Five Things You Will Not Be Told

5 Things Your Caterer Won’t Tell You

2007-03-12T22:34:00.003+05:30

1. “WE RELY ON THE ‘FULLPLATE’ THEORY”

It’s your firstborn’s wedding, and you want to lay it on in style. You’ve picked the venue and called the whole town. Now, it’s time to live out your food fantasies. You envision this milelong table spilling over with every thing under the sun, from Panang curry to baby idlis to baked corn to the current favourite—the chocolate fountain. (How else will every one know how well your importexport business is doing?) Aha! This is exactly what your caterer is relying on. “Catering is all about showing off, not about food,” says Papa Singh, a Delhi caterer.

“At least, in north India, that is an undisputable fact.” He describes how his clients want to put prawns on their menu only because it spells out e-x-p-e-n-s-iv-e, not because it may also taste good. And instead of focusing on quality, people want to have hundreds of different dishes laid out. This attitude is yummy for the caterer, because he or she knows that even if you have set out 17 different food-items, people have only one tummy. A person can only eat 250-300 grams of food per meal. As Papa Singh says, “The guy who eats the Chinese stuff is probably not going to eat daal.”

So what do caterers do? Here’s the inside scoop. Let’s say you’ve ordered 20 dishes—15 vegetarian and five non-veg—for 500 people. The caterer is doing the math. He knows that every one won’t eat every thing. So if the enthusiastic host has ordered for 500 people, the caterer isn’t going to make each dish for 500. He will make Indian food for about 200, Thai food for 100, Continental for 100, and so on. Also, if the host has a surname like Gupta or Agarwal, you can be pretty sure that a lot of his guests will be vegetarian so you cut down on the non-veg dishes. What if a dish runs out? “Quite simple. We just take it off the table when it starts looking empty,” says Papa Singh. Catch any one noticing.

2. “THERE’S A TRICK TO LAYING OUT THE FOOD”

Experienced caterers have found that there is a curious pattern in people’s consumption. Generally, they eat the most from the dishes closest to the place where the plates are kept. As they move away, plates get filled up and they lose interest, unless they are particularly savvy about what they want. So, caterers who have stinged on the expensive mutton vindaloo will make sure it is placed at the very end and then count on food fatigue. If it is Thai food, the order of placement would go something like this: you would put the rice first, then the vegetable curry, then some more vegetables, and finally the chicken and prawns. If the live pasta counter is all the way at the end of the line, you can calmly get away with being frugal on the fussilli and know that it won’t run short.

Caterers save a lot of money on this carefully planned food chain. Some dishes are definitely more expensive than others. For instance, South Indian food is the cheapest because it generally consists of two ingredients—rice and daal. Chinese comes pretty close because you can pad almost every thing with corn-flour and add lots of ajinomoto to make sure it tastes good. Expect the prawn curry to be at the end of the table.

3. “STARTERS AND LESS IS THE WAY TO GO”

A caterer confides that the best place to get away with lesser servings is on starters. The way to do it is to make sure that the tray of, say, liver pate and crackers goes out at far greater intervals than the plate of sesame toast and mushrooms.

The other key thing, says a caterer insisting on confidentiality for obvious reasons, is to make sure that the host gets served the good stuff regularly so he or she thinks that everything is in order. “We actually train our waiters to keep the host or hostess happy,” says the caterer.

4. “WE COOK UNDER GROSS CONDITIONS”

If it’s a big outdoor catering event, you can safely expect to consume vast quantities of e-coli along with your food. You can only imagine what the back-end operations would be like, whether it is the cooking or the washing. In a city like Mumbai, very few kitchens can accommodate mass-scale cooking. So the kitchen venue tends to be a maidan or football field, with no refrigeration, or proper covering. The yummy crunchy thingy in your vegetable kolhapuri may well be a grasshopper or beetle (but at least you are on a protein diet).

Says food-man Moshe Shek, “Be thankful that the wedding season is in December. At least in this weather, there are less chances of your food rotting in the heat.” As for clean dishes? Well, there is no running water, so don’t expect the earth. The glasses are usually the worst offenders. Don’t be offended if your guests carry their own water. Because even if you’re serving bottled water, you have no control over the lipstick marks on the glasses.

