I called up the number and fixed an interview with the managing director. Mr. Rajiv Panjwani, my interviewee, opened his cabin door and introduced himself. There hung on the right hand side of the wall, a board that read, ‘Give me a Cause and I will give you a Strike’. It read similar to ‘Give me Blood and I will give you Freedom’. ‘Maybe freedom has new expression’, I pacified myself.
His office was nothing less than a presidential suite of a luxurious hotel. “I don’t think you have any trouble making your end’s meet”, I complimented him on his office. “Yes, we are grateful to our loyal customers”, he chipped in.
“And who are these loyal customers?” the question inadvertently popped out of my mouth. To which he pointed at the huge billboard. I followed his finger and saw a list of their honourable and loyal customers; labour unions, doctors, truck drivers, bankers, Indian Airlines, BEST… and many more. I figured out that Indian Airlines was their long time customer.
My interview commenced….
Q) What is HSPL all about?
A) Hindustan Strikes Private Limited is the voice of the protesters, presented in a professional manner. You see, in India there are so many things being protested about, but all the protesters do not have the required knack. Yes, after holding a few strikes, one does get better but that takes away a lot of time. In today’s world where time is so important, strikes have to be organized within a short period. It is at this stage, where we come in and organize just about everything for a successful strike.
Q) Which was your first assignment?
A) I would not like to reveal the name of that particular organization, you know, secrecy is one of the clauses in our contract. But I started by preparing a list of those companies and organizations, which protested the most. Then I circled the top three and approached them with my plans. It was the third one, which gave me the break. The people, whom I spoke to, got very excited and informed me to wait for a month, as they were planning to hold a strike at that time. After that, there was no looking back.
Q) Could you shed more light on how do you go about organizing a strike?
A) I have hired professional people for the entire process. When the client approaches us, we hold brainstorming sessions to generate ideas. After that, we illustrate those with advanced graphics. The banners are made then with the protest lines printed on them. Handouts are also made in some cases. The demand letters are then printed out and mailed to the concerning people. If our client wants, then we also create a website on the net stating their cause of strike and their demands.
Q) It is also rumored that you give certain type of training to the people…(he cut me off before I could finish)
A) Yes, yes that’s right. Just two days before the strike, we call in all the members of the organization participating in it to our training center. I have personally appointed the trainers out there. The job of the trainers is to teach, grill and educate them on holding the strike. Controlling hunger in case of a hunger strike is an also a part of the training. We advise them on how to catch some jobless people to attend the strike in case there aren’t sufficient members of their organization attending it. Also, there are well-defined ways of doing all sorts of things like walking, holding the banner, modulating your vocal chords, right use of words…. And things like that.
A) We are planning to launch a public issue later this year and the funds so collected will be used to set offices throughout the state, first and then throughout the country. The preference shares will be issued to our loyal customers and equity shares to ordinary people. And if the things go well, then by the year 2010, we will have offices in the whole of Asia.
4 Comments
Friday, June, 13, 2008 at 5:34 pm
too real!
Friday, July, 25, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Thanx Chhavi. Do you smell money in this proposition
Tuesday, August, 5, 2008 at 11:13 pm
The last bastion of communism, has been infiltrated!
Wednesday, August, 6, 2008 at 12:09 pm
finally i say… now we can try our hand at capitalizing over communism!!