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Brand Love – 5 Unique Strategies to Win Hearts!

Winning your clients’ hearts and minds shouldn’t be a difficult
task, yet many businesses struggle to interact and connect with
potential customers and clientele because they don’t follow basic
communication and common sense standards.

There’s no gimmick here. If you own a Brand which is into Support
Services, for example, here are five strategies to earn clients,
establish their trust, and generate repeat business…

1. BE QUIET AND LISTEN

When it comes to listening, humans as a race are absolutely
inept (much like a rock). According to a research conducted at
the University of Missouri, the average listener will only
understand and recall 50% of what they hear after 10 minutes of
listening. Within 48 hours, the percentage lowers to 25%. Many
companies are so preoccupied with talking that they neglect to
listen to their clients and customers. It’s critical to
understand and listen to your clients’ needs when it comes to
the state of their Support Services and the need to solve them
if you want to gain their business and loyalty.

2. BE AWARE OF YOUR CLIENTS

 It’s time to put your zen-like focus to
work. The key to success here is to target your audience. What
are your customers looking for in a Support Service? What are
their names? What do they make a living doing? What city do they
call home? Why do people have such a thing for support services?
You can learn about your clients’ behaviours, where they spend
their time, and which sales networks you should target in order
to contact them by conducting market research. You can then
target your marketing and reach the proper folks once you know
that.

3. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO COMMUNICATE

Most brands either don’t spend enough time communicating or
spend so much time communicating that they stop communicating
and instead send out ‘noise’ that no one cares about and
eventually ends up in someone’s spam folder. Communicating your
unique benefits to the world through a newsletter, social media,
or blog is one of the finest ways to do it. Providing
fascinating, amusing, and informative articles regarding support
services, care, growth, collections, and repairs will captivate
your readers and keep their attention.

4. BE CONFIDENT

Don’t second-guess your decision. You’re fantastic, your company
is fantastic, and you’re the best dang Service company on the
planet! You’ll be top of mind if you can confidently articulate
what makes your company special and valuable to your clients.
Who do you recall the most? The guy/girl who confidently
approaches you and shakes your hand, or the jittery individual
sitting alone in the corner, wrapped in insecurity? Did I say
you’re fantastic?

5. BE THE AUTHORITY

You need to be the greatest Support person on the market if
you’re in the business of mending people’s Requirements. You
certainly understand your field; now it’s time to let others
know! Public speaking, newsletters, blogs, and interviews where
you provide free information that educates and excites your
audience are all ways to demonstrate your expertise in pet rock
repair and establish yourself as an authority figure in your
field. This promotes your reputation as a “go to” resource for
your stakeholders, clients, and peers.

Following these steps can help you connect with your target
audience, establish trust, and improve the perception of your
company and brand.

Always remember that ‘’Your Brand’’ begins the moment you decide
to be yourself. A powerful Brand will always leave a lasting
impact and empower you to leave something behind for the world
to enjoy!

BE NEW!

BE YOU!

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Top 5 Elements of a Successful Brand!

A Brand is much more than a unique logo and advertisement. A successful Brand is a deep connection between the Brand and people. There are many factors to be considered to make the Brand successful. Every step and challenge you face to achieve your goals build your Brand. It is well recommended to build your Brand first rather than to build your business. If people want to get in touch with your Brand, you have to be known. This is where Personal Branding comes into the picture. Showcasing your skills, qualities, and explaining what makes you stand out, helps to unveil the Brand in You. Since you are a widely known Brand, your company will also be a Brand. Personal Branding is more effective and will set you apart from the competition and will also allow you to reach potential clients. Let’s see some of the top 5 elements of a Successful Brand.

Brand Story:

People always love stories. That is why they are captured by best-selling novels and blockbuster movies. Your Brand story can make a great change here and create everlasting ties. When people engage emotionally with your Brand’s story, they trust your Brand. Managing a Brand’s reputation and building trust is more crucial than anything. The Brand story describes how the company’s past adds credibility, influences, and offers value to the Brand.

Consistency:

Your Brand is the voice that needs to be heard. How often do you show up? When you show up more frequently, your audience becomes more comfortable approaching you. Your audience will trust you if your Brand and Brand values are consistent. Consumers trust your Brand more when it is consistent, and that trust leads to greater positive thoughts towards your Brand. Consumers should be aware of what to expect and how the outcome will be. If they feel that your Brand values are changing, they will conclude that they cannot trust your company. That is why being consistent is more important to build a successful Brand.

