I recently moved cubicles at my work place, and as fate would have it, I was now sitting surrounded by people in “Strategic Marketing”. Sitting next to marketing people has several perks – A free education in household matters, behavioral analysis and travel gyaan.

And, in the spirit of spreading knowledge, I’d like to share some of the “Strategic Discussions” I’ve heard:

Strategy Discussion 1:
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Lady #1: “Did you watch OSO?”
Lady #2: “Of course yaar – SRK is looking choooo goooood, OH MY GOD!”
Dude #1: “I don’t know what you women find so attractive in SRK – he’s old. Now, look at Deepika. God knows why she was cast opposite that oldie.”
Lady #2: “Tune sirf Deepika ko dekhne ke liye film dekhne gaya kya?”
Lady #1: “What does your wife think about Deepika?”
Dude #1: “Tum sab mujhe marvaoge yaar!”

As the discussion headed off towards morality and marriage, I buried my head into Iron Maiden.

Strategy discussion 2:
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Lady #1: “Heyyyyyyyy, welcome back yaaaaa!! How was Paris?”

They say marketing people have a way with words. This Lady had not just a way, but a big road – highway even, with words. What followed was 45 minutes of extremely descriptive, excruciatingly detailed description of Paris. It seemed like she described every single iron rod in the Eiffel tower, and when she ran out of iron rods, she described individual trees on all the roads of Paris.

I chose to listen to Megadeth this time.

Strategy discussion 3:
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Lady #1: “Hello madam – welcome back!”
Unrecognized female voice: “Hey people, nice to see you all after a month!”

I peered out to see who this new strategist was. It’s actually Lady #2, but now with a very heavy American accent.

Dude #1: “You landed 4 days ago na? Where have you been?”
Lady #2 <Thick American Accent>: “No dear, I was so tired, you know. Like, there is so much pollution here, you know. I mean, I must have gotten an infection or something, you know. I thought I might have the flu, so I rested for 3 days. And don’t even get me started on the Jet Lag – I mean, what’s the deal with that?”
Lady #1 “Oh that’s bad! Anyway, how was the trip?”
Lady #2 <Thick American Accent>: “I mean, I was so excited to go on a US flight, but the flight had so many Indians! I mean, it didn’t felt like a US flight, you know what I’m saying? I could hear people talking in their native language all the time, I mean come on, you know. It’s a US flight for God’s sake.”

At this point, I felt like walking up to her and tell her the infamous “Thames nalli t…” proverb, but I exercised restraint.

I’ve had the pleasure of listening to many more of these strategies – Like “How to have head-bath with just half a bucket of water”, which, by the way, is very useful.

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