The Alchemist - Featuring Bops

We formed quite a trio, me bops and my ‘other buddy’. I am not dwelling into the details of my ‘other buddy’ - one feature is too little to talk about his escapades. Besides he is too busy running a big consulting firm from some where in Hong Kong or Macau.

There were two things common to the three of us,

One - like most boys from South (I mean South of Bangalore) we had never been North (beyond White Field) of the country.

The other – none of us fancied an IT job. I ofcourse crib and do nothing about it. But Bops wasn’t the one who would sit around whine about it and do nothing. After a not so convincing stint at an IT company, he left for an MBA. Come summers Bops finds himself in the same company where he is used to work earlier (call it destiny). Still Bops held his convictions of breaking away from the mundane world of IT. Finally he left many a cushy offers from IT companies, the lure of green bills and lost frequent flier miles. Bops made it to Airtel, with it came a trip to Delhi…farthest North he had been all life.

Like I said - Bops followed his dreams …. Yours truly and the ‘other buddy’ will always be proud of this. There are very few people that I have come across who have the courage to follow their dream. You need some nerve to do it, don’t you ?

For all his positives bops has some shades of grey, he is an ardent follower of Hindutva (the sena kind). Since his early childhood he had developed this strange animosity towards fellow Muslims. So much so that he had a grid on which he could scale his animosity. To give you an idea he had enemies at various levels

National Level – Pakistan Bangladesh and rest of the middle east
State Level – TN, KL, WB (and the list goes most states in India minus KA)

Bops is currently headed to Murshidabad for a sales stint, his attitude to walk the talk has now landed him 20 miles away from the border. When Bops called me early today to tell me he was off to murshidabad, my first question was – Is this in Bangladesh?

A little research on Murshidabad* tells me that the place is geographically proximate to Bangladesh. A district with a population of 5.8 million, which is classified as a muslim majority (64% muslims) within West Bengal. An urban population of less than 11%, so effectively we have 638,000 potential customers who would be demographically targeted by Airtel . Bops effectively has around 229000 as his customer base (his strong religious convictions forbid him from selling connections to Muslims). Add to this Hutch is the dominant player around, which leaves bops with less than 100000 subscribers.

Bops faces the biggest challenge of his life – whether to follow his dreams or to break his strong religious convictions. I don’t have any answers to his dilemma for I know - not only he pursued his dreams but also pursued his boss to give him a challenging assignment in sales. I mean what can be more challenging than selling a Refrigerator to an Eskimo. Kudos Bops, I am proud of you. If you ever need a bigger challenge – you should probably try selling Hair Oil in PoK.

I only hope that you don’t come back with a Begum Khalida Zia…For the last time i wished*** something you kicked my butt whenever Kapil Dev was on TV telling "Palmolive ka jawab nahi"

Good Luck Dude!!

*38.5% growing muslim population base making it the fastest growing district as far as muslim growth is considered, i am told the degenerating population growth in Bangladesh is attributed to a generous murshidabad

* * I am making this assumption that Airtel would being a premium brand would restrict its market segment to urban murshidabad

***This one is a little secret between the two of us, sorry strictly confidential.