Connect with the Consumer:

Your business and Brand run successfully because of your consumers, which is why it’s important to keep track of how they interact with your Brand. Finding ways to show them you care regularly helps to create a connection and builds your Brand. Connecting with consumers and making interactions through social media will create a bond between the Brand and consumer. Appreciating them through surveys and other ways helps to find your target audience.

Creating Branding Awareness:

Consumers recognize and remember your company based on its Brand awareness. This allows a larger audience to recognize your logo and products. The greater the Brand awareness, the more the consumers. This is a way through which the Brand does the communication and shows the nature of the Brand. For example: When a new book of a famous author is released, generating a real buzz about the book creates a massive amount of talk on social media, and creates Brand awareness.

Community & Network:

You will be able to recognize the suitable market for your organization after you have a clear understanding of your Brand. Targeting customers who share values and personality traits specified for your company will assist in the growth of your organization. A well-defined Brand attracts like-minded customers and employees and forms a large community. A successful Brand is more about the connections with other people. That is why it is said that a Brand’s worth can be determined by the networks. These essential elements provide a successful accomplishment to your Brand. Overall, Brand value is based on the image or perception, trust of being consistent, and an emotional connection between the consumer and Brand.

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What is Personal Branding?

When we say ‘Brand’ for a product, we mean a product which has distinguished features capable enough of creating its own space in the market. No two brands are ever the same. Each brand has its own uniqueness by which it is identified. The features of the product may be the same but the way it is positioned and perceived will never be the same. The reason for a brand recall is always a connect – a value proposition of the brand, an emotional connect, reliability or anything else. Hence each product can have a market, it depends on who you are targeting and what positioning you want. What do you want the product to be known?

The same story goes for a human being. Though we may appear as identical products manufactured by a common factory outlet, fortunately, we are endowed with a tendency to become a ‘Brand’ by finding our own space or niche and sometimes creating it. This unique imprint which makes us a brand in the market of life is what we call as Personal Branding.

The interesting thing about personal branding is that it comes into play behind our backs, when we are not around. It comes in the form of ideas, opinions and critical appreciation by others of our kind. The entire concept of personal branding focuses on “Being You”. It is not difficult because it comes naturally to us.
To understand the essence of personal branding, we must know that it does not mean adding some external attributes to yourself or imitating other brands (other humans with specific qualities) but rather being comfortable in our skin, bring out what is inside us and striving to become the best version of ourselves. In the market of life, you won’t ever succeed if you are just a photocopy of the original.

Importance of Personal Branding
The next question which pops inside our mind is that “What is the purpose of personal branding?” let me answer this question by stating an example, suppose you are a businesswoman or businessman and wish to get clients, then in a world full of other business people of the same kind, what is your probability of getting a client? I guess it would be negligible. Here, Personal Branding comes into play. The brand that you have created in the mind space of your clients will help you acquire a client.

How ‘Your’ unique “You” is identified by other people and how you can stand out from others, builds up your credibility will determine your profitability. People do business with you because you are authentic, credible and trustworthy. You may be a good and authentic person but you need to also project that image or persona for people to believe in that. So, when you are genuine and authentic, it makes you trustworthy because you are displaying your authentic side which is one in a million with no imitation. Remember, no two people are the same – each one is born unique and somewhere in our growing up years we forget this.

Once you have established credibility and expertise in your area or niche, people shall come to you. The key here is that you should be able to add massive value to people. This would further increase your influence you might be looked upon as a person of expertise. All these traits shall nurture your business and will eventually make you successful.

Personal branding makes you a brand of a kind and once you realize it, your professional, as well as personal life, may change forever. The art of personal branding will not make you something artificial but it will lead you to your real, authentic self. In a world full of great business people, to make your own space is difficult but not impossible because if you tap the power of personal branding, you will surely become one in a million.
You need to identify your own personal set of characteristics with powerful copyright. To make it easy for you, I will share a roadmap in the next blog.

Creating Branding Awareness:

Consumers recognize and remember your company based on its Brand awareness. This allows a larger audience to recognize your logo and products. The greater the Brand awareness, the more the consumers. This is a way through which the Brand does the communication and shows the nature of the Brand. For example: When a new book of a famous author is released, generating a real buzz about the book creates a massive amount of talk on social media, and creates Brand awareness.

