BAUWAJI

Jamshedpur, a city that developed due to the largesse and vision of JRD Tata and
the Tata Company is a melting pot of cultures and demographics. It is a city that
is a hodge podge of Blue collar workers, executives and managers of the Tata
behemoth, teachers, businessman and lastly the floating population of students
who travel to this city for quality education. Jamshedpur, fondly called Jampot,
proudly called The Steel City, was Indias first planned industrial city, laid out
by Julian Kennedy of Pittsburgh, with parallel streets, unimaginatively named
from A to Z, East and West. The city is a veritable oasis in the middle of a steel
plant. Green shady roads lined with houses, the Subarnarekha quietly winding its
way through the city, Wide expanses of tree lined parks where children played,
The Dalma hills resolutely looking down on the city as industries churn out their
white billowy smoke into the sky, Jamshedpur is a city that anyone would love to
grow up in .It is in this sleepy city , tucked away in a small grove stands a small
tea shop. But to simply call it a tea shop would be an insult to the place. It was
akin to calling Disney land a childrens park. This was a place that had a history
attached to it, a rich past. In Jamshedpur this name sparked off an instant twinge
of nostalgia and remembrance. It was no run of the mill tea shop and rightly so
no one called it that. It was known by a name that today stands synonymous to
quality and zealous customer focus. Here everybody loved to come to BAUWAJI.
In a world that is constantly on the go, in a world that is ephemeral and dynamic.
Where people change, where things change in the blink of an eye, the mind
craves for stability. It craves for an escape. Escape from the mundane world of
work and family, Escape from change. Like Peter Pan and his ageless character,
people crave for something that reminds of them of their past. A place where
they feel the threads of history forever bind them, where they experience that
while outside nothing is the same, here nothing has changed. It is this innate
desire to hold on to the past and indulge in an experience that stands the
ravages of time, is what endears Bauwaji to his customers.

To the uninitiated the shop was never called Bauwaji in the first place. Even
before Independence, when World War 2 was nowhere near its completion, a
man called RB Sahoo set up a small tea stall under a banyan tree. He had three

sons, and as they grew up they lent a hand in his tea shop. In Bhojpuri, the
young sons are fondly referred to as Bauwa and the shop came to be known as
Bauwaji after his youngest son .Today no trip no trip to Jamshedpur is complete
without a ritual visit to the banyan tree sit-out for a glass of chai, infused with
fresh-pounded cardamom and strained with a deft twist of a red gamccha

Tea is the great leveller. It brings calm, quiet, contentment and warmth. In the
hot city of Jamshedpur rife with people all working hard to earn a honest days
living, they required something that would be an abandonment of the senses.
Tea demands that you move into it slowly and savour the moment. And it
rewards you with warmth and delicacy of taste and refreshment. And yet Bauwaji
realised very early on that tea was just a plebeian commodity. The customers
kept coming for the experience. Just like any big brand never changed its brand
logo and colors to prevent customer fallout, Bauwajis ensured that the ambiance
of his shop remained just like it was in the yesteryears. Just like the 40s people
came and waited near the shop and relaxed on the small stones and wooden
logs. There was no whiff of modern creature comforts around. His customers love
it and gladly wait on the logs and indulge in animated discussions. In the words
of the great marketing Guru David Ogilvy, market success was due to three
factors- location, location and location. And while one can say that Bauwaji was
lucky to be in the near vicinity of XLRI , Loyola School and the Tata Steel plant
the fact that customers from as far away as Adityapur and places even farther
still drop by is an affirment of the fact that Bauwajis appeal has more to do with
luck and location.
It is interesting to note that Bauwaji charges premium rates from his customers
and yet people dont mind paying it, even if tea is hardly a luxury good Marketing
experts like to theorise what The attitudinal definition of loyalty implies that
loyalty is a state of mind. By this definition, a customer is "loyal" to a brand, a
company

or

service

provider

if

they

have

a positive,

preferential

attitude toward it. In purely economic terms, the attitudinal definition of

customer loyalty would mean that someone who is willing to pay a premium for
Brand A over Brand B, even when the products they represent are virtually
equivalent, is "loyal" to Brand A. The average rate for a cup of tea in Jamshedpur

is Rs. 7 to 8. Bauwaji charges Rs.15. hence Bauwaji as a brand drives consumer

loyalty.
The secret to Bauwajis strong customer loyalty would probably be a host of
factors. For one, Bauwaji makes it a point to remember his customers
preferences by heart.There is no customary hailing the boy or person in charge
of making the tea. People amble in and take a seat as Bauwaji rustles up his
magic and within a matter of time you are presented your regular , and that too
to your personal preference.He knows the whims and foibles of his regulars and
never fails to delight them.

