The Connector

 

The numbers didn’t make any sense to the fifty- year -old sales head, Mr Das. He was astonished, and equally shocked. It was way ahead of what they had budgeted. The book had been available in the market for the last twelve months, but it hardly sold some four to five copies each month. He checked the first seven month’s sales report and found that the book had made a total sale in quantity of only thirty and then he compared the last five month’s report. The number was unbelievable. Nine hundred and fifty-five. Mr Das rested back on his leather chair and looked at the ceiling fan above. He recollected that the total number of copies printed was one thousand two hundred out which total nine hundred and eighty- five copies were sold out and they hadn’t planned for any further prints as the estimated time assumed to sell the initial production was planned as three years.

It was already seven thirty in the evening and rains lashed the City of Kolkata. He shut down his laptop and walked out of the office without speaking to anyone. As he sat in his car, his thoughts again rolled back to the sales figure. In his career of thirty- two years, Mr Das had never witnessed such a jump in any book sales abruptly. Books generally took their own time to get famous and known among the readers. But this book, a Bengali language self help book for young students had turned the tide against his experience. A sudden jump of nine hundred and fifty -five books in just five months was phenomenal because the publishing house had hardly marketed the book. He remembered that he along with editorial team wasn’t much excited with the book. It was published only as a filler to be kept in the book stalls so that other books written by well known authors could be accommodated as per agreement with the distributors and bookshops.

That night as he slept, he planned that he would go deeper into the mystery of the big jump in the sales.

Next morning, without having proper breakfast, Mr Das hurried to his office. He appeared excited and curious. He wanted to understand the reasons for such surprising sales. He called for various reports in relation to the book which included, area wise sales report, book shop wise sales report, distributor wise sales report, state wise sales report and offline and online sales report. After spending the day analyzing the reports, Mr Das noted down certain important observations. Initially he had assumed that the sales would have been due to online sales but he was proved wrong, Online sales number were a mere twenty-five. Based upon other reports, Mr Das noted down three important observations from his data analytics antics. Majority of the sales were from the city of Kolkata. In fact, ninety two percent of sales was from the city of Kolkata. The second observation was that there was no single book shop that contributed majorly. All the bookshops with which the publishing house had agreement, contributed almost equally which meant that the sales were distributed all over Kolkata. The last observation that was made were the block period between in which the sales had taken place. Majority of sales had taken place in between a block period of ten days in between 23^rd May 2019 to 2^nd August 2019.

It was already evening five. After sipping a hot cup of tea, Mr Das was ready with the next action. He had a list of all the book shops where the book was available along with their contact details. He started to call each of them to understand the sudden increase in sales. He dialed the first number of the shop that was located at Dhakuria locality.

After the initial introduction Mr Das came down to the point.

“I wanted to inquire the reasons for such an increase in the sale of the book. Do you have any idea why the sales would snowball without any marketing from our side?” asked Mr Das.

The reply wasn’t satisfactory to him.  After dialing the next five to six shops, Mr Das still didn’t get any satisfactory reply which could be analyzed further.

Over the next five days, Mr Das continued to call up book shops and distributors to understand the once in life time event in the history of the publishing house. At the end of the week, he was still without any answer for the sky rocketing sales.

That Sunday, Mr Das took drove out his car to the publishing house’s newest distributor. Read Hud Distributors was a newly constituted book distribution company owned by a twenty -five -year- old girl named, Kaushani Bannerjee. This was the only distribution house to which Mr Das didn’t call to as he himself wanted to visit the company. The book shops where the distributor had distributed the book were appearing in the top twenty book shops in the book’s sales ranking.

The small little office didn’t make for an impressive view to the eyes of the experienced Mr Das. After waiting for some ten minutes, he was called into the meet the young owner of the company.

Being a Sunday, Kaushani was dressed in casuals while Mr Das had forgotten that it was a Sunday, and hence was dressed in a crisply ironed white shirt and grey trouser.

“It’s pleasure meeting you, sir. We have been associated with the publishing house for the last six months and I shall say that it had been a good experience.” Kaushani said.

“Well, Thank you, Kaushani. It really feels good that young minds like you are taking the reading culture ahead.”

They exchanged routine information on various books and the publishing industry in general.

“Kaushani, my purpose of visit to you is something different. I am here to inquire about the sales of one our books.”

After listening to Mr Das for next fifteen minutes, Kaushani had a big smile on her face.

“I think I can help you with this.”

“Really, how?” asked a curious Mr Das.

Kaushani picked up her cellphone and dialed a number.

“Yes, Kaushani here. Can you come to my office urgently, I need to introduce you to a person?”

“Okay,” Kaushani cut the call and kept her cellphone on the table.

“Your guest would be arriving in sometime, Mr Das.”

Fifteen minutes later, a young boy was standing in front of both Kaushani and Mr Das.

“Mr Das. Meet Vivek Ranjan Roy. Vivek was the first one to read that book once it landed here. He read it curiously and engagingly. After reading the book, Vivek went around the town suggesting his young friends to buy the book and told those friends to also inform their friends and family to buy the book and further recommend it to new people.”

“Really?”

“That’s not all, Mr Das. Vivek also told those friends to inform him once they bought the book and told those friends to confirm with their own respective friends whether they had purchased the book. The cycle just continued and spread but the common link in all was the “Connector” that is our Vivek. Vivek loves books and he helps us during his free time in various computer related report making. 