Community & Network:

You will be able to recognize the suitable market for your organization after you have a clear understanding of your Brand. Targeting customers who share values and personality traits specified for your company will assist in the growth of your organization. A well-defined Brand attracts like-minded customers and employees and forms a large community. A successful Brand is more about the connections with other people. That is why it is said that a Brand’s worth can be determined by the networks. These essential elements provide a successful accomplishment to your Brand. Overall, Brand value is based on the image or perception, trust of being consistent, and an emotional connection between the consumer and Brand.

CONTINUE THE TALK

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Connectedness……amidst COVID

This Blog, on the art of being connected in the COVID time of Social distancing, is written by our Guest Blogger Ms. Sweta Mishra

Enabling organizational well being

The COVID outbreak has pushed all organizations to rethink their Operating model, Technology infrastructure and overall people strategy. Organizations are trying to stay afloat and individuals are trying to cope to the best of their abilities. A significant subset of the overall people strategy is the “Wellness agenda” . If there is a point in history when HR functions need to review their employee well-being strategy with a tooth comb, the time is now. And for the wellness strategy to work, it is important that we first take stock of the individual life context which has been drastically altered in the past couple of months.

What has COVID taken away from a regular office goer?

Amongst many things that the COVID outbreak has snatched away; one is the individual liberty to create experiences for oneself. The fun in hanging out with friends over coffee, the impulsive shopping trips, a calming spa treatment at the end of a tiring day, the adrenaline rush of exercising in a spacious gym with music blaring….so on and so forth. With due respect to the fundamental problems, (of poverty, lack of food and fear of death through the infection), in this blog, I am talking about a regular office goer, who invests the most significant amount of his/her time and energy into their jobs, with the hope that they would be able to sustain a lifestyle of their choice. (Such individuals constitute our demographic majority.)

With most of us forced to stay indoors and work remotely, here are the inevitable (on the surface) outcomes we are dealing with:

  • For the ones staying with their families, there is household work, family, and childcare along with work related deliverable
  • For individuals staying alone, it is a daily task to deal with loneliness (despite access to video calls)
  • Extremely minimal or zero access to whims, cravings, impulses (shopping, spa, partying etc.)
  • Extreme monotony (despi access to Netflix) and fatigue (physical/emotional or both)
Decoding the anxiety

Scratch the surface and you would find that all of us are dealing with a substantial amount of anxiety. The cause of this anxiety has deeper roots than what has been explained above.

Lack of control

Our lives are about plans that we implement, deadlines that we meet, technology that enables us in many ways. And here we are, not knowing when life would return to normal; when we can meet friends like we used to; or design our daily schedule as per our desire. At its very core, this situation questions our sense of control…a sense that has been progressively strengthened across centuries of scientific and technological developments Going to your workplace and mingling with friends and colleagues was a healthy break from what one needed to deal with at home. There were friends, confidants and mentors who helped us navigate through life’s problems. Being in physical presence of these individuals was a huge part of our support system. With that gone, we face one of the biggest challenges that the global pandemic has thrown at us lack of Connectedness.

Fatigue…. from loneliness or relationships

It is not necessary that someone who is surrounded by family is in a happy space now. While loneliness can cause fatigue, so can unhealthy and dysfunctional relationships.

Lack of Connectedness

This is one of the most natural outcomes of social distancing. The feeling of belonging…to a community, to a group of friends…is challenged. To me, this is the most critical point while reviewing the people strategy of any organization. Organizational well being strategies must include a framework that enables Connectedness.

Enabling Connectedness: A suggested approach

Enabling Connectedness is a simple yet complex action item. Simple because you can talk and connect; complex because you may not feel adequately empowered to deal with issues that pop up, if at all they do. But any organization that is determined to maintain employee well-being must give it a try. I suggest a three-pronged approach illustrated below:

1. Conversations as a diagnostic tool:

First things first; increase the frequency/coverage of any employee touch points you already have…. without waiting for things to become back. It is time to learn to become even more attentive and completely present in telephonic conversations. If you are a good listener, you will be able to gather a general sense of the space that the employee is in. If you are not, then please remember to ask specific questions regarding well being in the current situation. If not anything, that will ensure a genuine attempt and will also give you information that you need, to draw a picture about the overall employee mood in the organization.

