Malegaon Musings

Okie this has been due for really long now, I srsly dunno why I keep delaying thots in my mind, may be works as a sort of filter...from July actually...the second month of my job and I was sent off to Malegaon for my rural stint. That’s the learning bed of FMCG, being close to your consumers and reaching out to them :)

After getting over the initial apprehensions of remoteness of the place, availability of veg food, the communal tensions and terror strikes the reason for which the place had come in lime light in year 2008 I finally take this road trip. My guide accompanied me to introduce me to the local team and the distributor of the town. It felt like a kid being taken to a hostel in a remote hill station for being too naughty or what.

Yes the journey was long and arduous especially the stretches between Sangamner to Shirdi and Shirdi to Malegaon..Pune to Sangamner was still a smooth journey. The total travel time was around 6-7 hours. The place itself is quite well connected though; a fact I realized when I started working from there and I was supposed to make trips to all the near by towns and visit the markets, visit the local DB of the town, clocking 150 kms of average travel per day.

The road trips were always fun and adventurous. Traveling in rickety state road transport buses for 4 hrs on avg per day with people looking at you with amazement used to be fun and tiring at the same time. I also had hens and trays of eggs stacked over each other as my co passengers under my seat or besides me in the ally sometimes!! The landscape was the savior; lush green fields laden with fresh produces of the season, the neat rows in vineyards around the Nasik belt, huge dams and small hills dotted with the most brightly colored houses I have ever seen in fluorescent oranges & greens were overall quite exhilarating.

The problem of staying & eating while in Malegaon was solved by this awesome newly built small hotel with amenities comparable to any 2-3 star city hotel but at throw away prices. It was like the jewel of Malegaon named Sukh Sagar. I would seriously recommend it to anyone for a very comfortable stay and good food who is visiting Malegaon by any chance!! During the travels to nearby towns the food mostly comprised of the most eatable and clean food available. It consisted of bananas, dal roti at road side dhabas, gujrati thali at some places and for once it was tea and biscuits in one godforsaken place called Ghoti!!

There is another good memory of this place called Ghoti, of almost tipping off the highway downhill due to very strong winds and heavy monsoon showers as the bus conductor had rightly told me that this belt from Igatpuri to Ghoti is called the "Cherrapunji of Maharashtra"!! It was absolutely scenic: a nicely washed dark tar colored high way running through this hill overlooking a small village down from the highway with a long train passing behind the village making the quintessential Indian Railways sound.

The list of the places visited in itself generates enough curiosity amongst the listeners with exotic names such as Sinner, Niphad, Ghoti, Ozar,Devla, Yeola, Kalwan,Satana, Devlali Camp,Pimpalgaon, Nandgaon, Chandwad, Manmad,Laslagaon..

In terms of learning also it was quite amazing to understand the psyche of a rural customer, the influential power of the retailer against his counterpart in a city, the art of selling by the local team in such areas and the importance of marketing and distribution in remote places where what is available is what sells.

Malegaon also holds the dubious distinction of having the largest Spoof Movie Industry with a remake of every Bollywood hit in its own style and flavor. You could not stop being amused at the posters of "The return of Ghajini" & "Mummy ka ilaka"...There is another funny incident of sneaking into a Govt School of kids one after noon. As the kids left their Science Lab class they funnily put the hand of a skeleton in his mouth looking it was suddenly shy of something!!

I think all my apprehensions were nullified by the end of the stint and in fact I think I have some very vivid memories of the stint apart from what I have just recollected: Me clicking pictures of my shoes at evening, kid shepherd boys grazing their flock, the courteous hotel staff and a reckoner with the fact that there's a long long way for us to go before we can truly boast of India coming of age.