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Does SB command this premium pricing?

One thing that has never ceased to amaze me is the price of dishes served at "Hotel Saravana Bhavan" which claims to be one of the largest chains of quality vegetarian restaurants! Starting from the basic items (the inevitable idly, dosas) until the proclaimed or claimed premium dishes (the ubiquitous punjabi, chinese etc), their prices command a huge premium vis-a-vis many other restaurants of their class in especially Chennai as well other cities where they run from!

Take for example, A plate of Pongal. It is made of plain rice and a some cereals and some top-ups. It could be considered very well a simple dish. And the portion that SB serves would not even be more than 60 - 75 grams. If we simply calculate the ingredients and the cost involved (excluding logistics and the restaurant's cost of preparing it) it would come to around 5 - 7 rupees (since they prepare in huge quantities). And, if we add to it SB's brand value and price for their hygiene (which again I will put at around 3 - 5 rupees), the dish could come somewhere between 10 - 12 rupees. But guess the cost of a plate of pongal? it is an exhorbitant 20+ rupees in an SB restaurant! Whatever may be the overhead like air-conditioning, rental, supply chain management etc, a simple dish should not be sold for more than 10 - 15 rupees. Another example is that of one of my very favourites, Onion Rava Dosa or ORD (mmmm!! :) ). Many hotels (with comparable or a little lesser class service as that of SB) sell ORD for around 20 - 25 whereas SB prices them at 45+taxes. Isn't this ridiculous? But who is there to ask? Will The government set up a regulator like Hotel Tariff and Dishes Prices Regulatory Authority of India??? :)) That was a ridiculous suggestion, but only people have to give proper responses to such premium pricing! When there are pockets to pay, there will be bottomless pits to suck them empty!!!

Digressing a little, Incessant rains lashed Chennai city for almost two days! In fact, yesterday, it poured HUGE cats and dogs ( :) ) and people couldn't step out of the house from the mornings till late evening! And yes, the rain water harvesting and rain water storms did come to rescue and drained mose of the rain water...

Waiting for some more rains to pour down and declare holidays!!! :))...

The new AirTel ad!

For quite some time, there were no new ads from either AirTel or Hutch (Their ads are rated among the best in the industry). Hutch came up with ads for SMS tones. When I anxiously waited to see a new AirTel ad, it slowly started appearing without much fanfare and yes, they have done it yet again! The usual AirTel music in background juxtaposed with a few emotional scenes, truly blend unambiguously!! Yet another Great AirTel ad! The ad features people expressing their wish or love to their dear ones, especially the otherwise enabled boy expressing his feelings to his teacher deserves ultimate praise! Don't miss to watch the airtel ad that has started coming up in the prime time in TV shows...

To dabble in politics is what I like to do a lot, but what I haven't done for a long time!! :) Especially after dumbos like Deve Gowda speak irrationally about Honchos like NR Narayanamoorthy, should we the "educated" crowd shut up and keep quiet? First of all, We need to educate people about the bad politics of Politicans like Deve Gowda and make them (the people) realise that these thugs were stopping them from getting literate or getting rich almost! All that we need to do is take up an information campaign against the miscreant politicians and make people realise that they had done a grave mistake by voting them to power.

And, if anyone in India wants to buy an iPod or any of the apple's products, just visit iFarm.in and get the product delivered at home!

Tele-marketing blues!

Let me rant here about the innumberable calls I receive from Banks and Financial services providers who believe that I am their "Valuable customer" and that they had "their best offer" for me and that the offer was ending the very same day!!! Puhlllezzze!!! someone save me :)

Just a few minutes back, I picked up a call in my papa's mobile but was surprised that the person at the other end was asking for me (People call me only in my mobile). The call was for a "lifetime super bla bla card" from a foreign bank. But, to tell a point here, the connection was in my name and this clearly proves the point that my cellular service provider had passed on my information to the bank. Even after the supreme court condemning these activities of banks and mobile phone service providers, they still retort to such marketing activities, which, instead of attracting a customer, irritates and frustrates him! How I wish there was a donot call registry a la the one existing in the US of A!

My 2 cents on the IIPM issue!

I extend my complete support to Gaurav for his articles on IIPM's advertisements (See Gaurav Sabnis ) and JAM magazine's articles on IIPMs (See the article ). I can vouch for Gaurav's remarks on IIPM, since I hear a lot from IIPM students themselves about the stakes claimed in the ads. desipundit invites comments from bloggers about this issue. It is shocking to read how the Delhi IIPM threatened to burn IBM laptops since Gaurav was an IBM employee! The very fact that guys at IIPM brought in the issue of IBM laptops throws light on the fact that they lack corporate ethics and that they would go to any extent to track and beat down people who speak up against them. Now, we have to wait and watch the situation. I extend my complete support to Gaurav on this issue. Truth alone triumps!

An update:

Oh God! Could men retort to such cheap comments online or offline? See the comments put up by some nasty humans in this link. It is very dusgusting to see people writing so nasty. Men, wake up, react and speak out, don't exhibit cheap, kinky mentalities!!