2. Maintaining a sense of community:

I am confident that all of us have quickly transitioned to online engagement activities. But please do not stop at the participation numbers as a success metric. There is more to be done….to enable a sense of belonging. One of the most enjoyable things about going to the office was being in the presence of individuals we loved hanging out with; cracking jokes; having tea together.

We may not be aware of it daily, but for most of us there is huge solace in belonging. Our engagement strategy should in some way enable that sense of community. So, our thinking needs to be multi directional: Online games bring people together, they have fun, we post pictures; that’s one part of it. But, there is a lot of additional work that needs to be done on few other areas:

  1. How do you enable experience sharing?
  2. How do you enable Connectedness between managers and reporters?
  3. How do you enable a sense of camaraderie between multiple groups?
  4. Most importantly how do you do this without the possibility of getting people under one roof?
    A robust engagement strategy that is relevant, must take these questions into consideration.

3. Transparency around context:

We might be doing a lot of work in the background to keep the ship afloat. But let’s put a structure of communication in place that enables us to share that information with employees periodically.
This is an imperative considering two current realities:

  • A lot of us are dealing with anxiety around the future of our careers
  • Rumor mills are dangerous and can only be countered by communication

4. BE CONFIDENT

If there is consistent transparency on context, on organizational strategy and standing, decisions taken are rationalized and accepted better. When the world is dealing with a pandemic, the least we can do is show our employees that we are doing our best, realistically, and sensitively. A good example of this is performance appraisal conversations. Many organizations follow an appraisal cycle of April to March. Different organizations have taken different approaches depending on how the overall business situation looks like for them; some are continuing business as usual, some have postponed their appraisals, some have gone with no increments, some have gone for pay cuts for management…so on and so forth.

Well, to a regular employee, these are business decisions. It is important that these are put in context, through the right kind of communication. Let us tell them what we are doing to safeguard the organization’s interests, their interests, to maintain business continuity, link the decision to an intention related to business and individual well-being. That will enable them to stay connected to the reality and rationalize the decision.
“Being in the know how” is a big part of staying connected.

In summary, we are all doing our bit. But it is evident that technology is not adequate for Connectedness.
If it were, there would be no psychological outcomes to living in isolation. Technology is a tool, but ‘US’
human being will always need human beings. At its very core, the HR engagement strategy of today needs
to take note of this. Designing an apt strategy for the current times requires a deeper understanding of what the individual is dealing with and a clear intention to reach out and connect.

Our Guest Blogger for this Blog is Ms.Sweta Mishra. She has an Overall 16+ years of varied HR experience in industries across fintech,consulting, banking, finance, IT and ITES.

Professional experience includes in-depth exposure to all HR domains spanning across HR generalist responsibilities, Employee Engagement, Performance management, OD, leadership development and learning. Currently head HR globally for Indus Valley Partners, a fintech firm.

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‘Beauty’ Mantra for Video Calling

Wish  to attend a video call and feel unprepared for it?  Closed salon,chubby
cheeks, dark sunken eyes and dirty hair making you freak out? Don’t you worry
because here we bring some tips which can make your video conferencing an
extraordinary experience. Here is a series of simple steps to make your face
ready for any video call( Zoom, Google, Hangouts etc

  1. Correct balance of light and shadow is very crucial for a video call. Avoid
    fluorescent lights or overhead lights that cast shadow and blurs your face.
    The source of light whether natural or artificial must be behind your
    camera.

2. When talking, place your camera at eye level and the background used must
be a neutral one with no photographs. In order to make it look more
professional, one can make use of objects such as book shelves in the
background that can create the effect. Avoid distracting the other person by
time and now looking at the small frame in your camera. Don’t ever make the
other person feel that you are working from home.

3. Don’t make use of glitter but powder your face to  make it less shiny.

4. In case your cheeks look puffy, then apply ice or ice cold rollers to drain
down the tissue fluid. Do this half an hour before the meeting.

5. Make use of color correcting creams or concealer to even out your skin tone
and other parts of the body exposed.

6. Lipsticks are mandatory and the shades used must be neutral with a bit of
gloss garnishing it. One can go for creme lipsticks or if using Matt one can
gloss it up.

7. In order to make your eyes look more alive, slightly roll your eye lashes,
apply eyeshadow and mascara to avoid the grave or sunken look in eyes but
apply them moderately as to not make them look too bold or smudgy.

