Beware of Marketing Executives
A thought had lingered on my mind about sending one of my
latest articles to a local newspaper. This was nothing new. All such thoughts
have the same and never altering source of origin--my desire to make a living
by writing. Living by pen. Grand as it sounds, it has many pitfalls and the
main one of which I realized lately, through this experience.
On a particularly lazy Thursday noon, a well dressed and
stout individual marched through the staffroom into the Dean’s office. It was
lunch time, and I went to wash my hands as I do not use a fork or knife, like
many of my brothers and sisters in many other parts of the world. The wash room
was adjacent to the Dean’s office. “He is the English Teacher.” The Dean called
me and introduced me to the well dressed man.
Slowly the smoke of ignorance lifted from my eyes, as I
learned that the well-dressed man was the marketing executive of a prominent newspaper. He
described their latest offer, for students and teachers. It was a catch! He
said. I said, “Yes. Would you get the paper to my home?”
He said, “No, we do not have agents as of now, in Chalode.”
Chalode is the America in Kannur--only a few believes in reading. Newspaper or
books, opportunities to read or even a space to sit and read are scarce and
almost null in Chalode.
I agreed. “At least, I could get the paper from the college,
right?”
He said, “Yes, sir.”
He was very polite, and friendly.
I felt elated and exalted, at the catch. “Rs: 700 he said,
for one year subscription. It’s our new offer.”
“Do you want the money right now?” I asked.
“Yes,” He said.
I scrambled whatever penny I had left in my holed wallet and
thought of applying to the bankruptcy programme with the government. The money
I had was not even enough for buying a
newspaper, for one year. I felt obliged to take a quick loan of Rs: 700 from
one of the senior teachers, who was kind enough to give me a thousand. They say
in puranas, the great Indian epics,
that if your time is down, you will cut the very branch you took for your seat.
Whatever! I knew I wasn’t thinking when I made that ‘deal’
with the field executive. Or did I? I could not get Saturday or Sunday papers as on
both these days I would be having no classes at the college. This realization
came gradually that every Monday I had to pick up the paper from the previous
Sunday and Saturday. What good is that offer for?
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| Image Courtesy: Google |
I also realize that this experience is not a stand-alone. I
had a series of similar experiences. In the past, when I was embarking on a
serious attempt to get some of my works published with newspapers, I always
turned to buying them. It is true and a good choice to acquaint oneself with
the language style and vocabulary of a specific publication before submitting
your work there. This increases the chance of getting picked up by the editors.
Here, though, I feel subscribing to newspapers has gone a step farther, in
becoming a pathological giving up of matured intellect.
It seems to me that instead of the concept, “publishing an
article” with a newspaper, my mind has registered “subscribing and reading” a
newspaper. Alarming as it is, I must also warn you that any individual could be
prone to such pathological states of abandonment of the intellect. In such a
situation, the case calls for keeping our antennae open to well-dressed, excessively
polite marketing executives.
This article is intended to
be a harmless, humorous piece. If it gives you any resentment or anger at the
writer, it may be entirely due to his lack of dexterity.
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