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Henry Ford didn't have to lose his sleep over customer diversity. He made his Model T cars so cheap by perfecting the assembly line technique that he could say:
And still half the Americans of his day bought his cars. Black because that color dried quick enough to shove the car off the assembly line to make space for the next millions waiting in the queue.
In the early 1950s our doctor Ishwar Reddy in the village Muthukur where I did my schooling also didn't have any concern for diversity. He had an old Compounder to assist him and this chap's duty was to prepare four huge bottles of liquids in the colors white, red, orange and green for the day. The bottles had labels but I was too young to read them from afar. I was a daily visitor to our Country Hospital escorting one or the other of my six sisters, all of who are alive and kicking to this day. I had to carry our own small bottles labeled Vimala, Uma, Rama, Padma, Vijaya and Sita...mine had no label...I was too posh for such ignominy.
Dr Reddy had a thermometer that was dipped in a bottle of dilute spirit, a stethoscope, a shoe horn to push into the mouth after the tongue was asked to be pulled out and his own left hand to take the pulse. That is all. He also had a glass syringe and blunt needles that fit it. But this implement was used only on his friend, the youthful son of the richest landlord of the village. I used to see the doctor and this fond patient having small cozy talks while the syringe and needle boiled, once in a fortnight or so. I didn't know then but later on I could guess that the young one used to carouse and paint the village white once in a while and appear before our doc the next morning to take his shot of penicillin in veterinary doses...
I used to pick up the discarded bottles of penicillin and read their labels. The drug used to come in powder form and the doc first injects so-called distilled water (which used to accompany the drug) into the bottle and shake it vigorously till the milk-white powder dissolves somewhat before injecting it into the upper arm of his victim. It was the first time I heard of a 'million'. The label on the bottle said something like: '4 million units'. Google tells me that it is equal to somewhat less than 3 grams. Weird!
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http://thomastoons.typepad.com/thomastoons_cartoon_blog/2007/11/diversity-in-ca.html
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When I was in high school, my physics teacher—whose name was Mr. Bader—called me down one day after physics class and said, "You look bored; I want to tell you something interesting." Then he told me something which I found absolutely fascinating, and have, since then, always found fascinating. . . .
...Feynman
I don't know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I'm telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it. It's a thing you don't want to go wrong over, because one false step and you're sunk. I mean, if you fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.
Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your public is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can't make out what you're talking about.
...PGW
Henry Ford didn't have to lose his sleep over customer diversity. He made his Model T cars so cheap by perfecting the assembly line technique that he could say:
"Any color so long as it is black"
In the early 1950s our doctor Ishwar Reddy in the village Muthukur where I did my schooling also didn't have any concern for diversity. He had an old Compounder to assist him and this chap's duty was to prepare four huge bottles of liquids in the colors white, red, orange and green for the day. The bottles had labels but I was too young to read them from afar. I was a daily visitor to our Country Hospital escorting one or the other of my six sisters, all of who are alive and kicking to this day. I had to carry our own small bottles labeled Vimala, Uma, Rama, Padma, Vijaya and Sita...mine had no label...I was too posh for such ignominy.
Dr Reddy had a thermometer that was dipped in a bottle of dilute spirit, a stethoscope, a shoe horn to push into the mouth after the tongue was asked to be pulled out and his own left hand to take the pulse. That is all. He also had a glass syringe and blunt needles that fit it. But this implement was used only on his friend, the youthful son of the richest landlord of the village. I used to see the doctor and this fond patient having small cozy talks while the syringe and needle boiled, once in a fortnight or so. I didn't know then but later on I could guess that the young one used to carouse and paint the village white once in a while and appear before our doc the next morning to take his shot of penicillin in veterinary doses...
I used to pick up the discarded bottles of penicillin and read their labels. The drug used to come in powder form and the doc first injects so-called distilled water (which used to accompany the drug) into the bottle and shake it vigorously till the milk-white powder dissolves somewhat before injecting it into the upper arm of his victim. It was the first time I heard of a 'million'. The label on the bottle said something like: '4 million units'. Google tells me that it is equal to somewhat less than 3 grams. Weird!
It is us teachers who are constantly worried about customer diversity...I mean if they care. The teacher is in a perpetual dilemma. His fear is that the really interested and brilliant student (like that Feynman) would get bored. On the other hand, if he takes exclusive care of the likes of him in the class, the rest of the class would despair and doze off. Each teacher has to evolve his own method of resolving this issue.
Daily bloggers like me also face the dilemma PGW voiced above. I have been blogging for about 5 years now and my blogs are really meant for the handful of readers who stuck with them through thick and thin. Since I am not inventive enough to write fiction and not erudite enough to pontificate, my blogs are all personal, and mostly reminiscences, which are limited in scope by their very nature. So, I have to necessarily repeat, but to set up in a few lead words the 'atmosphere' that PGW talks about. This is because there are nowadays a couple of dozen other readers who are new and nomadic.
A few months back I got this message from a caring but unseen constant-reader-friend that pleased me much:
"By reading your blogs, I used to think that I almost know you and your household, but I was wrong!!!"
That reminds me of the slogan I saw on the wall in the room of a lady student at IIT KGP in IG Hall when my wife and son and I visited her on their Hall Day:
"There are no strangers here but only friends you haven't met"
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