Emotional-Side of Engagement

Recently a German couple hired a mountain rescuer to look for their toy frog that had tumbled from a 2000 – m peak in the Australian Alps. It cost the couple $ 565 to rescue the cuddly green toy that was some sort of lucky charm for them. For the mountain rescuer it was one of those odd off-season assignments. Will you be interested to know how did the frog tumble to those depths? Well! The story goes on like this – The husband was posing with the frog on top of the 2192 – m peak in the Australian state of Tyrol, while his wife was clicking this memorable moment. But before this joyous moment could be secured the camera shutters, the husband slipped and although he was able to hang-on & get back up again, the frog tumbled down under. I wonder if the same rescue mission would have been taken-up by the lady in case instead of the frog her husband had tumbled into the depths below!


Mid-December die-hard fans of the Indian cinematic icon & superstar Rajnikanth celebrated his birthday all over the country. One such club in Maharashtra, the Maharashtra State Head Rajnikanth fans Welfare Association, which has some 90 branches in Mumbai alone, celebrated the day in a way that made news item. The day started with a ‘puja’, followed by a milk-abhishek of Rajnikanth’s photograph, followed by charity (made out of generous donations from Rajni’s fans), ladoos, payasam, cake-cutting & firecrackers that reached frenzied-levels. The virtual world posted with gaiety like – Rajnikanth had just blown his birthday candle. HURRICANE ALERT has been declared by the weather bureau’; ‘Rajnikanth will cut a knife with his birthday cake’; and, as Delhi celebrated its 100th birthday, one of Rajni’s numerous fans wrote – ‘Delhi was born the same day as Rajnikanth. Guess that’s the reason Delhi was made the capital.

The engagement of the German Couple to the toy frog or the engagement of Rajnikanth’s fans with their idol-star is purely an emotional connect. They toy frog’s material value must have been belittled by the money that the couple spent on rescuing it. Similarly many fans who danced in frenzy & donated with generosity may not have met Rajni in person ever nor most of them would but still for them his birthday becomes a moment to celebrate. Partly, engagement is an emotional-bonding with the subject that may be a toy frog, a person or an organization.

Sapient, US-based business and technology Consultancy Company, has found a unique way to do charity. Employees bid for the services offered by another employee and the money collected through such bids is donated to charity. The services can be anything as weird as an employee offering to chauffer his team members to work every day to offering to bring home-cooked food for the team for a week. And this process is completely silent and anonymous, hence the name ‘Silent Auction'. After every three weeks, the top services would be selected for a ‘loud auction', at the end of which the entire amount would be given away for charity. The services have little rationale and more emotions, like the home-cooked food. Similarly, the bidding for these services, the amount of which in most cases in much more than actual value of those services, is more an emotional-bid than a rational-bid. But this is also one way of keeping employee engaged to each other, towards a ‘bigger’ cause and to the organization.