42

What are 42?
What the heck are 42? Who is Arthur Dent? Oh freak. Where’s my drink?

“Why-*burp*- don’t we name this fucking condom condom. I mean we call a man by the name of ‘Manav’ or ‘Adam’ then there is that saying, “Call a spade, a spade. Or something like that”. Heck I call my dog Dog.

Kaptain Kantaap had named his dog Dog. Dog was a nice dog except that it hated it’s name and used to show its displeasure to it by barking a lot whenever he was called out and at times when playing with Kaptain Kantaap seizing every occasion to bite him. Dog, being a nice-hearted dog couldn’t ever bite the hand that fed him and therefore as a result was quite frustrated with his life. His fellow dogs made fun of him. Kaptain Kantaap never understood this incessant barking of Dog and therefore presumed that dog was perennially hungry and thus gave him loads of food to eat everyday. As a result Dog was a fat dog. Dog didn’t know that Kaptain Kantaap would soon be bringing another dog and would call it ‘Fight’ thus practically living the phrase “It’s not about the size of the dog in the fight but about the size of the fight in the dog”.

Mailer Demon, his boss said, “Are you crazy? How can we name a product on the category?” as he gulped down his whisky.

Kaptain Kantaap replied, “Look, in this industry a staggering 84.8% of people just ask for a condom. They don’t say a brand. Now in any case we will a launching a retailer scheme to ensure our product gets pushed the most, I am just saying if we call it ‘condom’ then it will have maximum brand recall in all the surveys, more visibility, we will even advertised for by other companies when they say xyz condoms. What else do you want? And slowly when we have registered on the minds of the people, it will from a push strategy move to a pull strategy. Everyone will still continue to say ‘give me condom’ and it will mean he is asking our brand. Bingo!

Frustrated with rants of Kaptain Kantaap his boss said ‘Ok. Make a presentation”

This was Kaptain Kantaap’s way of ensuring that his company fires him - cause he knew the idea will fail- and therefore he can get rid of it.

And that’s how Kaptain Kantaap went on to build a brand that everyone talked bout for years. It catapulted Kaptain Kantaap into a league where many a people of his age only dream of achieving at 42! Kaptain Kantaap was however beyond it. He was a coward. He was looking of getting out while others were desperate to get in.

This is what happened post that drunk session.

Unfortunately for him, the top management had decided to resign the company in another few months and therefore when they saw that such a ridiculous idea was proposed to them, instead of kicking Kaptain Kantaap out, they happily agreed to go ahead with it. They all thought that the idea will fail and therefore they will get their revenge from the board of directors. They had decided to make Kaptain Kantaap the business head of this new product that would now be called ‘Condom’. They had also agreed among themselves to resign on the night just before the launch.

But Kaptain Kantaap didn’t know this plan of his top management. Frustrated at having to stay, he suggested the wild idea of sponsoring all the condoms used in adult movie with the brand name ‘condom’ being displayed on it big enough for everyone to see it.

Board of directors agreed to that also.

Kaptain Kantaap was disappointed but couldn’t do much. He went ahead with all the wild ideas he had.

Everything went according to plan. Kaptain Kantaap sponsored all the adult movies, Indian, American, latin, Czech, chile whatever he could lay his hands on. (He had spent enough money to ensure that company kicks him out)
Top Management too quit and all of a sudden Kaptain Kantaap was the senior most guy in the company.
The board of directors of the company was on a holiday but all of them said they are doing product testing and they are pretty happy with it.
However, one thing didn’t go as per the plans.

The product worked!

What more, it even led to many other businesses booming.

This is how it happened
The sponsoring of all the condoms ensured that all men and women implied that using ‘condom’ means being as fit and active in bed.
However more than men, women bought it. The sales skyrocketed.
Kaptain Kantaap was overnight the favorite of everyone in the company.

The adult films also ensured that the uneducated class who used to watch porn movies and magazines to satisfy their perversion inferred the same (i.e. being very active in bed) and therefore bought condoms for the first time. This led to fewer cases of aids all of a sudden. Government and NGO in turn adopted ‘Condom’ over ‘Nirodh’ and hence sales went even higher than the sky. The production (not reproduction) guys were working overtime in the factories.

The success of ‘Condom’ also resulted in a huge boom in the business of divorce lawyers. This was so because of most of the women who insisted on their partners using ‘Condom’ had high expectation of them in bed, most of the guys failed to live up to them while others who were already good suffered from performance anxiety.
This eventually led to strong reasons for divorce. And that’s where divorce lawyers came into play.

Kaptain Kantaap had become the poster boy for everyone!

In another world, Kaptain Kantaap would have been kicked out. In some another world Kaptain Kantaap would have left anyways. In again another world Kaptain Kantaap would have jumped outside the window of his flat at 42nd floor only to realize that he could fly.

But Kaptain Kantaap was coward. He did not know that those worlds existed nowhere else but here.

Kaptain Kantaap all these days was searching for something, something he did not know.
It must be some question.


(* Inspiration: Douglas Adams's Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy *)