Dear Mr Jobs: We in India are looking forward eagerly to your introduction of the iPhone. The dazzling performance of your company and its exquisitely designed products are already the stuff of folklore around the world. We know of your addiction to calligraphy, an art which we refined for centuries, as we evolved our many diverse scripts. If for no other reason, your love of calligraphy alone will make you popular and loved in India. Many of us may not have iPods. But we know about them and might know people who have them. Your impact on the music world is the stuff of legend; we are lovers of legends and mythic heroes. May you in the months and years ahead become an authentic Indian hero and acquire a blue skin. (I promise to explain this bit if you ever give me an appointment!)

In this country we have an insatiable appetite for mobile phones and we are the fastest growing market for this now ubiquitous instrument. We love the freedom, the access, the connectivity and the sheer entertainment value of our phones. We love jokes, film songs, horoscopes, SMS text messages of every kind and our ability to talk to friends and family while waiting in the endless queues which are endemic to our country. Your plan to increase our range of choices is a very welcome one indeed.

But one word of caution. You are a marketing genius and I am sure you will react positively to this piece of unsolicited (and free!) consulting advice. Do not believe your over-sophisticated agencies when they assure you that the globe is a fast-homogenising market. Please insist that all your marketing executives read an unusual book published recently by my friend Rama Bijapurkar: We are like that only. The global consumer market can be described as homogenous only in so far as it is a tough market everywhere. On virtually every other count, markets are divergent and the Indian market almost always crops up as a statistical outlier.

... contd.