8. One can make use of highlighter on cheek bones which produces the illusion
of sun rays falling on your face.

9. One can make use of contour to give a certain shape to your jaw line,
sometimes it can make your face look slimmer.

10. If your hair is not washed, you can make a bun and apply either powder or
dry shampoo to reduce the oily effect from front hair and make it bouncy.
Make the bun puffy and if your hair is washed and too frizzy, apply some
serum to the front hair.

11. Your nail color and lip color must be of nude or lighter shade and must
complement each other. Add a bit of blush to bring glow to your skin.

12. Don’t forget the most important accessory which is mandatory and without
which nothing else could work– confidence and your precious smile

13. If you have no time to do makeup, you can make use of zoom filters that
automatically smooth-ens your skin and also if your background is messy, you
can add a virtual background which is realistic and not very flowery.

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Mamta

Shefali was sitting next to the life she held within her for nine months. She was back home from hospital. The child was crying and Shefali thought it appropriate to lift the child because her mother in law was there in the same room and would think how bad a mother she was. As she lifted the baby, she could’nt make it stop crying, she could feel all eyes staring at her, she blamed herself for not behaving like a mother. All this while she wanted to show love to her baby not because she wanted to but there were people around and it was her duty to feel that way. Shefali thought that pregnancy had not changed anything and that she was different, mothers are so selfless but all she wanted at that moment was to leave the child all alone by itself and attend the party going outside. The movement of her foot was in sync with the music but she felt guilty. The baby did,nt stop crying and this made her look at it with disgust, she hated her baby for taking away her free life, she hated him for making her ugly, she hated him for the pain she had to bear and this disgust made her feel guilty all the more.
She thought she was not mother material, she was different. She could neither share her feeling with her husband nor her mother in law as what would they think of her, she was a failure she thought.

One night, the thought of killing her child flashed through her mind. Shefali cried for hours to compensate the evilness of her thought , her husband Raj called her childish and insensitive. For seven weeks Raj did everything for the baby from changing his diapers to making him eat. He noticed that Shefali had not changed her kurta for the last two days, her hair was all open, he scolded her for not taking care of herself during this lactation period. Seeing this abnormal behavior for some weeks, Raj took Shefali to the doctor. She was diagnosed with ‘Postnatal Depression’.
The disease is not as uncommon as you think. A woman goes through tremendous psychological changes during this period. She is most vulnerable at this time. Reality check, If a child learns to love his parents gradually, so a parent is also not born suddenly but becomes one gradually. There are many Shefalis who need this support and conviction from us that one day they will learn to love their child unconditionally.
A woman is not born a mother but becomes one. Lets not epitomize her to the extent that she feels ashamed and incapable of expressing herself naturally.

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8 Ways of improving ‘Online Branding‘ in this period of social distancing.

There are always two ways of looking at reality, one can see a glass ‘Half Full’ or a glass ‘Half Empty’. With this
Corona Crisis on our hand and twenty one days of complete Lockdown, it seems the world has come to a standstill.
Fear has become the dominant emotion of the day and the only door left open to us is the door of Social Distancing.
We have been engrossed in our external lives to that extent that all we can think about this quarantine period is a
period of infertility where nothing productive can emerge. When external reality has slammed door upon us, virtual
reality is inviting us in and this we must never forget that what seems as a painful halt is actually a redirection
activity. This is the period to express your true self without any filters of the external world. It seems that
nature has taken away all that was artificial and we have been left with are our natural abilities and talents to
make something productive out of it.

So, as far as Online Personal Branding is concerned then what could be the best time to put out your true self out
there. Here I would like to share with you some tips of improving the online brand called ‘YOU’ in this period of
Social Distancing:-

