Thursday, March 31, 2011

In the new world...

In the new world corruption would be taught to children in history books, the headquarters of the UN Security Council would be shifted to a swanky new building in the Bandra-Kurla complex, Children of Nagappatanam would be teaching English to corporate executives in Guangzhou over a 1 Gbps broadband link.

Well whatever might be but you bet even in that world you wouldn’t find a shampoo that doesn’t strengthen the hair from the roots, or a face wash that doesn’t clean it deep, or a detergent that doesn’t make lightning bolts erupt out of your tidy whities.

You know why bollywood doesn’t churn out fantasy movies at the rate that Hollywood does. No, not because we don’t have capable animators or experts to do the simulations and stunts. After all we are the experts in computer technology and it doesn’t take too much to fly men from Beverly hills to film city, Goregaon. It’s just because the Indian audience gets their fill of fantasy from our television ads.

You tell me: The face cream that treats the five signs of aging. Well the protagonist does look young doesn’t she. But does it treat the sixth sign of aging - senility. I’m assuming senility and associated dementia is what tempts the customers to spend a fortune in fighting aging. When will someone rise up to say –If” daag achhe hai” so is aging.

My maid’s been using the detergent which promises to create a rainbow out of your clothes for the past two years. The only rainbow I see are on what used to be my swanky white Benetton shirt which looks as if it’s survived three or four Holis in its lifetime. The blue Levis seems to have attempted some dishonourable act on the poor whitey and left skidmarks at its sides, the red Esprit t-shirt seems to have been a bit aggressive with Benny leaving love bites on its neck, the black linen from khadigram like a gothic lover seems to have left black smudged lipstick stains on whiteys chest. Yes, the rainbow detergent has this revolution in cleaning techniques that they, for the sake of us nincompoops call ‘colour lock technology’.

I too like you little liars out there fell for that fairness cream which was to make my skin two tones fairer. And it did make it two tones but only if I put a layer thick enough to cover my entire skin and shine three brightly lit spot lights on my face. Well, I did emerge two tones wiser although not fairer out of the whole experience. Money well spent I say.

And the wisdom has somehow tempered my expectations out of marketers in the new world:

- A breath checking FB app - which checks my breath for alcohol content before I can change my status message

- An SMS Recall button on mobile phones- a tool to recall SMS messages sent at the middle of the night in that messy period between kicking off shoes before bed and falling asleep

- A male morning after pill – To cure hangovers on the next morning

Cheers to the new world.

3 comments:

Rachna said...

The starting & the end are on a very positive note.....like this new world of urs!

silverine said...

Waves of water laden with cleansing elements that power wash the pore... pimples that disappear into the skin right before our eyes ( how did they miss showing this product pushing out dirt from the pimple like a volcanoe emittig lava, I wonder) ...and blackheads that look like black ceramic tops, being evicted effortlessly! These are what people with pimple and blackheads fantasize about... What we see is every persons fantasy come true in these advertisements. Epidermal erotica...Keratin erotica, detergent erotica, you name it they have it. Forgot to mention face scanners that spot signs of aging and hand held scanners that film bacteria on your teeth that can be seem immediately on a laptop! Its mass hysteria.

Man...I've been wanting to write about these annoying ads, but right now am in the grip of a debilitating illness called laziness.

Textually Active said...

Love this post. Love the way you have personified the clothes!