Ah! advertisements!

ViSIoN · #1 (**permalink**) 02-12-2008, 10:21 PM

Ah! advertisements!

INDIA'S WICKET
-keeper batsman and captain of ODI
and Twenty20 team,

Mahinder Singh Dhoni
is presently being dangerously showcased
on some television channels,
uprooting and taking away a letterbox
after consuming a particular biscuit that
supposedly boosts his energy to do this 'unlawful' act.

Definitely unlawful
if one goes by Indian Telegraph Act.
Damaging any means/part or agency of communication,
including a letterbox, is a crime and punishable
under various sections of this Act.
But
Dhoni with some children around him,
who also consume the 'miraculous' diet, does it.
He does it publicly and has no remorse
while dismantling the red letterbox in this
vague and ill-conceived advertisement.

It is a different question that in
an era of e-mails and SMSs,
even if letter writing is not common among the elite,
it doesn't mean that letterboxes have no place
and public figures like Dhoni can be shown
damaging the public property with impunity?
Indulging in such an irresponsible act
with a false sense of bravado creates an unwanted stereotype.

Such misleading advertisements
have a negative impact, especially in the rural areas
where children have reportedly started attacking
the letterboxes in Dhoni style,
only to damage their own legs and hands.

Was there nobody to whet the script
when Dhoni acted in this advertisement?

Why has the protagonist in the advertisement
shown to be bestowed with a license
to eliminate this enduring symbol in 'terminator' series style?

Isn't there any monitoring body in India
to point out flaws in such advertisements
or has the national conscience accepted this?
It may be glamorous on the surface
but it is creating havoc with the public property
and the psyche of children who find their power inadequate
to perform the feats a la Dhoni, their hero.

Now let us take another advertisement,
though popular,
but full of implications.

Two children are standing on the two sides of a border.
One child invites the other for a game of soccer
by pushing the football into other side.
The child is lured, crosses the border,
but is caught up by the pincer of the barbered wire.
The child on the other side of the border
rescues the one caught by the hook and
speaks in some language,
alien to this writer and possibly to others
in this part of the world.
The ambience is striking, that is,
somewhere in Kashmir
or possibly somewhere in the northern sector.
A very touching advertisement indeed,
poignantly portraying the human condition,
especially in third-world countries
(read India and Pakistan)
but fraught with dangers for India.

The child cries something like this:
"Vale yourkun… Vale yourkun…"
(Meaning come here, come here, in Kashmiri).
The message is conveyed that
boundaries are irrelevant
when people speak through a particular network.
So far so good!
But
since India cannot expect reciprocity,
doesn't the advertisement involve breach
of national security by inviting unsuspecting children
to fall into booby-traps and land mines?

Isn't this advertisement too misleading
and needlessly adventurous,
when teenagers are shown on the border
and one even crossing it, while risking his life?

In a border state like Jammu and Kashmir,
such advertisements will definitely
have a negative impact.
If one goes by the instances in the past,
it gets revealed that when children,
particularly teenagers inadvertently crossed borders,
they had to undergo the trauma of having been
caught and tortured by the security agencies in both countries.

Such advertisements will encourage those
who love adventure and at the same time want to talk
to their relatives on the other side of the border.
Do they just need to kick a football,
as is shown in the high-profile advertisement?

But will such kicks on the border help the individuals
in linking the hearts through this network?
The fact being that there is no provision
for cellphone service in border areas.
Those who claim to have such facility
on the borders are then definitely inviting trouble…
Nothing misleading about it!

Public memory may be short
but the fact that
Shaktimaan was instrumental in eliminating precious
lives of scores of children who, in a bid to copy him,
jumped over rooftops, allowing the electric current
to pass through them and indulged in other impractical acts.
The present advertisements as discussed here,
it is hoped,
may not be the basis for
such idiosyncrasies

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