  1. Turn towards the virtual world
    Since the
    doors to external world are all closed, the only place where our self expression can find a place is the virtual
    world. So, don’t lose on your presence by being active on social media. Let’s make Twitter, Instagram and
    Facebook our new niche.
  2. Voice your opinion
    When external action
    is at a halt, then the world of ideas invite us in. There is nothing more beautiful than a mind which can think
    . Value your ideas, take stand for things that you identify yourself with but in the process, don’t spread
    hatred but offer solutions.
  3.  Be unique in what you have to offer to the
    world
    There are a plethora of people who are running after the same things which
    others have already achieved, speaking what the world has already said or either complicating the simple things
    of life just to gain attention. Remember, as a brand your credibility comes from your uniqueness and uniqueness
    always comes from a place of authenticity and simplicity.
  4. Become more visible
    Branding is all about
    consistency, if your visibility on social media is like fire, you would gain a lot of momentum and attention but
    eventually it will burn you and you might enjoy momentary fame but if your visibility is like flowing water, you
    will never run out of public attention. If you couldn’t master the external stage, then be a boss in this
    virtual world. Let yourself out there!
  5. Share a small bite of your life with
    others      The golden rule for branding is to be authentic and to be authentic means to
    share a part of who you are with others, so use this opportunity to let others take a flavor of your life by
    posting pictures and expressing your life through words, ideas or music. It is also a good time to share with
    people how you are dealing with this crisis on a personal level.
  6. New ideas for a whole new world
    We all know
    that we are in a sort of transition and on the other side of this change is a world which would never be the same.
    Things that mattered once , may no longer matter. Such crisis make us think that how crazy and unpredictable the
    world is and one may never know when the silliest and the most abandoned of our ideas may become a reality. Had you
    ever imagined that one day all schools would run from a software? Or could a large invested company function
    smoothly from home? What seemed an impossibility has become the new possibility, so don’t put break on your mind and
    come up with the most amazing ideas that once you thought were no more than a fantasy. The time is fertile for all
    the budding business men and business women and other professionals like teachers, doctors and even scientists to
    look at the world in the way we have never looked before.
  7. Let’s make social media our new stage
    From
    education to bhakti, all occupying the virtual stage, the time has come for us to create infinite possibilities and
    opportunities for the world to express itself. Novel professions like stand up comedy, makeup blogging and other
    underrated passions can find a destination and voice on this virtual stage. Let’s discover ourselves in this changed
    world through a changed medium.

Virtual world has opened all the doors for us to creep in and soar high, the time may be infertile for
external ventures but mind it , virtual world is all the more high in its spirit. So, don’t miss this golden
opportunity!

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‘CORONA VIRUS’- THE UNREALIZED ‘THAPPAD’

It seems that most of the time we walk with eyes open wide, our ears flapping and receiving every word that falls on it without fail. Though our senses work perfectly, but it seems that we hardly see or hear anything. We never feel things as they are and it is a death like state that we exist in where senses fall short in making us look at the reality. It is a sort of bubble that surrounds us, impressions keep hitting its surface but as soon as they strike it, they fall away. It seems that we are unapproachable to reality. In the midst of this numbness, there are some priceless moments of wakefulness where we become alive for a while and our balloon bursts. The state that I am describing is one of destruction, where everything falls apart, same things lose their old meanings and it is then when we come in true touch with reality.

Great people have called this sudden moment of realization as ‘Epiphany’. These epiphanies are the only time that we actually see reality in its true color and they make us realize that how dead we are as Human  Beings. These epiphanies not just fall in hands of blessed mystics but are a part of our lives too. They come at moments when we least expect them and can be triggered by something as devastating as a disaster or by a harmless or trivial thing as a word spoken to us at one point in time but these epiphanies are capable of changing our lives completely and what comes on the other side of these epiphanies is a different meaning of the same old things and this change is irrevocable.

The movie ’Thappad’ which has a strong feminine overtone is not essentially a movie which aims to show the injustice done to Women but its purpose runs much deeper than that. It is not merely giving voice to Women’s plight but is taking us back to these sudden moments of realization where the same old things appear different without a single object being moved from one place to other. I feel that this life is nothing but a certain perspective or a meaning that we make out of our immediate situations and these epiphanies are but a gate which moves us from one meaning of the world to another.

Vikram slapping Amrita was a small incident in life of Amrita which initiated her epiphany and laid open all her past experiences in front of her eyes, the same experiences lost their old meaning, every old memory crashed down and what seemed a life of beauty earlier was now seen as an ugly world full of unfairness. A single moment made her see herself from the light of a respected and loved daughter-in law to a woman who had no identity of her own, a woman who was loved more for the position she held in the family and not because for who she was. Every neutral comment or incident that she had experienced passively was shining in a light so different where all unfair things lighted up and showed her a world where only Vikram was there, his favorite color, his job, his aspirations and his life. She didn’t leave him for a single slap, she left him because she realized a higher truth that she was never there in the relationship, she was lost and her life was overshadowed by that of Vikram.

