Bikes, Computers, Apparels

March 8 2011

PG required - Children below 12 years of age are requested to ask their parents to explain certain parts of this post.Anyways the author is pretty sure that the children would be the ones who would be explaining the hidden meaning in this Adult post

This post is not about my friend Senthil. He has this habit of talking insane topics when no one is interested to listen.No ! I am not gonna write about him.This post is about Branding. The reason behind me pulling Senthil into this topic is mainly due to the fact that he was the first person who opened my eyes to the concept of Branding.We were in College. Those were the days when mobile phones and hi-tech electronic gadgets were not introduced into the market. Every guy in college wanted to be one step ahead of the other guy in one way or another. Different routes and methodologies were adopted by every guys to garner attention. Bikes, Computer Accessories and Apparel were the few things used by the college guys of our era.

In our College we were three guys who used these things to make the babes fall for us. When it came to bikes Senthil, it was Senthil's bike he gave me to the college for the first day. He modified his Hero Puch bike into a sports bike and the babes went gaga over his bike riding skills from school itself. That too only in first year then he changed it and me too got my own bike,  All guys prayed that he and I should fall from his bike at least once. But we was way too super cool. We was the Dudes to watch in our college.

Talking about Computers and stuffs ,it was my turn to take the center in the class. I would always dream about the babes going crazy over my computer gadgets that too I had a IBM laptop in my first year itself. But when ever I bring it to college most of my friends will come to my class and take to their class and have attention of girls acting like Bill Gates was his cousin. The girls would just go crazy at them and start screaming cause they are from different departments and don't know anything about computers. Even when I  get back from them to my class the battery shows low. Somewhat I never ended up as the girl's guy in college.

And finally talking about apparels, it was again Me and Senthil. He could sweep any girl of her feet and heels with his cool dressing. When my turn comes My bro was in US at that time so he send lots of T shirts given in his office that too all related to computers like JAVA, CISCO like that. Back to Senthil he always wore super-Branded apparels and beat us all in the trade of dressing up for the occasion. When I used to have three pairs of lee jeans, he used have more than 10 pairs that to all Levis trousers in college. He was the first guy who have different sets of dresses in the college. But I used to tease him that I have Imported form US and you got in India. I am talking about the year 1998. Wearing a Levis jean was something very big then.

 Most of the guys would wear Bata/action shoes and we would always be in Reebok/ Nike. He was the first person who took branding to a new level in college.

Branding has its plus points and in some cases it even pulls in political insurgence. In Russia a very popular American condom was banned. The name of the brand was PUT-IN condom. It was Vladimir PUTIN who was heading the government and hence the condom was driven out of the country.

The best case of innocent bargaining power of the consumer is that of Ben Johnson's. I hope everyone would remember his world record beating run in the 100 meters in the Seoul Olympics.He Shocked Carl Lewis and the entire world with that run in 9.79 seconds( The author of this blog takes time to blow his own trumpet now. He still holds his college record for running 100 meters in 11 seconds flat)

Coming back to Ben Johnson,he was disqualified and his record was scratched off because his urine samples contained Stanozolol ( A performance enhancing drug). The Olympic committee did not even give Big Ben a Chance to plead for innocence. But I take this opportunity to voice my support for Big Ben after two decades.

The Real Ben Story ( Explored and Discovered by Prabhu Pepsi):

Two months prior to the race in the Seoul Olympics, Big Ben and his wife were on the verge of a break up. Big Ben's sexual performance was in question. Just to prove her wrong, he took to performance enhancing drugs to save his marriage. Little did he know that he was misled by the pharmacist. At least my readers now know that Big Ben is innocent.