Might do better as a ’snack offering’ in the ignorant-about-the-real-taste north Indian market!

P.S. Just realised I’m writing about dahi just on the day when there are dahi handis being broken all over Mumbai. Divine coincidence

You are invited to take the latest survey on JAM. Also to contribute a couple of hundred words on any/ all of the following:

Adventures with wifi: best and worst experiences of using wi fi networks at airports, coffee shops, hotels etc. Also best wi fi ’steal spots’ in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune etc. Esp. corporate networks.

Addicted to my laptop (if u’re the kind who carries it everywhere).

Best ‘college’ laptop deals obtained by bschools buying in bulk etc(prices, config, brand etc).

As always email rashmi_b at yahoo.com.

Those of you who have filled out earlier JAM surveys I’ve linked to can check out results here:

Download survey results (April 2007)
Hair & Beauty Survey (May 2007)
Homosexuality Survey (June 2007)

Move over Vijay Sales, Croma is here. The new electronics megastore from the Tata group is doing to electronics what hypermarts did to vegetables. Taking the buying experience several notches higher.

How? Well,to begin with the showroom is huge. And thank God, because on a Sunday evening at an obscure location like Sector 15, Palm Beach Road, Belapur (a km or so down from Seawood estate), the place was packed.

Mostly gawkers (like myself), but a fair number of shoppers as well. And yet, you did not feel claustrophobic.

The store is really well planned, well lit and well labelled. And the single most important difference: all that cool stuff is not locked away inside a glass case. With a stern / disinterested/ harried salesmen holding the key.

At Croma, it’s what you might call ‘auto display’. The gadgets are mounted on a stand of sorts. They can’t be yanked off but you can touch and feel them, even operate the piece (except for the low end mobile phonee, which are dummies).

But digital cameras, mp3 players, PDAs - all have batteries. Can be switched on and ‘experienced’.

There is, of course, a Croma guy standing there, if you need help. And the amazing thing is the store actually lives up to its slogan: “We don’t sell, we help you buy”. The staff is friendly and knowledgable but not pushy. Which is a difficult mix to achieve!

We took a full download of the Dopod PR 818 and walked away saying ’sochenge.’ No dirty looks or sighs from the sales guy. The ‘khareedna nahin tha to itna inquiry kyun kiya’ scowl you’ll encounter at Vijay Sales.

Of course I don’t know for sure how good the deals are. Certainly the extreme value conscious types will only browse at Croma and then go buy their stuff at say, an Alfa. The Sony Ericsson P990i was retailing at Rs 19800 at Croma - you can get it for Rs 14000 odd at Alfa. But for many products like LCD TVs I am sure Croma prices are very competitive.

The other thing is they don’t have a ‘full range’ in products like digital cameras or laptops. But they have adequate choice.

Lastly, here some cool accessories on sale. Again, some may be cheaper in the grey market but if you’re buying a digital camera which does not come with a case you may as well pick one up from here. Cause by the time you get to doing that from elsewhere your LCD screen would already be scratched.

Croma is definitely international in look, feel and its approach towards selling. The store treats the Indian customer like a responsible adult, not a kid in a candy store who needs to be supervised and eyed suspiciously all the time.

At the end of the day, when the Tatas enter any new business, they do it with class. Where they sometimes lack is speed of expansion. If they take care of that - it’s a winning proposition.

If I hear the tan tana na tana ta tana na jingle of ICICI Bank for a few more seconds… I will probably puke. The phone banking system of the bank which pays Shahrukh Khan several crores to give a dimpled smile and say ‘hum hain na’ had better do something about its phone banking services.

I quite liked watching Desperate Housewives. It was aired at 10 pm on Sundays when it was first aired. Now, it’s back. But hey, the timings been changed to 9 am Sundays. And I don’t fancy waking up that early on a holiday - for anyone or anything.

Could be just me. But the point is, I was a loyal viewer who had the time 10 pm Sunday imprinted in my head. Now you go and change it - pretty high chances you’ll lose me. But channels do it all the time.

Last Sunday I saw a pretty gripping episode of ‘Criminal Minds’ which was ‘to be continued’. But guess what, the show isn’t even there in tonight’s TV listings.

Then there was the 11 pm to 12 midnight slot on Star World which featured Seinfeld, followed by Friends. Both ‘old is gold’ kind of shows which put you in a happy frame of mind before you drop off to sleep. Well, now they’ve been shifted to the 12 midnight to 1 am slot. And guess how little I get to see of them!

TVwaalon, samjha karo. Habits take time to develop. And messing around with them is injurious to your TRPs.

All it’s gonna do is drive people like me - hitherto lazy and somewhat technophobic -to download your shows from the internet and consume them minus the advertising revenues you feed on. Don’t say you haven’t been warned…!