The world we are living in today is dripping with misery and suffering with CORONA VIRUS on the horizon, sweeping away lives and creating terror. It can be seen as a bio-weapon or a natural calamity  or one can apply any scientific principles to it . I too saw it in the same light when suddenly one day while I was just watching the movie ‘Thappad’, a goose-bump rushed through my skin. The scene where Amrita was hit by Vikram made me see a far-fetched analogy between the ’Slap’ in the movie and the Corona Virus, Both are powerful forces which opened before our eyes, a world which only appears to be beautiful but is soaking with ugliness which can’t be expressed. The epidemic is not very different from that slap which exposed the selfish world of humans and is tearing the picture of so called ‘civilized’ world where man hates another man and is doing anything to save himself, spreading hatred, showing the evil inherent in him. It is opening before our eyes all the unfair means by which we have exploited our mother planet and most importantly it throws light on the world which was living in denial that ours is a well sustained and techno-friendly world where everything goes by a fixed calculation, a world that took pride in its Intellectualization but had forgotten that life begins where intellectualization ends. We have forgotten that though we have mastered technology but at the end of the day we are just a micro piece of life who can be easily swept away by a virus. The virus is a manifestation of the ugliness that we have created so far.

It is surely an epiphany, yes it will destroy everything that we believed in, it will make us question our faith, it will show us the evil in us, it will destroy every foundation, every old structure but what lies on the other side of this epiphany is a life which is so beautiful, so different from what we have already experienced. Let’s hold our seats and tighten our belts because this transition will liberate us just as the slap liberated AMRITA.
The question that we must focus on is not how all this happened but instead why did it happen at the first place? So, should we float on surface reality like Vikram, explaining the immediate or superficial causes for the eruption of the disease or giving all sorts of scientific thesis or instead we should probe deep into the matter, understanding the consequences of all our past actions, taking this period for deep introspection and transforming our selves by contemplating, understanding the root cause of our behavior as a generation and questioning the principles that once we believed in,

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Saying ‘NO’ to ’HE-ISM’ and ‘SHE-ISM’

Have you ever wondered what makes a Man, a ‘Man’ and a Woman, a ‘Woman’?

We came on this earth as two beings with slight biological differences that differentiated us from each other. These differences didn’t stop there and had spread like an epidemic, creeping in all walks of life. In other words, I mean to say that we were not born Women but were made one! It was not very recently that I as a Woman Entrepreneur and Business Person went through this sudden epiphany and realized that this entire gender setup and the concept of Manhood and Womanhood is no better than a well developed and executed strategy by those in power. According to some theorists, meaning always emerges out of opposites what some call as Binary Opposition. For instance, Edward Said explains the west-east conflict as an ideology developed by Europeans who associated west with terms like Rationality, Order and Civilized and anything or any country weaker than them in terms of power assumed the position of ‘Other’ which means those countries assumed the adjectives which were opposite to those of west and they became what west was not and became associated with terms like Irrationality, Savagery and Chaos. All this was done single handedly by the Whites who had spread this ideology through Dialogue, Literature, Music and other forms of expression. This political execution is a matter of much research nowadays and is termed as ‘Orientalism’.

My aim is not in the least to sound like a Feminist or blaming men like some radicals but on the contrary I aim of releasing people, both men and women from this ideological framework of manhood and womanhood. It can be assumed that our biological differences must have initiated this power dynamics when our ancestral men developed this cultural ideology, associating themselves with adjectives like ambitious, vocal, intellectual and so on, while women being biologically different assumed the position of ‘other’, associating with all qualities which makes them different or opposites of men like receptivity, emotional and subdued. This ideological framework was later reinforced by our ancestral men through Arts, Literature, Music and other means of expression till the time it became a part of our unconscious and is directing life of both men and women. Though many women are no longer subjugated and are physically free from men’s domination but the ideology of men being ‘Superior’ is deeply rooted in our psychology and has become the cause of our low self esteem.

The reality is that we are always looking for some kind of Dichotomy, where we centralize one and decentralize the other and this is how men became the center of our universe.
Many radical feminists believe that things should have been the opposite way but even if women were the Ideological Framers, they would have definitely enjoyed being the center of our universe but the question is would we have been able to come out this structure of binary opposites because if we make one the center, there will surely be an ‘Other’, whether man or woman.

