Saturday, April 12th, 2008
The April 2008 Issue of David Report: I Shop Therefore I Am (via TreeHugger and Santosh Maharshi) identifies some of the trends that led me towards my off consumption experiment:-
- From conspicuous consumption to conscious consumption.
- From brand-consciousness to background-consciousness.
- From synthetic to organic.
- From mass-produced to hand-crafted.
- From global to local.
- From short-term to sustainable.
- From fashionable to durable.
- From valuing things to valuing insights.
- From fitting in/ standing out to being.
- From buying more to buying less.
- From doing more to doing less.
- From multi-tasking to down-shifting.
- From buying to sharing/ exchanging.
- From owning to experiencing.
- From having to giving.
Saturday, April 12th, 2008
Undeterred by my earlier escapade with ‘The French Touch’ festival, I returned to the Alliance Francaise auditorium on Thursday evening to watch Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film ‘Le Petit Soldat’ (’The Little Soldier’).
Set against the backdrop of the Algerian War, the film narrates the tragic love story of Michel Subord and Anna Karina who fall in love in spite of belonging to warring terrorist groups. The film pulsates with the same restless energy as ‘Breathless’, my favorite Godard movie, which was screened at the festival earlier on Tuesday. So, in spite of the little anti-climax at the end, when the DVD stuck and wouldn’t play, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, or at least the part of the movie I did watch.
Also filed in Conversations, Free Culture, Popular Culture
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Tagged Alliance Francaise, Anna Karina, Bollywood, Breathless, Chinatown, Film Festival, Films, G K desai, jean Luc Godard, John Mayer, Le Petit Soldat, Madhur Bhandarkar, Michel Subord, Mumbai, Something's Missing, The French Touch Festival, The Little Soldier, Tri Continental Film Festival
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I have many virtues, but modesty isn’t one of them.
I’m not at all apologetic about being smart or successful because I have had to fight against, and overcome, great odds to become who I am.
So, before you judge me for being far too fortunate, let me introduce you to some of my less fortunate selves.
Also filed in Backstory
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Tagged Atlas Cycle, Bata, BMW, Chacha Choudhary, Chitrahaar, Daryaganj, Doordarshan, IIM, Patna, Shahadra, Shakuntalam Theater
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Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
I was at my friend Kanishka’s place the other day, when I pulled out a Ziploc bag from my bag. Here’s a more or less faithful transcript of the conversation it triggered off –
Kanishka: Why are you carrying around sandwiches in a plastic bag?
Gaurav: Ah! Haven’t I told you that I’m off consumption for a year?
Kanishka: (chuckles) I bet you won’t be able to spend a month without consuming alcohol! But what is the connection between not consuming alcohol and carrying around sandwiches?
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
For those who came in late: I have gone off consumption, not because of the absence of money or an overdose of ideology, but because I’m tired of buying things; and if my year-long experiment results in a multi-million dollar book deal, what a bonus that would be!
But, as I said, that’s only part of the story.
For a while now, I have been trying to deal with a dichotomy in my life (tweet).
As an individual, I don’t read the newspaper, watch TV, or listen to the radio, I haven’t “shopped” for six months, and I try not to travel beyond a 10 km radius (tweet).
Also filed in Book, FAQ, Insights
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Tagged Brands, Consumer, Consumer Research, Ennui, Free Love, Gree, Local, Market Research, Marketer, Marketing, Media, Naomi Klein, No Impact Man, No Logo, Organic, Retail, Trend Watching
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If you have ever taken Economics 101, you’ll know that happiness is equal to consumption divided by desire.
Even otherwise, most of us understand this equation intuitively and, therefore, equate buying things with buying (the promise of) happiness.
However, I have been asking myself for a while if consumption itself follows the ‘bigger is better’ rule, if an increase in consumption results in an increase in happiness (tweet).
If you have ever maxed out your credit card buying the most recently fashionable clothes, gadgets, accessories or (insert your addiction here) you didn’t need, you’ll also know that consumption rarely satisfies desire.
So, if the absence of money or an overdose of ideology are not the reasons I have gone off consumption, what exactly is it?
The reason — friends, readers, fellow marketers — is alchemy, or alchemy 2.0, the art of making money by not spending money.
For centuries, alchemists across the world have toiled in vain to transform lead into gold. I tip my imaginary hat to the audacity of these pseudo-scientists, because what I’m trying to do is something similar, except that it is even more audacious. I’m not trying to convert lead into gold, I’m not even trying to convert nothing into gold, I’m trying to convert less than nothing into gold.
I can almost see what you are thinking: if money is not the reason why I have gone off consumption, it must be ideology.
But I haven’t gone off consumption to correct the unequal distribution of wealth in the world. I have no left-of-center communist tendencies in matters related to money. I’m a liberal in every sense of the word; I’m left-of-center when it comes to religion and right-of-center when it comes to economics. In fact, if at all, my going off-consumption will increase the inequality of wealth; I can almost see my portfolio manager rubbing his hands in anticipation of my higher investment outlay.
Also filed in FAQ
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Tagged Brands, Capitalism, Capitalist, Communism, Communist, Distribution of Wealth, Economy, Environment, Free Market, Ideology, Multi-nationals, Sustainable Development
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People are known to go off consumption, when they max out on their credit cards, or are laid off. When you have no money, or no money to spare, it is easy, and often necessary, to stop buying, go off consumption.
So, in case you are wondering if I have gone off consumption because I’m broke, I’m not; just the opposite, in fact.
I have a great job, and I love ninety percent of what I do on ninety percent of the days. I work for a large patriarchal Indian conglomerate, who are not really known for laying off employees. In any case, they love me as much as I love them.
Why would a twenty-something, single, eligible, IIM-educated, upwardly mobile marketer on the corporate fast-track in India’s business capital decide to go ‘off consumption’ for a year?
Will a year off consumption (no eating out, no going out for movies or music or plays, no television or newspapers, no shopping except for necessities) leave him ill-equipped to handle life and work in Mumbai?
Or, will it leave him with invaluable insights into what drives us to consume, or not, into the nature of consumption, into human nature itself?