Loyalty Bonus

During my training as a salesperson, the focus was always on the mindshare of the pie-holder. Either we adorned to grab the eyeballs or bowed for the footfalls. Customer Lifetime value was injected in our blood and soul. Ages seem to have passed between then and now. The hitherto sought after loyalty and the lifetime have squeezed in timescale, it seems.

In Scent of a Woman, the Academy Award winner for best acting Al Pacino, portraying as a blind retired Army officer invites Donna, a young woman waiting for her date for a dance. Upon her reply that her date would be arriving in few minutes, the Colonel asserts, famously now, “Life can be lived in an instant”. A spectacular tango followed thereafter on the dance floor.

The floors are now everywhere. Opportunity has become the new ‘life’, and being explored every instant. This loyalty salsa or the opposite thereof is widespread - the suppressed coup in Turkey, the agitated Kashmir, political cauldron in Delhi, the newest form of password by an anciently named bank. The messiahs and the masses - all are eyeing for share of the pie. With battles aplenty, the war is on. Loyalty, now, is being lived (or leveraged) every instant!

The happenings around us have raised doubts about whether it should still be taught as an eternal virtue. I have grown up with a notion of belongingness to one’s family, culture and country. Amidst these teachings, doses of great Indian philosophy Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is my home) were also imparted.

When the governments (nee MLAs, nee public representatives) can change allegiance overnight, when a swashbuckling cricketer turned politician turned rebel again turned presidential nominee and again turned rebel swaps parties, when players shift from one team to another every IPL season, when a classical singer starts humming on orchestra and drums, when popular figures are oscillating with their marital ties, then how do we answer the question of lifetime belongingness. When the leaders are donning different robes daily, the followers are bound to fumble and look stupefied.

Masses follow the messiahs. And with so many Godmen, more so!

The span of loyalty - the act of binding yourself intellectually or emotionally to a course of action, as defined – has evolved. High fidelity (Hi-fi) is being masked by Wireless fidelity (Wi-fi). With no strings attached, we are apparently graduating to a newer environment where the permanence in any affair is going to be history. Clarion, perhaps, needs to be blown to seek reworking of certain definitions in what is a stark shift from loyalty bonus to a loyalty (R)evolution in the “Modern Times”. 

A Turbulent Entry

During this summer vacation my nine year old daughter was assigned homework to study a newspaper for at least a fortnight and write her experiences. We had been trying to inculcate in her this habit for over a year now but did not succeed. The teachers’ words or perhaps, dictum had done the magic. I was nevertheless excited. It was her entry into the eventful environment; the world of here and now; the world of rhetoric and reality. She had often wondered and questioned us – the elders – me, my father, my mother, my wife and more recently, our teenaged son – why being the first one to pounce and hold the newspaper was a moment of victory for us? No explanation would serve better than experience.

We decided to give her the first right in the race for grabbing the most sought after morning commodity. It was time for my kiddo to have the first bite at first byte! It was the best way to advertise what the media is always trying to say, “first reported by us on…” and she would hear so often – even to the extent of repulsion - as she grows up. We are still a family where cellphone is not the first thing we begin our day with. The pleasure of a fully spread newspaper is akin to a refreshing drink in the morning for each one of us. Our daughter gradually got addicted to start her day with that unique odour – her snorting made me apprehensive whether she had read too much between the lines and news coverage of Udta Punjab.  

She would ask me the meaning of each headline and expect a concise explanation – as every daughter would expect from her father. It was indeed a challenging task to explain to someone who is not even ‘paanchvi paas’ as to how a Ruby could be a school topper merely by paying her pranams to Tulsidasji. As if this was not enough, the world this summer was all about cuts and cults, egos and exits, scorns and scandals.

While we made every effort to make our little princess swell with pride that she had grown up enough to read a newspaper just like her grandparents, parents and ‘bhaiya’, she was more confused than ever at the duality of reality. We – who, over the years - had preached her United we Stand, had a tough time explaining her how the British would stand when Divided?

The symphony which she heard and read being created in the US was getting suppressed by the cacophonies back home – she was puzzled why a swamy was fighting with a rajan when both were working for India? She wanted to understand the meaning of freedom. She questioned me why the wings of a movie were being snapped while a flamboyant colourful bird was allowed to fly pan-ocean? She asked me why we cannot check breads and noodles before they are introduced rather than banning them later and hitting children’s taste buds and sentiments hard.

Thankfully, the days of vacation were lesser than her pouncing questions. I was wondering what a difficult time her teacher would have when her student would narrate her experiences and raise her queries –Why everything has to exit/ why cannot it be R-enter and Br-enter? What I thought was going to be a monumental entry into the world of words turned out to be an enquiry of exits! Hope the inquisitiveness survives in the world of noisy exits.