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Made to stick the Chetan Bhagat way!

I owe this post to 2 people, and they couldnt be 2 more contrasting people in every possible way. Shiva and DJ in order of my owing them. Indeed i find it difficult to imagine reading a book like "Made to Stick" unless i was told by Shiva in no ncertain terms how his perspectve had changed after reading the book. Since I was naturally impressed by the life changing skills of the book (U have to have worked with Shiva to realise why), i was egged on to read "Made to Stick". You can find the authors blog here. And it took DJ's unwavering attention (and boy it takes something to have his undivided attention, given his multi talents) to Chetan Bhagat's 2 States: The Story of my marriage to make me wonder why and then go about reading it ( this despite me trashing and dis-ing Chetan Bhagat's writing/books per se).

I'll try an exercise here: Analyze CB's popularity using the principles of Made to Stick...

The Heath brothers frame their book on the premise of their earth shattering realisation about what makes ideas/stories/concepts stick viz what they call the SUCCEs acronym which is common to all things that stick. Decoded they mean that ideas having these potent ingredients normally stand a better chance to stick.
Simple: finding the core of an idea
Unexpected: use Surprise to grab attention
Concrete: use concrete examples making it memorable and graspable
Credible: make it beliveable
Emotion: target the audiences emotions: if u get there u've made it!
Stories: use simple narrative to make people believe in an idea

Now, CB's books are DEFINITELY simple, he's nowhere in the league of called literature in my humble opinion, but then neither can u call Himesh music. So i fall flat on my argument.
CB uses the Unexpected factor to great advantage: It is quite a challenge to imagine someone having the conviction to have graduated from IIT and IIM and quit ones 'career' to pursue writing. But wait a sec, surely CB is not unique in this. Agreed, its not quite the norm to quit plush jobs with hefty pay-packets for a career in writing, but then what the hell why the brouhaha about CB doing it? More people do it now than ever before and don't glamourise it in every book, every interview and possibly every tweet! and he just switched careers what the big deal? millions do it every day!

Bu then CB makes a story out of it and that is what matters, that is how he sells. 5 point something delves on what the title suggests, guys who make it the hallowed corridors or townships if u may of IIT and then lose the plot or realise they weren't really cut out for this. Again i dont see the big deal, everyone cannot top classes and there will be failures low rankers, how does that make them any less smarter? After all i cant see how grades and intelligence correlate? Smart people dont care for grades they know they'll make it anyways! Nuff said.
One night the most outrageous of CB's books apparently came out of a freak conversation in a train where someone made CB promise that she wouldn't share an interesting story unless he got it published? An absolute no-brainer for me! God calls call centers? WTF?

CB's books are unexpected, why would you expect him to write? credible he uses refrences galore to make it credible: IIT, IIM, call center, Delhi, Chennai, Nungambakam, Vasant Vihar, Citibank, HLL SP, what else you want? Rajni Sir writing the foreward? and he does appeal to emotions whiningly so...


Never mind 3 mistakes, i thankfully didnt make the mistake to endure it.
And then there is 2 states about which CB himself brags: 'Its the #1 selling book in India. It sells more than the 9 remaining books in a top 10 list'

Dude your books are priced at what 95 bucks? less than a cup of coffee. It takes the IQ of dust to read and understand them, and then thanks to the media hoopla it makes people feel they're IN, and that they read English novels. Reading CB's novels need you to be pea brained and not have much else to do. More people buy it figure out whats the buzz about than anything else, and the good part of the books positioning it is people can afford to. Period.

Imagine yourself stranded on a delayed train/flight, and have 100 bucks to spare, would u spend it on a cup of coffee or on a book on which the country seems to be hooked on to? I have to give it to him: even I would buy the book than the coffee despite the caffeine addict I am.

2 states has CB telling us what Punjabi's perceive Tamilians as, and vice versa. Nuff said. You just have to watch comments in web comics like this, this, and this to know how screwed up people in our country are.

So for the next CB book can we at least not have a epiphanic ending a la Paulo Coelho and just get oon with the job. CB might be very pro India... for all i care people our generation dont really want to feel that way, its just the way we are conditioned. So stop claiming moral victories over regional and communal biases just because the book is a pan india success. Its more to do with its marketing and the viral effect that had than anything else.
@ CB: Just try pricing the book @ 495 the next time and we'll see who has the last laugh!

Elementary, my dear Watson!

I felt compelled to write this post sometime around 4.30 in the morning y'day, fearing reprimand(I had arrived home shortly after midnight) i decided to hold back till next morning. So here goes...
It started with the security check at the swank, upmarket new airport at Shamshabad, I was shocked that i was allowed to carry 2 cigarette lighters, around 4 razors, 6 packs of shaving blades (3 single blade and 3 triple) and god knows what else my old bag had, but was asked to remove a pack of ghee or give the bag in cargo/luggage. Miffed, i allowed the ghee to be cast into the garbage bin and trudged along to the smoking bay in the airport. After all they let the lighters be!

I couldnt get it, why on earth was the ghee asked to be removed? The police woman at security just repeated its not allowed when i asked WHY? the nth time. Mom liked the ghee when she was here she had casually mentioned if i could get some on my way home. I had gladly obliged, only to be done in at the security. As i started reading to kill time, i boarded the flight and kept reading, though my irritation with the ghee episode hadn't quite subsided.

I was reading a fairly interesting book, if nothing for its huge repository of anecdotes. Since I liked trivia i kept at it, despite its attempts to teach more serious stuff as books like these do.
By the time we landed at IGI airport Delhi, i was done with the book. As i shut the book and looked down at the Delhi lights glittering the landscape, i was surprised to acknowledge that apart from two bits of trivia: 1. Holmes was misquoted... Doyle had never had his protagonist utter "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the 4 novels and 56 short stories he featured in and 2. The story of 425 pound Jared who welcomed us to all Subway stores; all other anecdotes were either new to me or i had forgotten them!

Anyways, landing done i walked out of the airport to be greeted by my elder brother waiting at a 12 degree celsius night in Delhi. I was still muttering about the security missing the point in fine print (moping abt the ghee ie), when he casually mentioned something abt ghee being inflammable.

And there it was! Elementary, my dear Watson! It had nothing to do with dairy products or spillage as i had thought, it was simple ghee was inflammable and a half kilo packet incredibly so!
Feeling rather sheepish and daft about my deduction skills, i quietly allowed myself to be chaperoned to the waiting car.

And then it brought me back to Make it Stick... It was the story and the revelation that made me feel stupid. Maybe these pop-psychology books could have a deeper impact than i had thought. But then again, maybe not!