Sales

You're fast asleep, on a holiday, in the morning. And you hear a knock at the door. You open the door, and you find an organism of some sort holding a packet of a washing power called Blah or something. The organism then makes its presence felt all the more by vocalizing. It tells you that your clothes are dirty - and they need to be cleaned - not by any ol' washing powder, but Blah.

You look disinterested, but that does not deter the organism. The organism, undoubteldy has had experiences where the sales pitch does not bring home the cake - or, in the organism's case, part with the Blah. The organism then proceeds to give you a demonstration - by producing a rather embarassing looking handkerchief out of thin air and immersing it into a mug of Blah-water solution - which has also appeared out of thin air. After a few seconds of intense battle with the cloth, the organism, shows, with a triumphant look on its face, the de-embarassment of the handkerchief.

You keep quiet. You know ordinary water would have sufficed. But a man needs to be civil. You make the organism's day by purchasing your Blah - despite the fact that you think it is useless. The organism's parents, had they been present at this juncture, would be gleaming at themselves and saying "Our offspring is going to be the Marketing head of HLL .. or better still the prime minister of India!".

Now, dear reader, you must be thinking. Marketing head, I can understand, but prime minister? Doesn't that strike you as a tad.... well.... stupid?

But look at it. What do politicians do all the time? They are little else but sales people for their army. George Bush wants to sell identical arms to both India and Pakistan - despite the fact that he tries his level best to 'stop' the war. American interest, it would seem, would not lie in stopping the war. It would be in perpetuating the war. That's the only way that the otherwise useless tax rupees of India and Pakistan would actually go into the profit margin of large American Corporations.

Almost all conflict in the world is good news for the American economy. Be it on their turf (911) or be it out in the middle east - or be it Bosnia, be it in India, be it in ireland, be it in Chechnya, be it in Serbia, be it in Aceh (and now they have good PR in Aceh too). Their stock rises when a suicide bomber wreaks havoc and kills an entire family. There is joy in the tears of the poor for those corporates.

We can't blame America for all this. With state governments such as those of Bihar and Gujarat - we certainly cannot claim moral higher ground. All we can do is voice - or blog our discontent.

Let this be a lesson to you. If you have a convincing mouth and an unctuous persona, consider a career in politics- you'll be selling and buying a lot more than a mere sales guy in a corporate. That's's where the real challenges are.