True freedom is not to play see-saw with this dichotomy but to De-center the world, by not creating binary opposites, not making the process of association so specific, not running after a definite meaning of who a man is or who a woman is, let the meaning change with time. Let us give ourselves this freedom today that if today I define myself as an ambitious workaholic person then no one should question me when tomorrow I define myself as a passionate mother. Let us De-center the world, let us say goodbye to HE-ISM and SHE-ISM!!!

If ‘evolution’ is the word of the day, so can we afford to live in a world of Definiteness? Whether we talk in terms of technology or new ideas, we are constantly growing then why limit the world in fixed opposites? The world that we live in is in a state of Flux, always moving, never Static. The meaning that we give to the things around us is merely just another explanation among the universe of explanations. Same goes for Branding, the Label we got today is just a convenient explanation to our behavior at that time for there is no absolute meaning, no absolute definition that can describe our ever growing self! So, we must always try becoming but never become!!

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5 Life transforming Quotes

Sharing with all of you another set of powerful quotes that helped me sail through life and transformed the way I look at life. The words are few but the impact they had on me was life transforming. So here are some powerful insights that will shake up your life.“Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?”~ Rumi

We always see this world as restrictive, always finding ourselves being stopped and suppressed by this world and what we do is putting the blame on poverty,unemployment and what not . We think that world is stopping us but most of us don’t think that it is we stopping ourselves” I cant do that”, ” That’s not possible for me”, ” How can I do it?”, does’nt all this sounds familiar. The reality is that we are afraid of the vast possibilities waiting for us out there and find comfort in something comfortable. Whatever we wish to do, if we start for it today , if we dare to think about it, dare to live in it, there is nothing we cant achieve. So, stop being afraid of your dreams. Every person is capable of everything. Don’t let your mind blur your vision of life.

“I Stopped explaining myself when I realized people only understand from their level of perception” We always keep explaining ourselves to others but we must know this that we wont be able to please everybody, however hard we may try, we wont be able to live upto anybody’s expectation, the only one we can please is ourselves. Everyone will see you from their eyes, their prejudices and their attitude. So, stop justifying your actions to others. I have heard people saying ” I could’nt sleep yesterday so I am sleeping now”, why I mean why do we need to justify everything that we do, cant we simply say that I want to sleep and that is why I am sleeping. So, stop explaining yourself to others but do what you feel like, even if you make a mistake, say sorry but don’t justify for we all are humans and evey time you make a mistake, you justify the divine plan which made us imperfect, so stop pleasing others, just be yourself because no one will ever see you as you see yourself.

The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive”¬ Jhumpa lahiri

It saddens me to see that so much life is wasted in trying to prove that we are perfect. The world never designed us for perfection. Yes we can always strive for it but in that process we must never lose the essence of being a human being. We are so full of light and darkness but all the time we try to prove that there is only light within us. Our rejecting the dark side which is very much a part of us is the leading cause of all unhappiness. Why cant we say that I did a mistake because I am human and why cant we get rid of those silly excuses that we make to show that we are epitome of perfection.

All creative heads were successful because they never strive to become ‘normal’, they never thought of themselves as the perfect person. As a famous man once said that without a tinge of madness, there can be no creativity. So, don’t try to become perfect because imperfection is the new perfection. ”You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens”¬ Rumi

Every relationship, every struggle and every pain in life has a purpose. Till the time we don’t understand the essence of pain, we wont be able to understand the nature of happiness. In our life we encounter love, hate, jealousy and all other emotions, our heart breaks so many times but just as diamond gets polished by rubbing it against stone. Similarly ,the more we are rubbed by life, the more pain we see, the more we know the worth of happiness. Heartbreaks and loss may jam us for a while but when the heart opens again, it opens much wider than before. So, be great full to all the dark events of your life because more than anything else, these dark moments made you seek true happiness, it made you seek life, it made you seek love more than anything else. Without tasting false love, we would never realize the true one! ”Don’t wait. The time will never be just right”¬ Mark Twain

We always keep waiting for that moment which would change our lives forever because we value one moment over other but what we forget is that all moments are same, each one capable of changing our lives in a second. I wanted to write a book but this dilemma did’nt spare me too, I was always searching for that one moment. It was not under that unusual light or divine guidance that I wrote but it was just a moment which I grabbed and that made all the difference. Time will always be same, each second going by is a chance to live your dream life. The only difference between those who succeed and those who not is that the former make every moment special and the latter leave all moments to search for the special. We must know that all these moments are just made for me.