“The Pipe, The Key, Chavi, Thou Phool, Cake, The Rabbit, Lakshmi, Cheeta, Family, Home lites….” By the way, they are not just names…What are these?
They are the names of the famous Match Box brands. Many more brands existed in India. And few of those brands are still alive.
Let it be any brand…they all have one thing in common: each of these match boxes have 50 match sticks; and when you strike a match stick, it ignites. A beautiful phosphorus flame. The entire room is lighted. And the fear of shadows is dispelled.
There are hardly any users of a match box these days. We have lighters – Disposable Lighters, Refillable Lighters, Butane Lighters, Electric Lighters, Torch Lighters, Gas Lighters and many more similar.
If I were given an opportunity to begin my insurance career, I will begin again as a life insurance sales man. A sales man with an ability of cold calling the customers. In this process I met many strangers; they all became lifelong friends and life insurance customers. They shared their unique life story with me in confidence. In all this my satisfaction – that I could, in my own way, light their homes. I could in my own way dispel the fear of the shadow of death from their lives.
There are many lighters in insurance these days – E-mails, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and many more similar. With respect to them all, I believe to say nothing like the magic of a match box; cold-calling. Nothing like “Good Morning sir! May I take few moments to explain how the fear of shadows be overcome? May I come in? My name is K. Raja Gopal Reddy”. The beginning of yet another lifelong relationship!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
