Selling Hope

By Ramesh Akkineni

from an article by Mahesh Bhatt in Financial Express

In the US, people in the fast-food business used to think they were selling food. Then McDonald’s came along and figured out that people were not buying hamburgers. People were buying an experience. The phenomenal success of Barista Coffee shops is not because of the coffee it sells but because of the lifestyle it provides to the young kids of today. ‘I go to the coffee shop hoping that I will find someone who will not mind having coffee with me,’ said a lonely young man who works in a call-centre all through the night and comes to these coffee shop to get a taste of life and escape from his loneliness. So there you are. Even coffee shops sell hope and not caffeine.

My friend UG Krishnamurthy once said: ‘You give people hope and they will give you money. Religion has done this for centuries.’ Osho Rajneesh set up his kingdom in Oregon, US, and owned more than 300 Rolls Royce cars. Try buying one Rolls Royce car with a 9 to 6 job. The spiritual supermarket, which is infested with these hope-sellers, has done roaring business in every age in almost every country in the world. But unlike we ordinary mortals, these holy men do not have to deliver the goods in this life time. All they have to do is make empty promises, which may or not come true in the life hereafter!

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