Thoughts on National Anthem

Today, after a very long time (because I've not been to cinema hall for a very long time now), probably after the 15th August last year (I missed the anthem on this Republic day too) I heard the national anthem tune being played on television right before the all important India - Sri Lanka 20-20 world Cup match. I'd seen the anthem played before the commonwealth games and the Olympics games but before a cricket match this was the first occasion.
The reasons why a national anthem becomes important before a sport may be as:

• Get inspired to perform to the utmost potential
• Get a sense of feeling that a player is playing for his national team (May act as a Great motivation)
• Get patroitic

But the most funny reason I obtained was -

• because of national anthem being sung, the players will atleast feel a sense of responsibility towards the country and not indulge in things such as match fixing and betting.

On a serious note, after hearing the national anthem tune I really felt a bit energetic. I felt like doing something for our country. I felt the urge to help develop our country and make it a global power.
Such is the power of national anthem. It has the ability to inspire everyone.

In India, national anthem is played at schools regularly. (everyday). But as one becomes old, as one joins college, office, etc one rarely hears the national anthem. Only when one goes to cinema hall for a movie or during National days, we listen to the anthem. One gets distanced from the wonderful song.
I feel the song should be played at more places and more occasions (and yes without any change in its playing rules like 52 seconds). This will help foster patriotism and help the country as the case with the players. Who knows playing national anthem in government offices daily  might help to reduce corruption.!!

Shopping Malls

I generally avoid going to shopping malls to buy household things like oil, toothpaste, etc. My intention is to provide business to small shop owners and help them in whatever small way I can. But however, in Chennai, because of the language barrier, I have decided to go to shopping malls for buying these items.
So, I entered a shopping mall at Adyar (one of the most expensive and better places in chennai to live in).
The mall provided a wonderful atmosphere to shop - ample of space and AC (Relief from the heat and humidity outside).
Things were kept in the best possible orderly manner. Everything was in its place and I could find FMCG items of almost all the I knew about.

I had pre-decided the items to be bought so that I do not have to waste too much time. (Only the brand decision was left to be done on the spot depending on availability). I was of the opinion that one should enter a mall with the list of items to be bought otherwise one ends up buying unnecessary things and spending lots of money. I've always given this advice to my mother and aunts.
But after I entered the mall the orderliness of the mall, the atmosphere there, the availability of things right in front of eyes and the freedom to touch the things couldn't help me resist buying a lot of things which I had not planned. I bought chocolates, biscuits, etc which I hadn't planned. The marketer just got the better of me. So, not I accept that it isn't possible to buy exactly from the list. I'll now stop giving advices to mom and others. No more suggestions


I observed one more thing in the mall. The biscuit section had biscuits - Britannia, Parle and Sunfeast. Each company had its own brand in each biscuit category. I found that for the same weight of biscuit (and same biscuit category), the prices of Britannia biscuits were Rs 1 or 2 higher than of other two companies. Seems like Britannia has milking as its corporate strategy. Also, I found one more thing. Bourbon biscuit which is a fantastic Britannia product is now sold as the original Bourbon name. It is sold still at Rs 12. However, I found that the weight of the pack has reduced. Thus, for Rs. 12, Britannia is now giving less biscuits (about 10 grams less). Not fair.
Thus, Britannia is following a milking strategy to by charging more or reducing the weights of the packs. Existing customers like me are bound to notice this and shift to other company products like I did and bought Sunfeast biscuit pack.
(Although biscuit was not in my list of items to be bought :P)