So here we go! I seeded the series in my last post and here is the first attempt, the promised Krishna story (equally the Chandra-the moon god -story).
But first, the rules:
- Quoting from Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, I will use text in colour brown
- Quoting from any other source, I will use text in colour green
- Rest of the text, by me, little as it will likely be, in colour black
Religious or secular, all myths make profound sense to one group of people. Not to everyone. They cannot be rationalized beyond a point. In the final analysis you either accept them or you don’t.
I am not a mythologist or an expert – the series is about my interpretations of text I read and my learnings from it, for MYSELF, and that’s all that I am sharing.
David Ogilvy once said The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. In the following stories, the consumer (customer/ reader) is the the wife, God and God of gods – Mahadev even.
Narada’s Doubt
Narada had heard that Krishna had married 16,108 women. ‘How can he keep everyone happy?’ he wondered. Curious, he decided to visit Krishna’s island-city Dwarka. There he found 16,108 palaces. In each palace, he found a Krishna with a queen. There were 16,108 Krishna’s for 16,108 queens. Krishna had defied the laws of space and time and had multiplied himself to satisfy everyone. Narada realised that Krishna was no ordinary human. He was God himself. (Bhagavata Purana)
Krishna was God, so he could do this quite easily! But even the conversational marketing environment of today demands exactly this of the marketer, where sales spiels get replaced with transparent conversations. How do we ensure that the reader(customer/ consumer) feels that we were speaking directly with her/ him?
- Krishna is human: Of all the avatars of Vishnu, Krishna is the most human – he deals with everyone at their level, so people have no problem in reaching out to him. He listens to all and takes their feedback. He is also the most playful and because he doesn’t take his Godly status very seriously, he has loads of friends and has their implicit trust. Aren’t blogs like that too?
- Krishna is my friend: Krishna plays friend to many and directs the life-chariot of his student Arjuna during the Mahabharata. Lead the blog chariot for your organisation, hey Krishna!
- Tell me some stories – Krishna is said to be a great story-teller and narrated the Bhagvata Gita on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.Loaded as the Bhagvata Gita is, with the very essence of life and existence, stories is what makes us remember the message. Are you going to tell me some stories? Not stories about YOUR life, but stories about the big picture, and why/ how it matters to me? Sure, tell me some stories about your life too.
- Speak with me Krishna! – Avi said in his comment “Going by your reference of Krishna and 16108 Gopis, possibly it was an ability to broadcast individualized conversation, attention and care simultaneously? An ability which was hitherto a myth?”
Don’t know what Krishna did it, but this is exactly what you and I are doing with our blogs. Now all that we need to take care of is the ‘tone’ – transparent, personal and participative!
Waxing of the Moon
Daksha gave twenty-seven of his daughters in marriage to Chandra, the moon-god,who was renowned for his beauty and virility. Chandra preferred the beautiful Rohini to the others. The neglected wives complained to Daksha, who threatened Chandra with dire consequences if he did not treat all his wives with equal affection, as is expected to any polygamous man. Chandra disregarded Daksha’s threat. So he was cursed with a degenerative disease. As the days passed, he lost his potency, and began to wane. A terrified Chandra went to Shiva, who let Chandra sit on his head. There, Chandra found the power to regenerate himself: his potency returned and he began to wax. A sobered Chandra decided to devote at least one night to each of his twenty-seven wives. And so it is that the moon waxes on the days he approaches Rohini and wanes on the days he moves farther from her. On the new moon night he has no wife by his side. On the day before, when he is just a crescent, the moon celebrates Shiva-ratri, the night of Shiva, and takes refuge on Shiva’s lock, safe in the knowledge that he will wax once more.(Somanath Sthala Purana)
- Who can save us from the wrath of the customer? The customer herself: Ever so often all of us tend to forget the social media rules of transparency, fairness, tone etc and punishment from the customer/ consumer/ reader is… swift and severe. Witnesses have been mighty giants & countless individuals, who forgot. And who but the mighty Mahadev – the Consumer herself – can save us from the wrath of the consumer. All we’ve got to do is acknowledge that we made a mistake, and correct it and shine we can again, as the crescent.
Do add your points with learnings that you see from the stories. Cheers.
9 Comments
Sure enough . . the post is atleast as interesting as I expected it to be, if not more . . I loved the stories . . and the rest of the interpretations smoothly woven along with them . . would look forward to episode 2
An interesting and imaginative start to the series, Kudos! For I can well imagine how daunting the idea is to carry through such a series is.
Reading your text sparked off some thoughts. “There he found 16,108 palaces. In each palace, he found a Krishna with a queen.”
This seems to suggest not just individualized Brand experience but also a supreme individualized environment (palace) for interaction. Yet if a Brand was to maintain a blog it would still be a broadcast, wouldn’t it? While individual conversation being an IM chat session?
It was possibly chasing this very idea, that back in early 2000s chatrooms were flooded with Bots! Both are dead now, Chatrooms as also chatBots! Or is the effort to create a Palace leading to creation of “My Space”, “Gang of Girls” and their ilk?
But how does a Brand get to be a Krishna here?
So are we looking at Branded chatBots engaging us as ‘friends’ in our community space?
I think Google has already grown its own ‘Krishna’ equation with its adsense. If a man’s home is his castle, then his/her mailbox is definitely his palace! And the keywords leading to doorways of clicks. I guess it will become an individualized conversation when the advertiser can gauge the context of the keywords and create individualized webpage on the fly creating an individualized landing page for each person who clicks. I guess Google might well be going that way. But what then happens to our already compromised privacy?
Hi, interesting series. Good luck!
Interesting perspective. Shall subscribe for more.
