Monsoon clouds are gathering in Mumbai, but it doesn't look like it will rain in a hurry. At the Taj's Sea Lounge, my guest K M S "Titoo" Ahluwalia is checking out the tables near the windows. Ahluwalia chose the Sea Lounge for Lunch with BS for its eclectic menu, explaining that you could choose to eat anything from bhel puri to steak. And, of course, for its fabulous view of the sea and the Gateway of India nearby.
The sea today is truly magnificent, not too turbulent but not calm either. "If my life were to be a restaurant, I wouldn't mind it to be the Sea Lounge," he says.
Synonymous with market research in India and well-known for his marketing skills, Ahluwalia, now 57, hung up his boots last year, with plans to switch over to some serious social work.
The Anshu Foundation "" a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dealing with women's empowerment, organic farming and vocational training for school dropouts "" is his way of giving back what he's got.
Our sweet-lime juice arrives while Ahluwalia tells me how he ended up in market research. Hitch-hiking to the UK at 19 after studying history at St Stephens, he stayed on to study business management at what was later to become the London Business School.
While enjoying his new-found freedom, the Beatles, Ravi Shankar, idealism and dope, he signed up with BMRB (British Market Research Bureau) in London, staying on for about two years and returning to IMRB in India with his boss Robin Sandler. By the time he turned 29, he had become its CEO.
We decide to give the regular menu a miss and settle for salad and pasta instead. Between mouthfuls of smoked salmon, mushroom and asparagus, Ahluwalia recalls the early days when marketing heads of companies such as Union Carbide and Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) were like rationing officers because of the huge shortages of virtually everything.
Business came to IMRB more because the foreign parent insisted on it. Thus, interestingly, India has had a much longer history of such research than many other industrialised nations (Japan, for instance). In fact, in China, retail auditing started 30 years later than it did here.
In 1983, Ahluwalia, along with some colleagues, moved out of IMRB to set up MARG with Dorab Sopariwala as managing director. Was it entrepreneurial spirit that drove him? He brushes aside the suggestion. Not really, he claims. The idea was to stay in the industry but not be involved in day-to-day matters. I ask whether it is true that a major part of MARG's success had to do with his famed marketing skills. Ahluwalia admits that may be partly true.
"Perhaps I was able to make it more comprehensible to people who were tired of listening to statisticians," he says, asserting that market researchers should not be mere number crunchers since they are paid for their insights.
Even today, he points out, the number of companies that actually use market research in the way it ought to be used, is relatively small.
A large part of it is wasted money today, because it is not done to a precise brief, often not for the best reasons and sometimes used to either settle scores within the company or by managers to prove a point.
"Managers want to confirm something. If the research doesn't happen to do that then it is quietly shelved," says Ahluwalia. He concedes that market research practitioners are largely to blame because it is still true "" although not to the same extent as in the 1970s "" that they are not as comfortable as they ought to be with business issues and are still taken up by techniques and methodology.
We pick up our pasta "" wholewheat pasta with pesto sauce for Ahluwalia and spaghetti bolognaise for me. Neither of us can resist a generous helping of prawns.
I venture to ask how it was that the opinion polls for the last general elections were so badly off the mark. Election forecasting, says Ahluwalia, is a totally different ball game, especially in India where elections are lost and won by a movement of 1 or 2 per cent and a small swing can can make a difference of 40 seats. He appreciates, though, that the marketing research business has failed to some extent. "Seat forecasting is a mug's game," he asserts.
Then why do it? "The last time we made it clear in India Today that only the field work had been done by ORG-MARG," he says in defence. I persist saying that this time, too, ACNielsen and NDTV didn't get it right.
Ahluwalia concedes that seat forecasting shouldn't be done; even a homogenous country like Britain has got it wrong several times.
"The hazards should be made known, which the media hates to do. The media wants something sensational findings. What is undoubtedly true is that we have always got the 'which way is the wind blowing' right, every time."
Except this time, I protest. Ahluwalia doesn't agree: even this time, he says.
"We said the BJP is losing ground, but they will make it. The way in which the findings are presented is important. In India, there is no code and every media owner decides how he wants to sensationalise the findings. And people don't remember the fine print. I thought there was much less egg on the pollsters' faces than was popularly thought to be the case. If I had all the data "" and you can call me a marketing man if you like "" I would convince you that had it been presented properly, it would not have given the wrong impression."
I suggest he should do this if only to lessen the scepticism. "But the next time around the media will be no less greedy about trying to get some sensational headlines."
"Unfortunately, market research, whether in its homespace or otherwise, is often misused or improperly used, and it is a shame that we don't have a strong professional society "" the society we have is fairly dormant "" to clarify the context in which it should be used, particularly after this election. It's a useful tool, even in a communist nation or for a government or to gauge the mood on social issues such as the Talaq issue."
Ahluwalia is eager to talk about his new life. The Anshu Foundation is coming up at Nandgaon in Raigad, where he has spent most weekends of the past 15 years.
Organic farming is being done on experimental farms, the objective being to produce foods and regenerate the soil by simply using manure and weeds, something that could make a big difference to farmers. Incidentally, Ahluwalia has just bought out an organic foods company, the perfect outlet for the produce from the farms.Together with other NGOs, Anshu will also be doing a different kind of rain water harvesting.
Women's empowerment is next on the agenda. The Konkan region suffers from a fair amount of illiteracy, especially among the women. Ahluwalia's NGO plans to teach them, among other things, to open bank accounts and get themselves ration cards.
As for school drop-outs (again, a huge problem in the region), the foundation will help them with vocational training such as data entry work and also teach the more creatively-inclined children crafts such as pottery. More importantly, Anshu will help with the designs and market the products.
Another organisation that Ahluwalia plans to keep busy with is Citizens for Peace, set up after the riots in 1983. This organisation will be working closely with Citizens for Justice and Peace, which is involved in the Best Bakery case.
Ahluwalia believes that work done by such organisations is actually resulting in better justice and responses from the courts. There is also the Subhash Ghoshal Foundation.
Ahluwalia, who considers the late Ghoshal his mentor, has roped in advertising men Mike Khanna and Piyush Pandey for this venture, which plans to set up advertising and mass communication-related educational programmes in some institutions.
He declines dessert or coffee, saying he has eaten twice as much as he normally does, and talks about another interesting project with which he has recently become involved.
Praja is an attempt to make public services, such as the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) or the Police, more accountable. Ahluwalia says the Karnataka police has already agreed to work with Praja, as has the BMC.
Does Ahluwalia miss the hurly-burly of the corporate world? He dismisses the thought, saying it was a conscious decision to quit, taken seven years too late.
As it is, he says, he has little time for yoga and meditation. Still, one thing is for sure: regardless of what he's doing, Ahluwalia will never be too far away from the limelight. The marketing man in him will see to that.