In terms of attitudes, then, increasing a customer's

loyalty is virtually equivalent to increasing the customer's preference for the

brand. It is closely tied to customer satisfaction. And bauwaji surely knows how
to satisfy his customers
In marketing parlance Loyalty is concerned with re-purchase activity, regardless
of any internally held attitudes or preferences. In the behavioural definition,
loyalty is not the cause, but the result of brand preference .And Bauwaji becomes
a strong rallying point for the customers because of a plethora of reasons.
Just as the individual assesses the meaning of himself and other individuals in
the environment and determines how other individuals relate to his plans, so do
all individuals in a situation engage in the same assessment of themselves and
others in the interactional situation. When a person identifies himself and others,
he names or categorizes the participants in order to determine what is
appropriate behavior for each. These broad categories are called "social
positions" like husband, doctor, friend etc. The set of behavioral expectations
held toward the occupant of a given position is called "social role". Social role
performances are learned behaviors that are culturally determined and
developed over a period of time. As the individual encounters many different
social situations, the individual develops a repertoire of self-images which are
different from one another and emerge as the situation requires. That self which
is dependent upon the parameters of the social situation is the situational self
image. Thus a man in the above situation behaves differently or presents a
different self image when he is having tea at home, than he does when having
tea at a roadside tea vendor with friends. Symbolic interactionism, a subset of
sociological theory, offers a theoretically-sound way of conceptualizing brand
choice for frequently-purchased products with well-developed and easilydistinguishable brand images. The concept of the situational self image, deriving

from symbolic interactionism, is defined and posited as a way of linking past

research on self-image/brand-image congruency with that on situational effects.
Once an individual decides what image to express in the social situation, he
looks for ways of expressing it and decides on what goals to satisfy and how.
Firstly the hedonic experience of sipping a hot piping cardamom laced tea is
aimed at satiating the senses. Moreover Bauwaji is a place that is a trip down
memory lane for customers. Generations of customers have come back to him
and reminisced about the times their fathers and grandfathers used to sip tea
here.
It also satiates a very functional goal of having a daily dose of tea and the heady
nicotine rush associated with it. For many of the customers, the day is
incomplete without their favourite cuppa
And finally Bauwaji serves as a rallying point for his customers from all walks of
life. The Bauwaji brethren feel connected to each other through a common bond.
It serves as a symbolic goal for people to be associated in a larger community
and be part of the citys heritage. Some customers have admitted to have made
close friends at Bauwajis after having met regulary. The morning badminton
players would sort out their differences over a sip of his tea. From the hoi polloi
to the common man, everyone is welcome here. Among the claustrophobic social
mores of class distinction, Bauwaji was a breath of fresh air. Tea was a great
leveller of human beings. Bauwaji stood for egalitarianism among his customers.
It didnt matter if you were a hot shot and a regular, if you came late and placed
your order later than the person in front of you, you had to wait patiently.
And lastly it was the simple mindset of Bauwaji of treating his customers as part
of family that earns him undying loyalty from his customers. His customers invite
him to each and every family function and they too are invited in turn. According
to an anecdote, during his daughters wedding, the automobile showroom owner
refused to take payment from Bauwaji and gifted him the bike. Such is the
affection that he elicits. He is loved and revered in a city that values hard work
and perseverance. At the end of the day Bauwajis simplistic yet touching
comment proves just why he is successful in what he does today- Mai din bhar
logon se baat karta rehta hun..Unka haalchaal puchta hun, who mere
haalchal puchte hainChai!! Chai bechna toh sirf ek bahan hai