Nice one! I enjoyed reading it, and look forward to more.
And hey, I feel there are more lessons to be derived from the second story (Chandra’s)…
For example, it probably also conveys the *need to keep all classes of consumers happy* even if you focus most attention/derive most benefit from the 20 per cent of customers who account for 80 per cent of your business. See, one particular segment of the consumer-base might be the most important to the company (Rohini), but if the others (remaining 26 wives) are unhappy, it won’t take long for that negative feeling to usurp all the positive energy you have built among the key consumers over time. As they say, bad news spreads faster than the good.
But yeah, this is all a matter of interpretation. I’m sure many more insights will arise in the course of these discussions.
Cheers,
Janani
Sonia, Soumya, Vijayendra: Thanks a lot. Please visit and comment again
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Avi – apologies for the delayed reply:
“This seems to suggest not just individualized Brand experience but also a supreme individualized environment (palace) for interaction. Yet if a Brand was to maintain a blog it would still be a broadcast, wouldn’t it? While individual conversation being an IM chat session?”
How about comments that we leave on blogs, like this conversation we are having. The tone of the post is one-to-one and then conversation s continue on comments. No?
Janani/ Avi – WOW!!!! This is why I was nearly in tears when 200 or so comments from the blog disappeared about a month ago. Such great insights – I am now convinced that the stories are not what any one individual says but the collective thoughts that come together to make the stories. Such beautiful insights. Thanks a lot
R
Rajesh: I can’t dispute the fact that matters of interest spawn conversation, or the fact that broadcast messages have their own place under the Sun insofar as Brand communication goes. Actually its more like drawing lines on water stating this is where broadcasting ends and this is where individual conversations, addas (a Bong favourite), dialogue begins. And there’s no denying that Blogs have blurred the distinction between the poles and is a powerful creative tool which can serve many a purpose, put to judicious use. To me it appeared that a Blog, primarily is a mouthpiece to a particular POV (which can be from a single voice or multiple voices) which can cascade to conversations. And as conversation goes, there can be a variety of conversation. Marketplace conversation, tea-house conversation, Nukkad-ka-conversation etc.
The Krishna myth seems, to me, to suggest, that this talk is not mere conversation, but a love talk. It has promise of intimacy, of unmasked, unabashed expression. All brought about by a privacy and security of an environment which not only allows you to unmask your deepest self but also cherishes you (the palace). To me, and I could be wrong here, this bower of pleasure would be more my inbox or my messenger chat, which can contain all of my many secrets and allow me to be me (and that’s why we are bothered about the security and privacy of these things and raise a hullabaloo were these were to be threatened) as against a blog (where I might yet be maintaining a public persona), and thus if the Brand was to be my Krishna then I would expect it to interact with me within this space or create such a space for me. Thus my ref to Google as against Blog in general.
This however is just my perspective and am sure there are many others which are possibly more diametrical, all leading to interesting conversations.
So far, the best rendition of the Moon myth, amongst my reading, I’ve found in Robert Svaboda’s ‘The Greatness of Saturn- A therapeutic Myth’. Its now a part of google books and those interested could read it online.
The tale is a little more complex than what Dr Devdutta has presented and involved ‘Tara’, Jupiter’s wife as against ‘Rohini’, but then myths create a relationship with each of its reader and are open to simplistic or more complex interpretation. One of the interpretations definitely is ‘fascination with a particular facet leads to downfall’ and thus would lend itself to what you have said about the consumer and what Janani says about ‘consumer’ sections.
But if I were to look upon the 27 wives as stakeholders of a Brand, then an ‘over’ fascination with the consumer would put the Brand in the same place as Chandra with Rohini or Tara, as the respective myth might be? So should the brand be enamoured with the consumer, its chief consort or should the brand pay equal attention to all its stakeholders. It might wax and wane in the process, but might it be better able to maintain its orbit?
Myths also serve another purpose. They are mnemonic and handles for philosophy, theosophy and other bodies of knowledge. Indian myths, served these purpose too and provided similar handles to different bodies of knowledge, one of which was Astrology. Now astrology can be looked upon as an arcane art or as a study of relationship. And what is a Brand or an individual other than a collection of relationship. Looking upon the Moon myth from an astrological viewpoint, and going by Vedic astrology, the Moon is the greatest ‘karak’ or ‘doer’/influencer in a person’s chart as it’s the repository of all memories. Thus the moons traverse through the 27 wives or ‘nakshatras’ is a completion of its orbit and one life cycle.
Am not suggesting that we cast a horoscope of a brand to study it (though am sure that would provide rich perspectives as well) but were we too look upon the traverse of the moon (the body of memories, or the cumulative body of knowledge pertaining to Brand management) and how each of the facet of the stars asked for different application of the body of knowledge as also helped guide the traverse of the lifecycle of brand, would we come out with a rich body of perspectives and knowledge?
In that case which particular facets of Brand study would be the 27 wives or nakshatras? And what would define the Moon, ie the body of knowledge of Brand management?
This is a conversation seeder!
Avi:
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And yet, we are having this conversation on a blog!
The best place remains face-to-face and whatever allows you to do that but each tool has a different role in connecting no?
Will try and read up Robert Svaboda too
You hit it on the dot – all key stakeholders- unlike marketing where you can choose your target audience and forget the rest stakeholders continue to impact you irrespective, from that you choose the highest relevance and impact to come up with audience you wish to engage but yes, there are many other stakeholders and not just the consumer that one needs to engage on an ongoing basis.
Ooops – now I have no clue about astrology buddy! lol! But very interesting what you say.
Keep writing and apologies for the mega delay in writing back.