5. “WHO SAID WE WERE GOOD AT MATH?”

It’s the oldest trick in the book. You ordered food for 100, but the caterer ends up billing you for 120, and you have no way of verifying the fact because you don’t know how many people have eaten. Nowadays, more and more party hosts tend to position their own person at the point where the plates are dispensed to count the number of heads. In fact, caterers complain that some cheap customers tend to do the reverse, which is under-count the number of plates that went out.

Five Things Your Cellphone Operator Won’t Tell You

2006-09-01T09:24:00.001+05:30

1. THE MORE FRIENDS YOU HAVE, THE BETTER WE LIKE IT

You know those silly jokes or mushy friendship day messages you keep getting on your phone, which you then forward to all your friends and contacts? The ones that wish you a Happy Valentine even though you have just broken up with your boyfriend, or blessings on Gudi Padwa, though you may be Catholic. Well, they are purposefully sent by the cellphone company’s marketing department because they know that you will compulsively forward the message.

The short messaging service (SMS) is a crackerjack way for cellphone companies to leverage their already existing network. So companies will find newer ways to make you finger-happy and send out as many forwards as you can.

2. PLEASE GET YOUR FORTUNE TOLD EVERY DAY

Phone companies make their revenues not as much from calls—that has become a commodity—but from the value-added services such as ringtone downloads, games, Indian Idol-type contests and astrology predictions. One user got an inflated bill and found that her seven-year-old son had repeatedly downloaded songs and games on offer.

Earlier, the phone companies didn’t even bother disclosing the higher rates for these special services, but thanks to the regulators’ intervention, there is now more transparency. So at least you know that you are putting down sixodd rupees for that contest you will probably never win.

3. OUR PROMOTIONAL OFFERS ARE PRETTY BOGUS

Almost every time a new phone operator enters the market, it offers a seemingly fantastic package of free incoming and outgoing calls or SMSs, for all numbers within the network. So Idea to Idea or, say, Reliance to Reliance would be free. Sounds good, except that if you were to sit down and analyse the number of people on your contacts list within that network, you may find that there are hardly any.

The reality is that the late entrants in the market hardly have any traffic, so they can afford to give these deals. As soon as their customer base builds up, they stop these offers. It really only makes sense to take up a new operator’s offer if you are a big company and you are giving all your employees a phone connection, and expect to have high internal consumption. Otherwise, if you want to avail of the free usage, it is better to be with an older company that has been in the market a while.

4. WE KNOW HOW TO HOOK YOU

In the late 1990s, the average person used his or her cellular phone for 150 minutes per month. Today, people speak an average of 500 minutes per month. Phone companies have insidiously created what one mobile phone executive described as “a habit of talking” by offering endless promotions, freebies and by bundling new numbers on to the primary number.

One mobile phone company executive reveals that there are systems in place which analyse your bill to see where you can be hooked into more usage. He says, “If we check the bill and find that the user doesn’t send messages much, we may give the person free SMS for a while just to get him into the habit.” So every time there’s some promotional offer, don’t be under the impression that the company is trying to be nice to you.

5. DO YOU REALLY KNOW HOW THE BILLING WORKS?

There used to be a joke in the good old days that never were. When you ate out at a restaurant, you had to make sure that the cashier hadn’t added up the date on the bill. Then, computerisation took care of all that—or so you think. A senior executive with a mobile phone company reveals, off the record, that there has been a longstanding racket practiced by some phone companies—how they define ‘airtime’.

When does the meter start ticking? Evidently, some companies start the billing cycle from the time the phone starts ringing rather than when the person picks up. Now, that may mean a few seconds here and there as far as a customer is concerned, but multiply that by five million users, and it’s a yummy chunk for the company. When one company complained the others allegedly said: ‘Why are you spoiling the party? Just join in!’

In short, you have no way of monitoring your bill, or knowing how your phone operator is rounding off the minutes. And there is not much you can do about it any way. Consumer representatives at Mumbai Grahak Panchayat say that when they forward billing grievances to cellphone companies, they almost never get a response.

