Not nice

Tv commercials are sometimes very creative and at other times irritating – not many would remember the ‘bubbly’ Ad which pepsi brought up many years back but Fevicol Ads one might remember. I find it irksome if an Ad contains nonsense and lacks basic research. They spend so much money in coming up with an idea they could have put a bit of research and common sense.

There is a new Docomo Ad where a guy boards a train to reach Bhopal, being new to the route he asks people around him when would the train arrive at Bhopal and doesn’t get much help. No one wakes him up and next day he finds himself far away from Bhopal and in an unknown station(to him).  The place they show is a deserted sad looking station filled with thrash and in the background one can see the station name in the local language(he cannot read it) Telugu- Gudur.  I found it very irritating as I have traveled many times through Gudur and have even got down there few times. Gudur might not be a very big city but it is definitely not what they show in the commercial.  To me it looked like someone sat down and decided to put a random name from south india with little or no research and decided to depict the place as a deserted ghost town.  I have never been to Patiala or Ludhiana, and tomorrow if I decided to show them as I imagine I am sure the people who have been to Ludhiana would not like it as well.  And another thing was – I might be wrong here in assuming – they are showing the station name written only in local language which again shows lack of basic research or in this case even observing whats around. Station names are always written in minimum of two languages, sometimes three, the local language, english and/or hindi. This might be because the person who came up with the name of the station had the confused idea that Gudur lies in Tamilnadu and in Tamil nadu everything is written only in tamil.  I can expect this from someone who does not have any idea of places below vindhya range but not from a company with presence throughout the country with employees ( I am sure) working in Gudur itself.

Sometime back Airtel digital tv had come up with a commercial where a guy shouts in joy and announces to his mom in Tamil that he got a job and the Ad proceeds to show him packing and taking all his belongings and leaving his house which clearly appears to be interior tamilnadu. Also packing up and following him are Kathakali and mohini attam artists and in the background you can see kalaripayattu warriors performing, the idea being he is taking his culture and channels with him. Why a guy from tamilnadu is being shown followed by Dancers and martial arts experts from Kerala I am not sure. In the days of google and wikipedia I think the concept of ‘madrasi’ and anything south is tamil is stale. They could have atleast made it entirely Kerala or entirely tamilnadu.

Sad that both companies have nation wide customers base.

PS : the links to the actual videos are present in bold

bmtc’s men in white

Armed with my brand new bus pass, thanks to my combeni who provided it, I boarded the silent red devil (I am hoping the name would catch up soon, this one the bigger and faster sibling of the bell ringing devils from kochi ) a.k.a the bmtc vajra volvo bus. Though I was happy to use the service, my arrival did not bring about the expected change in the Men in White, the driver and more so the conductor, as expected since they recognized me from my previous journey………….
Just the other day I boarded an empty No.505 bus, considering it was peak rush hour time 9.30 am this was a pleasant surprise for me and a wonderful start for the day. I picked up a comfortable seat for myself and looked forward to a wonderful journey while looking out through the glass window at the poor souls on their pulsars and splendours and the lonely gladiator while they weaved their way through traffic and dust and smoke from the omnipresent autos, dancing around the spit on the road emitted with a phlegmatic sound by the guy in front or the colorful panparag spit with its own sweet odour, while silently acknowledging that on most days I am on the other side of the glass window looking up at it, from my own gladiator or dancing around spit, the secret weapon of spittermen of India which brings about a feeling of disgust whether you hear it, see it or in the most unfortunate case step on it. Presently my reverie was interrupted by a tapping on my shoulder, on looking up I saw the friendly face of the conductor with a look which kirana shopkeepers reserve for their first ‘boni’ of the day. I felt sorry for him and with an honest expression of I-feel-sorry-for-you I presented my bus pass to him. He was disappointed and was about to retreat with a forlorn look, when upon taking a second look at the pass, inspiration struck him and with the look of impending success, he asked me if I needed the pass for the next month, since this was the last day of that month. A bus pass worth a 1200 rupees would surely have made up for his disappointment of not been able to sell a ticket costing Rs20. But I had to disappoint him yet again since I already had the Pass for the next month too. He retreated. It would take another 3 stops for him to get his first boni as the next 6 people who boarded the bus all had Bus pass.

Ever since that day I have seen a range of expressions from slight happiness for not having to walk down from his comfortable seat to issue a ticket to irritation at having wasted the effort in walking down to my seat while I wasn’t looking, to ignoring me after a cursory question of Pass?, having recognized the card which stuck out from my shirt pocket for being a bus pass.