Watching the adverts on TV, one would imagine that this country is obsessed with wanting to be ?fair and lovely?. A very strange aspiration indeed for a country that has a natural pigmentation that spells ?dark and sultry?. Whoever says fair is lovely? Fair is insipid, bland and boring and unfortunately we are mesmerised by the desire to be ?white?. The ads project a horrid sense of values with unacceptable implications ? that anything dark is ugly. Discrimination of this kind is prohibited by the Constitution of India. The advertiser is once again an MNC! They have found that ayurveda has the answer…the potions, if used regularly, can transform a dark face into a fair face. Sick. It requires a hugely insecure person, ridden with complexes, to fall for this bait. And, it speaks volumes about the creative minds at the ad agency. It is sad that urban India is in this state, a state that is embarrassing to say the least.
Then there is the other side of the coin, the Bajaj Pulsar ads. ?The male is tougher?, ?The male is faster?, ?The male is more powerful?, ?The male is more intelligent?, ?Pulsar, definitely male?. The poor little males of India who have to go on and on announcing that they are tougher, more powerful and definitely male in case they are mistaken to be neither this nor that ? wimps. Again, it shows up their deep insecurity. The Indian male, tied to his mother and the umbilical, much to the horror of his wife, has to prove his prowess by becoming a motorbike! Is that not sick?
?Fair and lovely? women trying to entice the wimp of a male is what 90 per cent of the other ads are trying to do. One feels sorry for the Indian male as he leaps about in his chuddis with lipstick marks on his body, hoping to be noticed. What comes across is depravation and dementia. And, it is surprising that the owners of these companies that advertise their wares, do not see the banality of what they are doing. In fact, what we see happening on the streets of Indian cities, the harassment of women, rape, asinine comments, are all a direct result of these jingles that bombard one on TV. They represent the degraded mindset of urban India, a mindset that has kept us well behind the rest of the world reducing us into a fourth world nation.
Watching the Indian team play their rather pathetic cricket is another example of how professionalism has gone to the dogs, with the desire to be in an advert taking precedence. Instead of seeing fine cricket, we see them clowning around in Pepsi ads (MNC again) as they lose game after game. Remember the game with Holland? And then the great euphoria and excitement about having beaten Namibia! Surely that was a given or were they insecure about that too? Location shoots for the ads seem more important than practice at the nets. Or is it merely the undying greed for money?
Finally, sponsorship has descended to taking care of the tab for private parties. ?Please have a party, call all the important people you know, and we will pick the tab?, is a constant refrain. It is pretty revolting…having to package oneself as a commodity for the PR enhancement of some salesman. Many seem to be lapping it up. Lunches in five star hotels, cocktails at city bars and so on, all for free. Even companies send invites that say in small print that the venue is sponsored by…the booze is sponsored by…the food is sponsored by…it is sick, sick, sick. We are fast becoming a ?society? without graciousness, style and dignity as we desperately grab the freebie, endorse the pedestrian and reduce entertainment to a soul-less exercise.
The strange thing is that those ?parties? that had become institutions in India were all done in homes and without the ?caterer?. They are still remembered with nostalgia and continue to be written about even though some don?t happen anymore. The ?sponsored? ones are forgotten the next morning and are only mentioned in the page three roll call…that is what page three in India is. Nothing more and nothing less ? just plain simple boring.