Five Things A Forensic Expert Won’t Tell You

2006-08-02T10:42:00.001+05:30

1. WE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Disasters like the train blasts of last week brought to the fore an otherwise marginalised group of experts—the forensic scientists. It is this group that collects the reliable and irrefutable evidence which eventually lead to conviction. You may think they are only relevant when there is a calamity, but forensic experts can impact your life in more ways than you can imagine.

Sample this: You have succumbed to the great art rush and bought a very expensive painting. A few days later, paranoia grips you, and you suspect that it may be a fake. Who do you call? The forensic guys. A QDE, or ‘questioned document examiner’, is equipped to check for forged signatures, erasures and obliterations. A forensic botany expert will be able to look at the wooden frame and tell you when it was made, or test the vegetative matter in the paint to determine how old it is.

Or lets say your grandmother dies and the will is being contested by the 19 children and grandchildren. It is, again, a QDE who will tell you whether the will was written under strain, in different stages or continuously, and even whether it is an original. Forged currency is another regular problem that we encounter. The problem is that despite its widespread applications, there are not enough independent agencies or laboratories.

2. INVESTIGATORS ARE NOT ADEQUATELY TRAINED
Historians have suggested that the world’s first fingerprint identification bureau was started in Calcutta in 1897 by William Herschel, the collector of the district of Hooghly in Bengal, who devised a system of registering finger impressions of native contractors to safeguard the interests of the British government. Even thousands of years ago, Indians knew that handprints, or tarija, were unique and they used thumbprints as signatures.

But regrettably, like much in India—from drainage systems to the performing arts—the past often supersedes the present. Today, investigators are not adequately trained in this science. Something as basic as cordoning of the scene of crime to prevent destruction of evidence is not practiced. After the blasts, VIPs were allowed to walk on the sites. Police investigators rely more on gut and experience than on training. When gathering evidence, they rarely use gloves. They do not individually package evidence to maintain its integrity. Photographs are often not taken with appropriate parameters, good lighting, and through different filters.

“The evidence has to talk to you,” says a forensic expert. She describes the case of a senior citizen’s recent murder. The photograph of the body also featured about 10 pairs of shoes surrounding the body. “Those feet shouldn’t have been in the frame. What were so many people doing at the scene of crime in the first place?”

3. WE CAN BE RATHER CORRUPT
Sources say that the profession is rife with corruption. Given the massive stakes involved, it is hardly surprising. Corruption is worst in the case of autopsies, where changing the cause of death can alter a conviction. As a forensic teacher says, “The body does not lie about the cause of death, the examiner does.” Half the time, the autopsy is being conducted by a ward boy in a government hospital, reveals a forensic expert.

Ethics are a big part of this science. A forensic expert can change a case from guilty to not guilty. There was a case where a government document examiner, who was reputed for his uprightness, merely had to walk into the courtroom, and the minute the defendants saw that he was a key witness, they would admit guilt and ask to work out a settlement.

4. DON’T RELY ON GOVERNMENT RESOURCES
There hasn’t yet been occasion for it, and hopefully there never will be, but if a disaster equivalent to a 9/11 were to hit the city, the state’s forensic department would be singularly unequipped to deal with it. When 9/11 took place, the government appointed a series of highly qualified independent agencies to conduct sophisticated DNA tests and examine evidence.

There is only one laboratory equipped to conduct DNA tests in Mumbai. It would scarcely be able to keep up with the load if there were a serious disaster.

5. THERE’S A LOT YOU CAN DO ON YOUR OWN
Like First Aid, people should be aware of some basic dos and don’ts at a scene of crime. Let’s say there’s been a burglary in your neighbour’s home. If you want to be able to help, maintain a log book of who is doing what, or entering and leaving the premises. Note the shoes they were wearing. All this helps during reconstruction of the crime.

Also, remember that forensics is based on Locard’s Exchange Principle. Basically, when two surfaces come in contact, they exchange trace evidence—say sweat from one, and dust from the other. So, if you are at a crime scene, and innocently lean on something, you may have just wiped out crucial evidence.

