Texting Hindi in English

My 55 year old cook Leela sent me an SMS this afternoon--"Bhaiya dustbin bag lekar aao"--which translates into "Sir please get more dustbin bags"

Why you ask is this interesting.  Well, its because she's using the the Latin alphabet to communicate a Hindi sentence to me, and in a way that uniquely mixes the languages. Leela doesn't speak or otherwise know how to communicate in English. But she, or someone in her family, has figured out a workaround for use on a basic feature phone, a workaround that works quite well!

There are millions of Indians, of all classes, that can do this i.e. swing between the scripts and sounds of Hindi and English on their phones. A big Indian phenomena, a product of the Englification of Indian dialects and languages and the rapid ubiquity of feature phones. This phenomena is in part explained by the explosion of 'Hinglish' in urban and semi-urban India, across a good 400+ million people. Hinglish is a bastardised version of Hindi (and English) in which words from each language are sprinkled into a uniquely colorful and now well-understood version of the other. I've also heard that many such Hinglish speakers and typers (if there's a word like that) don't even know that they've mixed English words into their Hindi! In short, there is a coming together of the two languages in ways that would make language purists blush.

But as for people like Leela, I wonder what drove her to learning how to transmute between languages? What motivates an elderly woman from a Hindi and Marathi speaking traditional background to develop this capability? Could it be because she needs to stay relevant with the people around her? Did she learn it unwittingly because English-named businesses have to by law in India also display their phonetically-matched Hindi equivalent name? Is it because she regularly sees Hinglish sprinkled all over ads and billboards? Or did she learn to do it because its just too cumbersome to text a Hindi message to someone in a Devanagri font?

Beats me. I've also heard that there are phones now now that can on the fly convert text to voice across languages. Meaning, she didn't even type the text to me! She spoke it in Hindi and the telco sent it to me in converted English text. Go figure.

sorry Mickey D's, we were here first!

We don't need your crunchy salty double-done french fries to give us high bp and kill us. We have what we call mixture, shev, boondi, chatpata and so on... and have been furiously nibbling on it twice a day or so for bloody ages. Long before your irresistible fries landed on our shores and tried to penetrate our pallet.

We don't need your cheesy greasy hamburgers to get us addicted to fast food nation wide. We already have pakoras, bondas, bhaji, samosas, cutlets and god knows what else to lubricate our innards with enough goop to rewrite the laws of viscosity.

And we don't need coca cola and the rest of your sticky shicky to get type 2 3 4 and 5 diabetes and die of a massive coronary. We have invented just as many sweets as we have gods, dozens over in each tiny pocket of our gluttoned land, and we unbeknown to many are not just the largest producer of sugar in the world but the largest consumer. How's that for yet another world record that rides on our demographic dividend!

So come on down mickey dickey and try to make a dent in our health. With any luck you'll just about be able to take credit for a few coughs, chokes, farts and yacks, but surely not our heart attacks and profoundly generational food addictions.

Welcome to our land of firsts. We invented 0 where it all started. And we invented heart attacks where it all ends :)

I consumer, My data

There's a new girl in town.  She's apparently a high flying corporate executive, health freak, enjoys the good things in life, and until today wasn’t just anonymous to us but altogether invisible.

Until she ‘turned herself on.’

Ok hold your horses all of you, this isn't the beginning of an erotic novel.  It's actually much more interesting.

She is very particular about what she brought into town with her. But she didn't pack almost anything in her bags… said something odd like "everything I need is in the clouds" as if she’s some sort of starship trooper.  She is also particular about who looks at her and especially who speaks with her.  Yet she freely shares her phone number with anyone who asks for it.  Talk about mixed signals!  She apparently even walks into stores and demands to set the price of what she buys...  and she gets away with it.  Imagine that.  What a vain and demanding gal… some would say playing hard to get, some would say using her good looks, and some would say a bully plain and simple.

But one thing is for sure -- everyone listens to her and she gets to choose whatever she wants and whenever she wants.  In short, she's like our new queen.  And we have to love her.

Enter reality, the context.

It's 2030--the Year of the Consumer--is what the Chinese should call it.  World War 4 has just ended, the horrible war of marketeers versus privacists.  The latter has won, marketeers have been put on notice, and consumers now own their greatest asset… their own data.

And not just their data, but ALL their own data.

Tables have turned in this new era.  A consumer’s right to privacy is now a human right.  Each human is now protected as a consumer.  There are systems in place to protect and preserve these new rights.  And marketeers who break the rules are sent to the gallows.

Now back to our story... obviously of more interest to those of us that are in the direct marketing industry. 

She came to town with just a pointer to her data in ‘the cloud.’  And all she had to do was reset the pointer to say "I have moved to Random Town and grant only A, B, and C there the right to market to me.  I bring with me all the history of all my shopping up to this date.  And I can analyse this and that data to figure out what prices A B and C should be charging me. So if they are interested they are free to contact me.  I'm open for business!"

Imagine this new world.  No customer data is allowed in any company database.  Each customer owns and stores all their data, independently, in the secure cloud.  And marketers don't and can't push to customers any more, unless customers have explicitly requested it.  Customers pull, and pull only when they want something and want it now.  Being a consumer is now a series of reverse auctions.  They are informed, they open the auction with their requirements, they receive bids, they settle with the provider of a winning product or service, and they walk away necessarily satisfied.  And so does the business that just sold them something.

Is this reality a possibility?  No silly, this is fiction, so just listen and enjoy the vision of yourself in a brave new world where you the consumer are king.  Or queen.

When a business currently renders a service, and creates an associated transaction, they get to keep the data.  But what if at some point in the distant future a new sort of legal equalizer emerged between individuals and corporations.  Isn't it conceivable then that individuals would tip the balance get to keep “their” own data instead of the companies providing them services?  And if cloud storage and data analysis became dirt cheap isn't it also possible that consumers will now be the ones that buy into it en masse and use it proactively in order to enhance their needs and lifestyles?  Finally, isn't it also possible that businesses will want to access, and compete for, that holy grail of marketeers -- a customer that comes along with the entirety of ALL their behavioral and attitudinal data?

Lol.  The thought of this new world is as ludicrous to me as it is interesting.  As someone who's taken a professional oath to protect consumers from indiscriminate marketing... what if our crusade goes too far?!

“There's a new girl in town.  I'd like to date her.  She's given me her number.  And I hope I’m good enough for her because the line to her is one heck of a long one…” is what will keep the Random Town marketeers up at night.