“Connector? That’s an interesting word.” Mr Das replied back.

“Yes, sir. The concept of connector in not new but an ancient one. Majority of the brands that are famous today was because someday some one recommended that product to someone and that someone further recommended it to new people and thus the word of mouth spread and products became brand.”

“I am enlightened.” Mr Das said looking at the young boy.

Mr Das looked at the boy and said, “What’s your future plan?”

Vivek looked at Kaushani and then at Mr Das.

“Sir, I think you better sprint up the production of your book because of what information I have from my connections and friends is that by the time you reach office tomorrow, the balance of that book in the market would mostly be sold out and your office would be bombarded with calls from all over the city for new prints.”

Mr Das was astonished with the confidence.

It was for the first time in his entire life he realized the importance of networking and the powerful concept of “Connector”.

 

 

The Newspaper

 

The early morning sun rays fell upon Hallstatt, a small fairy tale like Austrian Town. It was a routine morning of 1986. With a population not crossing five hundred in number, majority of the residents of the town knew each other either by identity or in person. The early morning routine had been the same for the last few years. However, over the last few months there was an additional routine that had kept the residents of the town busy and entertained.

Some eight months ago, a small press had opened its office in the town. Puzzled by the sudden interest of press to open its administrative office and publishing outlet in the town, the residents had inquired with its office bearers.

“We are here to publish newspaper for the town and distribute to the locales. The residents can subscribe to the newspaper here at our office and we will deliver the newspaper at their house before seven in the morning.” The newspaper office personnel had informed.

The locals had been ecstatic. It was the first newspaper that would be published in the town and the residents wouldn’t have to depend upon the newspaper that was transported from the other big cities. “The Hallstatt Morning Post” was the name of the newspaper that was informed to the locales. Finding the name of their town on the frontline of the newspaper, the locales were overjoyed.

Two weeks later, the first lot of newspapers were delivered to the first fifty subscribers. Among those first fifty, was Mr. Lakorsy, a seventy- five- year- old, World War II veteran. Mr Lakorsy was extremely excited with the fact that he was among the first few to be getting a newly started newspaper. The feeling of being among the first to read the newspaper had upped his anxiety levels. As soon as he had got hold of the first newspaper, he read it a like small boy reading a new comic book with utmost interest and curiosity. He had observed the headlines that had given news about the events taking place in the capital city of Austria. The ten-page newspaper was bifurcated into Current affairs, entertainment news, sports news, and two pages were dedicated to his own town of Hallstatt. He read the news in relation to Hallstatt with utmost interest and concentration.

“Honey, it seems there has been an increase in thefts and robberies in the town. The newspaper has reported.” He said shouting over his shoulder looking towards the kitchen where his wife was making the morning tea.

Over the next eight months, like Mr Lakorsy, the other residents who had subscribed to newspaper had enjoyed the news articles of the newspaper. The number of subscribers had increased to three hundred out of the total population of five hundred. Every morning the town of Hallstatt waited for the newspaper to be delivered to their homes to start their day with news from all over the country and also from their own town.

The town of Hallstatt is known for the Hallstatt Lake surrounded by the Salzkammergut mountains. The Charming cobbled streets framed by pastel- coloured houses gave a vibrant life to the town. One evening when Mr.Lakorsy was seated inside his house which was one among those pastel coloured houses, he was listening to the news on the Radio which was sent to him by his son who was working in the United states of America. As he sat and listened to the news, he felt confused with all the news that was being transmitted. He walked to table and picked up that morning’s newspaper. A puzzled Mr Lakorsy couldn’t understand one simple aspect. “There is not one news on the Radio which appears in the newspaper.”

He tried to discuss the same with his wife but she seemed little interested in her seventy- year- old husband’s confusion. Mr Lakorsy repeated the same activity of matching at least fifty percent of news appearing in the newspaper with that transmitted in the Radio. His curiosity levels had increased one evening when he visited the local cycling coach and inquired about the robbery of the cycle which had taken place a week ago.

“What Robbery? I don’t know anything of such kind had taken place?” the coach had informed.

A puzzled Mr Lakorsy had returned home unsatisfied. He had to do something to clear his doubts. That night he figured out a simple hack he would use to clear his doubts.

For the next five days, Mr Lakorsy noted down all the news about his town that was published in the newspaper. Over the subsequent week, he visited all the places in the town that were mentioned in the newspaper. His doubts had now turned concrete. None of news matched.

 Finally, Mr Lakorsy was disappointed with his conclusion. The newspaper was printing all fake news relating to his own town and also about the other cities in the country. There were no robberies in the town. No accidents had taken place in his town. That Evening, Mr Lakorsy collected all the newspaper and walked into the local Police station and discussed his observation with the head.

That Night, a secret raid was organized in the newspaper publishing office by the local police team.

The town woke up to the news that everyone at the newly opened Newspaper office were arrested. Upon the interrogation, it was found that the entire team at the newspaper office was group of robbers who had come to the town and had planned to fake the town with their fake newspaper business.

The Hallstatt Morning Post was no longer delivered, and the town got back to the old ways of waiting for the local agents to get the newspaper from other towns.

 

The above story is completely a work of Fiction.

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