Never a dull moment

A famous food company of Norway taking over MTR Foods tickled my funny bone. It could be that they wanted to add variety to the exotic Norwegian condiments what ever they might be ( what do they add to make reindeer meat taste better - Paste of Rhododendron flower ? Mashed paste of bark of conifers ? ) It would have been fun watching team of Chief Innovation officer and Business Manager for new products and markets of the Norwegian company inspecting machines grinding sambar powder and rasam powder wearing space suit like contraptions ( if these powders are third party sub contracted products of MTR, then they would have been at Seshadripuram inspecting the rickety machines operated in the homes of Krishna mama, Lakshmi mami etc ). They would have spent hours going to through SOPs and Quality Systems. The top brass would have spent days redefining Vision and Mission statements which would have been rendered hazy and blurred ( literally and figuratively ) by sambar and rasam powde...

Chokhi Dhani has been touted as a must see location in Jaipur and I agree after the visit there this Monday. It is best enjoyed with family and friends. It is a typical village setting with everything except farming thrown in. It is very colourful as Rajasthan is.The variety starts from the check in counter. All the employees are in traditional gear. So are the various performers in the premises. There are low buildings with thatched roof, tiled roof and mud roof. There are several stages for performers spread across the campus. We watched three sets of traditional Rajasthani dancers performing to the tunes of traditional music. Every now and then, the visitors can join the dancers for a few minutes. There are magicians and a puppet show to keep one and all amused. One can ride a camel. There are camel, horse and bullock carts adding to the variety.Elephant ride catches the fancy of the young and the old. Jaipur is a dusty place and the path taken by various animals and carts have been...

While Volvo stayed focussed on their intent of making a mark in Indian market, a number of big international names bruised themselves with clumsy moves and underestimating Indian customers. The company which tops my list of goofers is FIAT for the simple reason that they had a tie up with Premier Automobiles for a long time and would have had hands on experience unlike others like Ford and Daewoo who hit the ground as freshers with inputs from know it all "consultants" armed with their field study feedback.First lemon from FIAT in nineties was 118NE.It was launched around the time Zen was launched by Maruti.Zen was a rocker of a model to hit Indian roads with its jelly bean design and 118NE was a expressionless metal box with wheels compared to Zen. 118NE was a brother of Ambassador in terms of construction and looks and pretty dodgy as far as electricals was concerned.It died a miserable death which was warranted. Then came the next lemon from FIAT in the form of UNO. UNO is...