These days one hears a lot of talk about innovation and social entrepreneurship. A passing glance at recent activity in this sector brings out several interesting models that combine creative ingenuity with the spirit of enterprise. But I would never have imagined that something like stone pelting can be a serious business. Surprise Surprise. According to some sources, stone pelting is already fast becoming an industry. (Since social enterprise doesn't seem appropriate, though it qualifies on several grounds, let's call it antisocial enterprise.)
[Headline: Your TV Channel now brings you exclusive Antisocial Media coverage of the birth of the stone pelting industry, the first of its kind in Antisocial Entrepreneurship]
[On one side of the screen there's a 5 second clip of a mob pelting stones at policemen, in an infinite loop. A watermark bearing the TV Channel's name followed by the words "Exclusive Footage" is running as a continuous ticker tape across the screen]
TV Channel: Sir, this is the first time you are being interviewed by any TV channel, so we are honoured that you chose to give an exclusive interview to just our channel. Could you tell us a little bit about your business?
CEO: Sure. First of all, let me clarify that stone pelting is not as easy as it looks. Our roads these days are always littered with stones, thanks to all the maintenance activity that is perennially going on on our roads. So on one hand it seems like any old Patharphekar can pick up a stone and throw it. But to do a really good job, you have to realize that this is an art by itself. One has to be a trained stone pelter and one has to have the knack for stone pelting, to be able to make a career out of it. Everything is important right from the selection of stones to the technique of throwing to the actual harvesting and recycling of thrown stones.
TVC: What about yourself? How did you get started?
CEO: Since childhood, I was fascinated by the act of throwing a stone at some symbol of the establishment. I threw my first stone when I was just 4 years old and it hit its target - the windscreen of the then district collector's white ambassador. My uncle complimented me and said - nephew, you will one day become a great stone pelter. As I grew older I developed my skill and started winning trophies at local stone pelting competitions. Those days it was just a hobby for all of us, because we just enjoyed throwing stones. Then one day I said to a couple of my friends - Yaar, why not we make this a business, yaar? This can become a lucrative business in the valley yaar. After all, we could always hop across the border to a hostile neighbouring country and get some unfriendly neighbourhood GO (state actors) or NGO (non-state actors) to fund us and LeT us launch this antisocial enterprise. And we did, and since then there's been no looking back. This has become yet another outsourcing innovation for our country, with our vast resources of unemployed youth. A little bit of research in your own news archives will tell you that there's huge demand for stone pelting outsourcing.
TVC: That's interesting! Could you give us an industry overview? What about competition? What are your differentiators?
CEO: As an industry sector, stone pelting is positioned carefully above the Shiv Sena brand of hooliganism but below Maoist insurgence. To those who are looking for the right degree of violence that is not so lethal as to provoke extreme reaction from the establishment, but yet causes enough damage to life and property, we offer the right solution. As a company, we are aware that there is considerable interest in this business in other parts of the country, such as the state of Andhra Pradesh. But we have a far superior offering than the pro-Telangana activists, and our pricing models are also very attractive. We have recently introduced a pay-as-we-pelt model and a outcome-linked model, as opposed to just FTE-linked charge-out rates. Our deliverables are highly visible, thanks to your channel, so transparency is never a problem. Our approach underscores our commitment to results and the fact that we're not just exploiting wage arbitrage opportunities, though all we hire are unemployed youth. We've invested heavily in R&D and have institutionalized the process of innovation - every pelter in our stable is an innovative pelter. We take special care in recruiting and training our staff and we go out of our way to keep the morale high. This is a resource-intensive business and a lot depends on the motivation levels of even our most junior team member. For example, we have an in-depth induction programme for new hires, which includes SPLC training ...
TVC: Er .. what's that?
CEO: Oh sorry - SPLC is a jargones (sic) for Stone Pelting Life-Cycle training.
TVC: You mean jargon ...
CEO: Hahn, bus wohi ... You see, once you start studying this industry a little more closely you'll become better acquainted with our jargones (sic) because you see, us lapidators are technical people and technical people tend to invent a lot of jargones (sic). It means that we pay attention to every detail. Like I was telling you, it is important to select the right kind of stones. Some stones crumble easily, others have too smooth a surface - they are actually paybbuls (sic). We need stones that are hard but do not crumble easily, and they should have sharp edges also. In fact, our supply chain specialists have perfect the art of sourcing stones from the best pelting-grade stone suppliers in the industry. Thats another differentiator, by the way. Also, we have a highly scalable model since we have access to vast pools of resources that are only too willing to get trained and get a job with us. Lastly, we are very environment conscious and after I returned from COP15 I've initiated a recycling initiative - we pay street urchins to harvest the stones we pelt, after the stone pelting incident. This has also resulted in considerable cost saving, which we pass on to our esteemed customers.
TVC: Mr CEO, you seem very passionate about your business and I'm sure you would love to talk about it a lot more. But we won't keep you from your tight schedule any longer. Thank you very much for your precious time and for sharing your insights on stone pelting. We wish you the very best for the future.
CEO: Thanks for having me and giving coverage to our exciting new business. Though our mission statement is "Everybody must get stoned" - a line we stole from the famous lyricist and Music Director Babu Dhillon, as a token gesture, if someone hires us to pelt stones at your TV station, we will humbly decline the offer. If they offer to pay us a heck of a lot more, then we will give you enough warning and wait till you leave the building before pelting. And we'll pass on some of that premium to you. We're professionals after all.
TVC: Oh that would be wonderful! Your gesture is much appreciated!
CEO: (beams all around) My pleasure entirely!
