"Placeholders"

I am back after a long break from blogging :-). The topic of today's blog post is a tad bit random in nature.

I am sure that all of us are familiar with the term "Placeholder". I am going to write something around this term, in this blog post.

Many of us who are working with (or have worked with) India based companies in the IT / ITES services space, would probably identify with what I am about to mention in this paragraph. Often I see the signboard (Yes, the ones with a velvety red background, with letters in golden colour playing out some form of greeting etc), near the entrance of my office building, and see a message which goes like "XYZ Co Welcomes You!" The word "You" in the Welcome message is what I call a placeholder:-). Yes, you guessed it right - It means that there are no "welcom-able" current or prospective customers visiting the building that day, and so we welcome....You!

The "placeholder" phenomenon can be extended to other areas of life too.....

Many of the sports channels in India, many a times adhere to repeat telecasts of the classic knocks played by Sachin Tendulkar way back in 1998 vs Warne & Co in Sharjah, during periods when no live sporting events are there to be shown. [Please note: I am a die-hard Sachin fan, and watch each of these repeat telecasts with equal zeal. Just that I wanted to throw around some more "placeholder" examples. Warned you - This post is totally random:-)].

One of the Hindi movie channels (Don't remember which one), uses the Govinda starrer "Dulhe Raja" as a placeholder, with repeat telecasts of this "superhit comedy masala".

A few years back, one of the English movie channels was using the Stallone starrer "Cliffhanger" as a "placeholder".

Ok, folks I am done with all the random notes:-). Will be back soon with something "less random"... Enjoy....