Chips on Shoulder

A multinational tobacco company launched a new brand of chips. A reporter produced a scoop that said the secret behind the company’s move was that their main stay the cigarettes business was dying as if from cancer. World over people were turning against tobacco cultivation and its processing into cigarettes on both count of environment and health. The company realized the cigarette sticks were being used to beat them in the market place and their stock in the share market was going down. Before the shareholders start feeling regret about falling incomes the company wanted to do something other than their cigarette business. 

In comes the new CEO Margaret, aka, Maggie into the picture. She drums up the idea of not of noodles but something more instant and doesn’t take even two minutes. After all she was a chip of the old block. Her maternal uncle was one who had introduced the brand called Uncle Chips. Now her uncle has passed away and with that the brand died too. But Maggie felt it ought to be chips. 

Soon the company started organizing recipe competition all over India. Ladies’ clubs, gents’ clubs, self- help groups in the rural areas were all targeted. Maggi personally reviewed the short list of ten recipe ideas for chips. She herself was a qualified nutritionists and could cook up a recipe. She had her private lab for the purpose. Next one month she spent in the lab day and night. On the 31st day of April she exclaimed Voila! She had cooked up a recipe for success. Company made the announcement the next day and all the ten persons whose recipe got shortlisted were suitably awarded. 

Within a week the company started production of their new chips. It was called “chips on the shoulder.” Needless to say, the launch was a big marketing exercise. After all it was the CEO’s pet project. The launch coincided with the start of yet another IPL edition. Along with sixers the sound of the chips being eaten too crackled at the stadium. 

Yet another genius of an idea that the famous PK (not of Aamir Khan fame) could have been proud to have thought about it in the first place. The company sponsored an opposition conference. It was a miracle at the end of it that the opposition agreed unanimously that the “chips on the shoulder” was something that tasted extraordinary. The Indian born Englishman MP said he could not find any words in his lexicon to describe the chips. Another leader who was constantly lambasted by one and all suggested an India long yatra to promote the chips. At least this could bring about the much-needed unity among the public. Maggie put up a poster that said “move over Amul. We are the new taste of India.”

The government went red seeing at this new found opposition unity. Next day the ED raided the company’s premises. What it was looking wasn’t clear to anyone. Maggie said it was all vendetta by the rival companies. The food authority raided the processing factory but could not find anything discriminatory. 

Down south in the city touted to be silicon-valley, a devastating fall out had occurred. The IT companies were just about floating barely having survived the floods. Now the “chips on the shoulder” was flooding the market and their employees had taken to this new snack. Every day became “thindi (snack in Kannada) diwas.” It became a convenient tool to express solidarity for the ‘quiet quitting’ phenomenon movement. For the ignoramus the quiet quitting movement was not about quitting but a work to rule form of protest. The executives would start and shut shop at the precise hours. No more. A form of protest movement against employers holding back on the salary rises and warning against moon-lighting. Soon the movement gained weight much like the executives who took to snacking chip on the shoulder. The executives preferred the real chips to that of the computer one. They greedily took a bite each time.

IT company association met and passed a resolution that said the ‘chips on the shoulder’ should not be sold in the neighbourhood of the companies. It was much like the municipal order that failed which said cigarettes should not be sold near school campuses. Security checking became strict at the reception. But the city being a drones’ capital soon witnessed packages being dropped at the terraces and balconies that defeated the entire move of the companies. 

A phenomenon of this dimension had been never witnessed. The citizens along the entire length and breadth of country were walking with chips on their shoulders. The finance minister welcomed the new initiative by Maggi and conferred on her the Hanumanji Entrepreneur of the year award. She announced that the GDP was expected to register an additional one percent growth on account of the chips. 

In Chennai city as the passenger alighted an autorickshaw she gave a hundred rupee note to the driver and the metre read Rs Ninety-five. The auto driver said he didn’t have change and parted with the Rs 5 packet of Chips on the shoulder. The lady immediately put the episode up in Facebook which instantly became viral. Soon the practice got adapted by bus conductors, petty shops, road side vendors. Finance managers said the chip could become the new bit coin. 

Maggie got an invitation a few months after the launch of chips on the shoulder had become a phenomenon from her company chairman who was considered to be a legend. She smoked her first cigarette by the brand name “Charms” charmed by the advertisement when the current chairman was the then CEO. The dinner was a private affair and after some wine and excellent food the Chairman asked her what was the secret behind the Chips on the shoulder? Maggie whispered “sir, in the recipe I had added a whiff of nicotine which none of the labs in India could detect. That what was creating addiction to the chips.” The chairman nodded in understanding and his face lit up like a cigarette and said “after all we are the tobacco company, how else then?”