This news item could well have qualified for a "in more WTF news" kind of tweet on twitter, but I thought it deserved better treatment than just "tweetment", so this post marks my humble debut in political satire. When I saw the news-flash that the stone pelting king-pin was apprehended, in my mind's eye I had already started envisioning a fictitious TV interview of the CEO of "Rapid Lapidators Pvt. Ltd." (with the tag line "We lapidate to liquidate"), a Srinagar-based start-up that has already got its first round of funding from an Af-Pak based foreign director investor. It goes something like this ...
[Headline: Your TV Channel now brings you exclusive Antisocial Media coverage of the birth of the stone pelting industry, the first of its kind in Antisocial Entrepreneurship]
[On one side of the screen there's a 5 second clip of a mob pelting stones at policemen, in an infinite loop. A watermark bearing the TV Channel's name followed by the words "Exclusive Footage" is running as a continuous ticker tape across the screen]
TV Channel: Sir, this is the first time you are being interviewed by any TV channel, so we are honoured that you chose to give an exclusive interview to just our channel. Could you tell us a little bit about your business?
CEO: Sure. First of all, let me clarify that stone pelting is not as easy as it looks. Our roads these days are always littered with stones, thanks to all the maintenance activity that is perennially going on on our roads. So on one hand it seems like any old Patharphekar can pick up a stone and throw it. But to do a really good job, you have to realize that this is an art by itself. One has to be a trained stone pelter and one has to have the knack for stone pelting, to be able to make a career out of it. Everything is important right from the selection of stones to the technique of throwing to the actual harvesting and recycling of thrown stones.
TVC: What about yourself? How did you get started?
CEO: Since childhood, I was fascinated by the act of throwing a stone at some symbol of the establishment. I threw my first stone when I was just 4 years old and it hit its target - the windscreen of the then district collector's white ambassador. My uncle complimented me and said - nephew, you will one day become a great stone pelter. As I grew older I developed my skill and started winning trophies at local stone pelting competitions. Those days it was just a hobby for all of us, because we just enjoyed throwing stones. Then one day I said to a couple of my friends - Yaar, why not we make this a business, yaar? This can become a lucrative business in the valley yaar. After all, we could always hop across the border to a hostile neighbouring country and get some unfriendly neighbourhood GO (state actors) or NGO (non-state actors) to fund us and LeT us launch this antisocial enterprise. And we did, and since then there's been no looking back. This has become yet another outsourcing innovation for our country, with our vast resources of unemployed youth. A little bit of research in your own news archives will tell you that there's huge demand for stone pelting outsourcing.
TVC: That's interesting! Could you give us an industry overview? What about competition? What are your differentiators?
CEO: As an industry sector, stone pelting is positioned carefully above the Shiv Sena brand of hooliganism but below Maoist insurgence. To those who are looking for the right degree of violence that is not so lethal as to provoke extreme reaction from the establishment, but yet causes enough damage to life and property, we offer the right solution. As a company, we are aware that there is considerable interest in this business in other parts of the country, such as the state of Andhra Pradesh. But we have a far superior offering than the pro-Telangana activists, and our pricing models are also very attractive. We have recently introduced a pay-as-we-pelt model and a outcome-linked model, as opposed to just FTE-linked charge-out rates. Our deliverables are highly visible, thanks to your channel, so transparency is never a problem. Our approach underscores our commitment to results and the fact that we're not just exploiting wage arbitrage opportunities, though all we hire are unemployed youth. We've invested heavily in R&D and have institutionalized the process of innovation - every pelter in our stable is an innovative pelter. We take special care in recruiting and training our staff and we go out of our way to keep the morale high. This is a resource-intensive business and a lot depends on the motivation levels of even our most junior team member. For example, we have an in-depth induction programme for new hires, which includes SPLC training ...
TVC: Er .. what's that?
CEO: Oh sorry - SPLC is a jargones (sic) for Stone Pelting Life-Cycle training.
TVC: You mean jargon ...
CEO: Hahn, bus wohi ... You see, once you start studying this industry a little more closely you'll become better acquainted with our jargones (sic) because you see, us lapidators are technical people and technical people tend to invent a lot of jargones (sic). It means that we pay attention to every detail. Like I was telling you, it is important to select the right kind of stones. Some stones crumble easily, others have too smooth a surface - they are actually paybbuls (sic). We need stones that are hard but do not crumble easily, and they should have sharp edges also. In fact, our supply chain specialists have perfect the art of sourcing stones from the best pelting-grade stone suppliers in the industry. Thats another differentiator, by the way. Also, we have a highly scalable model since we have access to vast pools of resources that are only too willing to get trained and get a job with us. Lastly, we are very environment conscious and after I returned from COP15 I've initiated a recycling initiative - we pay street urchins to harvest the stones we pelt, after the stone pelting incident. This has also resulted in considerable cost saving, which we pass on to our esteemed customers.
TVC: Mr CEO, you seem very passionate about your business and I'm sure you would love to talk about it a lot more. But we won't keep you from your tight schedule any longer. Thank you very much for your precious time and for sharing your insights on stone pelting. We wish you the very best for the future.
CEO: Thanks for having me and giving coverage to our exciting new business. Though our mission statement is "Everybody must get stoned" - a line we stole from the famous lyricist and Music Director Babu Dhillon, as a token gesture, if someone hires us to pelt stones at your TV station, we will humbly decline the offer. If they offer to pay us a heck of a lot more, then we will give you enough warning and wait till you leave the building before pelting. And we'll pass on some of that premium to you. We're professionals after all.
TVC: Oh that would be wonderful! Your gesture is much appreciated!
CEO: (beams all around) My pleasure entirely!
