Last
Sunday, as I returned home with a book in hand from the Landmark, I realized
that I needed coffee to get relieved from the nauseating headache that was haunting
me all through the walk back from the shop.
As
soon as I stepped into the drawing room, I asked my wife if she could make coffee
for me. Must be in good moods, she immediately got up and went into the kitchen.
Ducking myself onto the couch, I picked up the remote and started surfing the channels,
for there was no other engagement till coffee arrived.
Suddenly
I saw the visual that made me wonder if it was Life of Pi… And what I saw for the next two minutes confirmed it
indeed was Life of Pi. It made me
curious and stay put with the channel.
Lo!
The very next minute ads started… a
dusky woman, decked up in wedding jewelry walking into the marriage pandal along with a girl of 5 to 6 years age, who is equally well
decked up to match the occasion. Entering pandal,
the bride walks straight to the groom who was doing pooja and sits beside him, while the kid sits with elder couple, perhaps,
grandparents? Initially, I wondered whether this kid might be her sister/cousin…
some such cute relative.
Next
frame shows the groom circumambulating the fire along with the bride, of course,
with no usually accompanying lajja,
shyness, or so-called coyness in the face of bride that we normally see in such
scenes in films. As they are going round the fire, the cute kid, gesticulating pleads,
“Mama, I want to go round…”
Perhaps,
as that was not the normal practice, bride directs the kid to be silent ... but
the kid insists.. .and finding it quite embarrassing, the elders try to silence
her.
Watching
all this, the supposed-to-be good groom, invites the kid to join him by gesturing
with his hands. She at once jumps at it, and the groom, taking her into his
arms, walks around the fire.
I
think it is in the next frame that the kid sitting in between the bride and
groom asks the groom … if she could address him, ‘Dad’… and all the three burst
into laughter…
For
a fraction of a second, I didn’t understand the ad!
In
the meanwhile, my wife came with the cup of coffee and taking it from her, as I
sipped a little, the ad at last sank in my mind …. It rocked me out of my seat…
The
ad has certainly caught up with the emerging India… India of growing single
mothers, second marriages … Single foster moms... dads ... bride with a child … matched the evolving societal
changes.
Another
interesting element of the ad is: Presenting a brownie as bride. This is
definitely a bold step, for it goes against the Indian psyche.
In
a way it’s good, someone has woke up to the emerging realities of the society
and ventured to put an ad that is off the beaten track… far, far away from the
age-old tradition. Of course, shouldn’t an ad necessarily reflect the society… if
it has to reach the people? Otherwise, it
remains alien to the viewers.
But
the big question is: Will such ads change the mindset of middle class India?
Whether
it does change people’s attitude or not, one thing is certain: it did achieve its
objective of rocking people with the Tanishq brand.
Wow
Tanishq! You have beaten the mindset. Congrats!
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