Can I just say that I find Vodafone despicable, detestful, abominable and thoroughly, thoroughly hateful. I wish it would just go away as swiftly as it has descended – almost stooped – into our lives.

Glad I could get that out so well.

I have been ruing the loss of Hutch. I should know a thing or two about brands. And how people get attached to them. Mostly for no explicable, scientific reason. But I don’t. I don’t understand why I lament Hutch being turned into Vodafone. Really, what does three pink stylized petals changing to one red quotation mark do to my life. Pink, for heaven’s sake. They almost made it fashionable again.

I’m trying to find explanations. The best I’ve been able to manage yet is ‘I just liked Hutch’. Come to think of it a little more, the brand had character. And that’s hard to find in a world obsessed with numbers, volumes, marketshares and bottom lines. Hutch had life, energy, vivacity, enthusiasm. It was mischievous and eccentric, youthful, cocky and yet so adorable. And it had balls. With that kind of pink, it sure had balls.

Hutch seemingly never bothered with the volumes. They just happened to get them. People just happened to buy Hutch. They never – and not just ‘never’, but ‘never’ – pestered me with twenty three messages a day, reminding me that if I referred a friend at the Mavoor Road Hutch Shop, I could win a Reebok bag. They just never bothered to stoop to these despicable antics. They were unconcerned in a cool, chill sort of manner. And I loved that about them. Leading the relaxed life. And letting things come to them instead of running furiously behind them.

Let me now take the liberty of painting Vodafone’s picture. Brand map, is that called? Screw the jargon.

If Hutch was the ultra-cool college icon dressed in jeans, t-shirt and with a stud in one ear, Vodafone is the investment banker dressed in a depressing grey suit and a lifeless blue tie – works twenty two hours a day. And thinks he likes it. Vodafone is a stuffed up, disgusting epitome of capitalistic nonchalance. Vodafone is a lifeless, characterless, colourless, money-minded, maniacal entity that will suffer a brain hemorrhage if it loses 0.001% of its marketshare in a month. Vodafone is the materialistic brand that will stoop to any level to rid you of a few hundred rupees more. Vodafone is the hound that will send you twenty three messages every hour to remind you that if you would be kind enough to get one of your friends trapped in their trap, they’d give you a holy chance in hell to win a Reebok bag that’ll be big enough to swallow your handkerchief without a burp.

Not only is Hutch now Vodafone, that pug is now a hound baying for the last penny in your wallet.

Change is good. Yeah right, I’d like to see some change again.