Kumartuli or Kumortuli is located in the northern part of the city of Kolkata . The locality is a traditional habitat of the potters for nearly three hundred years. The potters or the artisans or the artists settled here during the restructuring of the Kolkata colonial region by the British East India Company . Earning a livelihood by making earthen pots and utensils first they gradually shifted to the making of the idols of Gods and Goddesses for various festivals round the year. With increasing demand and quality of their creations over time the artisans became famous and Kumartuli came to be known as the hub of idol makers supplying thousands of idols, particularly of Goddess Durga , to whole of the state of West Bengal and to NRIs of around 90 countries across the globe. At least three months before Durga Puja , the biggest festival of West Bengal and one of the biggest across Eastern India, more than five hundred workshops come alive with hyper activity day and night. Fir...
The calls never stop. They’re ruthlessly regular as always even if you’re going through a huge personal crisis or that you’ve been rendered ineligible for most of the offers in circulation due to various reasons. And I don’t blame the ‘casuals’ desperately trying to augment their measly income with the commissions cum incentives that they hope to earn by getting the customer’s consent for a personal loan or a deposit/investment scheme or a pre-approved credit card. In fact, I always have sympathy and understanding for them; that I get angry most of the times is a part and parcel of the hazardous virtual games being played in abundance nowadays. This time, for a change, it was a male voice that addressed me in all possible politeness. But he sounded weary and lazy, perhaps frustrated by the endless calls from his end since morning without any tangible progress.
“Sir, I’m calling from the xyz finance company. If you can spare a moment, please!”
For a change, again, I decided not to be angry this time, enjoying the fact that as the caller was a male, I could very well blurt out my anger the moment it’s required. So, I answered politely too.
“Okay, yeah?”
“Sir, our company is offering you a pre-approved super credit card without any charges or fees of any kind! If you allow me…”
“Do you know my age?”
“Um…uh…I don’t know sir!”
“How did you pick me out then for your most special offer?”
“Well sir! You name has been running in the system…so…”
“The system? Yeah, that’s the crux of the problem. Anyway, have you meanwhile changed your marketing strategy by deciding to start issuing the credit cards to senior citizens too?”
“Um…no! I’m very sorry sir!” and he hung up, for a change, once again. Normally I do that reprehensible job in what I always think righteous anger, at times right in the middle of the conversation.
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The System! Yes! The ever-growing mechanism of modern marketing that never spares any nook and corner in any possible territory of the targets from its ravenous attention. As I mentioned several times earlier the System has been drawing its sustenance from the ‘generous’ service providers who possess our database and make those available to all the marketing hawks. But why don’t they provide the crucial factors too, like say age? Well, perhaps, they’ve grown a little apprehensive thanks to the increasing public cries for privacy and data protection. Or maybe they don’t care, taking into consideration the possibility of catching even the old and near-dead fishes in the expansive nets of their ‘other’ customers.
However, it’d indeed be a good practice for the generous database holders to at times clean and weed out the old fish, thus eliminating the senior citizens, mercifully. This would also help the hapless endlessly ‘calling-casuals’ focus on the real targets and not waste their companies’ precious time trying to catch the ageing, useless and the ineligible preys. In such heartlessly competitive times, the predators must prepare themselves fighting-fit too as their prospective preys have also been becoming alert, conscious and smart in the meantime. Not to speak of the destructively creative and marauding online fraudsters who too have been drawing largely on the benefits of the doubts emerging from the generous goings-on!
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