Five Things Your Supermarket Won’t Tell You

2006-07-30T12:33:00.001+05:30

1. WE KNOW HOW REPRESSED YOU ARE

Remember the days when you went shopping to your local grocer and depended on him to tell you what to buy, or what the best prices were? You were sort of at his mercy. Today, a shopper is like a jailbird set free. President of Food Bazaar, Damodar Mall, refers to the traditional shopkeeper as the “shopkeeper-inlaw”—someone the young bahu would have to turn to for guidance.

Now, with supermarket chains offering unbelievable choice, shoppers are on top. They can browse, compare, choose, and feel a great sense of accomplishment at finding the best deals. Shoppers have found freedom from at least one in-law, says Mall!

And supermarket chains fully take advantage of this fake power trip. “It is a complete release of the suppression that has taken place over several generations in India,” says Mall. Retail strategists often experiment with these repressed shoppers who hardly know that they are guinea pigs in a consumerist Truman Show. For instance, retailers know how every Indian shopper loves “discovering a deal”.

So, they may purposely place a two-for-one deal in a corner section and allow people to “discover” it, which they know gives the bored home-maker a great sense of accomplishment and brings her back for more. “It’s a continuous game we play where we need to keep offering deals that she hasn’t seen before,” says Mall.

2. WE LOVE BRATTY KIDS

In the West, where mothers usually go grocery shopping with their toddlers in tow, it is common for the cereal aisle to be located directly across the sweet and chocolate section.

Why? So that Junior can whine his way into a sugar high, while an exasperated mom is trying to organise good breakfast foods. The worst, most expensive sugary kids’ cereals are usually placed on lower shelves where grimy little hands can reach for them. And there is nothing more embarrassing than having a toddler tantrum disrupt the piped music, so moms usually give in.

3. WE CON YOU INTO BUYING MORE

You would never know this, but there is an informed science to the way products are placed in supermarkets. Shops strategically arrange products on shelves to catch your attention and eyeballs. They will always place the store’s label products, premium products, and larger size packs at eye level. They also know that, except for Middle Eastern countries, people read from left to right. This means the eye always goes to the left first, so the better, more premium products will be kept on the left side.

Another trick to get you to buy more, is to get you to slow down. People walk into grocery stores at high speed, with a mission, armed with their list. But if the store can succeed in slowing you down, and getting you to browse and amble a bit, it has sucked you in. Says Mall, “The slower you travel, the more you will buy.”

Since stores know that the majority of shoppers are women, they will try to achieve this by stocking the first aisle, just as you enter, with highchoice, attractive and inviting beauty care products. Which, they have found, do slow women down. Once buyers have gotten into browse mode, they are more likely to stay at that pace through the rest of the store. In the West, supermarkets have found that playing slow piped music slows you down. So if you don’t want to be conned, get a caffeine buzz before you go shopping.

4. YOUR COMPETITIVE SPIRIT IS OUR GAIN

Shops have found that there is a dynamic not just between the shopkeeper and the shopper, but also between shoppers themselves. Whenever there is a deal on offer, every shopper wants to “get there first”. Shopkeepers purposely offer “limited period” schemes or sales, to take advantage of this sentiment.

The ultimate example? When Big Bazaar had a January 26 one-day sale. “We were counting on getting half a million visitors, but after two million, we stopped counting,” says Mall. Even when the sale was extended for two more days, shoppers allegedly didn’t want to leave. They were willing to stand in lines in the sun for four hours, just so that they could get in. The consumer mentality is that any thing good in life is always in short supply, and I have to be smarter than my neighbour to get it.

5. WE MAKE IT YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Has your supermarket gotten so comfortable that you feel like you could spend the whole day there? Bingo! Shops make sure you feel at home because if you’re in there longer, you'll spend more money. The way they do it? By putting in coffee shops, children’s play areas, tasting corners where you can go and sip a new aromatic tea blend and feel as important as a wine-taster.

The supermarket is hoping that the person who does the household shopping is not pressed for time—he or she is either a home-maker or a senior citizen. Above all, these are still new to Indians and every one needs a bit of retail therapy.