McDonaldisation

There is a term I learnt during my sociology elective. It was McDonaldisation. In simple words it means the replication of the USP across the chain. Basically the term originated from McDonalds itself which ensures that our taste buds would never be able to differentiate the burgers, from 2 different outlets, from each other. Every customer should feel at home inside a McD outlet, that is the main aim.

I belong to Indore, a city in Madhya Pradesh and right now I am in Tatanagar and some days back I was in Delhi. The taste of one thing has remained same though. We have Mcdonaldised ourselves in disorganization. Instead of going on to a discourse on how we can improve by getting organized I would rather tell that one thing which I learnt from being unorganized. I found out that it is fun. I mean it is good that everyone must be organized and it becomes very imperative as a professional but still it is fun to be unorganized, at least for some time.

As I was travelling in train, I realized that each person who has lived in India for sufficient amount of time (*By sufficient I mean that he has travelled in trains and on someday his plans were ruined by a train delay or some day he missed the train because he assumed that like every day the train would be late. On the contrary the train was right on time) will have at least a good incident to tell that how he got duped by Indian Railways. Imagine if Indian Railways were the most organized rail network in the world. The people of india would have been robbed off all those stories. Life, by the way is all about the stories you have.

I would always maintain that considering the volume of passengers and goods handled by Indian Railways it is doing a commendable job. There is certainly no doubt about it. But anyone who has travelled in Delhi Metro will realize that the experience of missing train do not itch much because there is next train in few minutes. More so DMRC has ensured that in most cases even a layman can easily reach his destination. The less organized the system is the more the users need to ask and the more they ask the more they talk. It is certainly not surprising that most of the conversation between the co-travelers start with a question on a next station, seat number, compartment, pantry and so many more things.

While coming back from my office one day, I was on a road, made narrow by encroachments on both the sides. Just ahead of me was one confused uncleji on his Royal Enfield. I think he knew the house number but didn’t know the left or right and so he was exhibiting Brownian motion on the road. As he went to right side, I thought to overtake from left but soon he changed his mind and came to left and we nearly missed a collision. Angrily I turned to look at him. What a saw was a wide Happydent smile which tried to say that may be you are new in the system, it is like this only. My anger vanished in an instant. I felt at home. Mcdonaldisation, certainly.