Stereotype

Stereotype- this is one word I have been trying to explaining a major part of my life since I come from a State, the culture and customs of which are entirely different and new to people from rest of the country. That added to a recent chat I had with one of my colleagues from North who happens to be in Tamil Nadu currently, gave the push I needed to let it out on the blog.

It is not just personal to me but I am tired of people judging every possible guy based on their region, language, and so on. The judgement is hardly driven by understanding and majorly swung by the perceived notions about stereotypes with the same background. The funny part is, in most cases the assumed stereotype is itself a myth and the stereotypes are mixed up. Again, it is not personal but just so it is easy to understand for the many Indians who have heard it a zillion times by now, Tamil and Telugu are not the same. First, you judge a person without even trying to know him. Next, most of your perceptions are made up or illogical. Finally you mix up the notions too and expect the other person to fit the bill. That doesn't appear to be personal at all.!

Well, this thinking is not regional. For a stereotypical Tamilian, everyone from India except the four peninsular states is a North Indian (my bad, it is actually five now, and it is not long when Telangana also might become northern), who eat nothing but rotis and speak only Hindi.

Enough about pointing fingers, when I actually tried to understand the cause behind such preconceived notions, my thoughts on idioms were instigated. Stereotyping is similar to the usage of idioms. One uses it with the conviction that he/she has in its usage rather than the true meaning of the phrase or the actual genesis of the idiom. That is indeed why they are called idioms and similarly that is exactly why the baseless concepts are called stereotypes. It is in the usage and thoughts passed around instead of an actual understanding.

For instance, the idiom ‘black sheep’ gives a negative colour to someone in a group whose views and actions are different if not opposite to that of the collective viewpoint of the group. When you trace the origins of the phrase, it was given a negative colour because the black wool couldn’t be dyed and was useless. I don’t know about the rest of you but sure as hell I didn’t know that actual black sheep existed. So, the people who were negatively impacted by the birth of a black sheep laid the seeds for this idiom. Likewise, people who don’t understand and find it difficult to accept a different view or thought try to stereotype it amongst a group of thoughts they can’t digest.

The next time you have time to read upon Russian idioms, please do check out the phrase ‘white crow’. :P

Discount Generation

I guess, the title says it all. The festival and holiday season just got over. The shopping fever has gone down and so has the rainfall of discounts. So for the Gen Y folks who have become far too dependent on discounts and deals, it is a bad time to go shopping, even online. Coming from this lot, I do experience the same hardships as any other young man who wants to buy the latest gizmo in the market during off-season. The discounts have been for better and worse. Although they have increased the number of purchases an individual makes turning us into shopaholics, they have also definitely made us price conscious. Today's youth is ready to wait it out for a month to get a product on an e-commerce portal rather than buy it from the 'new arrivals' section in a retail store. 

I remember, as a kid I used to wonder how can the big shopping centres offer discounts upto 60 percent and more in the time preceding the festive seasons and my dad used to tell me that the stores try to clear out the old stock from their inventory and its not always better to but at that time. Fast forward a decade and now I am telling my dad about the working of the e-commerce, at least what I have a grasp on. Adapting to online shopping is not easy and may be it is for the best because once you do, you kinda become addicted. The websites don't make it easy for you to decide by sending a humungous number of promotions and you end up shopping what you might not use more than once or some stupid stuff you thought looks great in the image. As I mentioned earlier, the preconceived notions about purchasing below the listed retail price is one hurdle before the portals and it is actually ironical too. Should you offer discounts to get customers or should you not offer much to ensure they don't perceive of you as selling faulty goods? 

While this is the case of online shopping, in the last couple of years even the restaurants, hotels, taxis and other service offerings have jumped on to this bandwagon doling out steep discounts and fighting it out to capture a bigger pie of the market. There are indeed apprehensions about the future of e-commerce too, since it is reasonable to believe that the discounts will run out once they capture that bigger pie. But again, how bigger? for instance amazon has been around for quite a while and still it is extending discounts in the established western markets. Yes, the kind of offers have changed over time. One clear indication is the scrapping of loyalty program on Myntra post the acquisition by Flipkart. 

Compared to this scenario, the old brick and mortar stores of the '90s were better. Then, if you purchase from the same shop the experience changes for the better every other time and the discounts keep increasing as your bargaining capacity increases due to the rapport build over time. But it is vice-versa in the case of online purchases. One thing is clear, no matter how much the portals scale, the stores are here to stay forever as has been observed in the western countries albeit a doubt, will the individual stores stay or will they be beaten to the line by the corporate chains?

As an end customer, seldom do we think of such business and economic (if not socio-political) impacts behind our day-to-day purchases and activities. We are in our own race to scout for the best discounts and deals that can be availed at each and every transaction possible. With no worries about the future, just living the present. Carpe Diem!