Day 285: S.S.S.

31 August, 2010

Amazing, amazing, amazing day! I can't stop smiling as am writing this post because I really had a grand time! But in the interest of time (it's past 1:15 am now), am gonna stick to three key points!

a) Loved the experience of visiting the P&G India office as well as the homes of our consumers. Getting the access into the office after an elaborate signing in process and lengthy chat with the guards in itself was rather interesting. Then the visits to the different consumers' homes for market research were also quite fascinating. It is always eye opening to see how other people live. Here's just one instance that touched me. One lady told us that her dream was to work in a office to put her education into use - "you know... I want to work in an office where they have laptops and all!". That made me smile, but a bit sadly. Because to be very honest, I hardly see that happening unless she really puts her all into it. She is already into the third year of her married life and being a housewife, with a baby, living with her in-laws in an extended family, panicking about how she needs to start cooking soon even within the one hour she had to spend with us - while her mom-in-law kept a close watch on her every move. That is a hard situation to get out of. Made me count my blessings - am after all living someone's dream.

b) Went around Mumbai at night, which was the only time we were free after the research and we wanted to avoid the traffic. The super sweet cabbie gave a running commentary of every prominent sight on the way, including the residences of the Bollywood stars Bachchans and Shahrukh Khan! Then went to the actual important places like the Gateway of India and saw the lovely hotel Taj and also the Sea Link. But the best of the lot was Nariman point! I had seen it in so many movies and had SO wanted to go and stand right there on the raised pathway overlooking the sea! So did just that! It was amazing. I really did feel like am in a Hind movie! The sea, the rain, the wind, the view. Beautiful!

c) And last but not at all the least, I met up with two of my childhood friends together in Mumbai after about 12 years! We used to be inseparable in school for about 5-6 years! In fact, we used to call ourselves "S.S.S" (or triple S or the three 'S's - whatever that suited our fancy at that point in time), because all three of our names started with 'S'. We were partners in almost every crime - be it ragging the seniors, putting up plays, drawing up Archie comics, never eating our own lunch but each others', writing investigative stories with teenage girls as heroines, etc. etc. etc. But once I left for Singapore, the two of them too went to different parts of India for their studies and later, jobs and we never had a chance to meet all at once. But today we did! And it was awesome! We had a super brilliant time!! Not sure when the next such meeting would be, but today was really really awesome!

So yes, it was a super beautiful day!

715 more to go.