The (Not so) Mad world of Ads

Strange as it may seem....I have been remembering something today... the advertisements on Indian radio and television. Sometimes, more than the actual programmes, I used to enjoy the adverts more and many a times was caught humming or singing them by family and friends...

On school days, part of the usual rush with the morning chores was the All India Radio giving us company and a tune to start the day. I don't remember the shows aired, or the news narrated, but do remember the advertisements in between.

We used to watch the serials every evening on TV…. some really nice ones were Udaan,Oshin, Mungeri Lal kay haseen sapnay, Ham panchi ek dhal ke and a few others...No matter what we watched or listened to, whether it was long hours of cricket matches, or the only movie that used to come on Sunday evenings or the 9'o clock News or anything...I very distinctly remember the advertisements aired in between....

A few that I remember very well are Chal meri Luna, Vicco turmeric ….nahi cosmetic, buland bharat ki bhuland tasveer… ..hamara Bajaj (remains one of my favourite tunes), hajmola sir (so funny!), Liril ads-Never wanted to use this soap though....remember my brother and me naming it ajji's soap(grandma's soap), Dabar amla kesh thail, How can I miss out the taste of India..Amul, swaad bare shakti bare…. parle G, washing powder Nirma, kurrum kurrum.. Lijjat papad, Cadburys... love the song, Fevicol ka jod, Natraj pencil- don't remember using anything other than the pencil with red and black vertical lines.

I have always thought that ads are such creative works...they need to get the point across in just about 30 seconds...I think that's amazing! Of late….of course, many of us might avoid watching movies on TV as a 3 hour movie would end up being 4-4.5hours with all the ads...Some ads of the 2000's that I liked were the Airtel ad (with A R Rahman's tune), the Hutch Ad, well…. the ad's with the cricketers.. Rahul Dravid's Pepsi, Aamir khan, Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan in Coke & Pepsi ads....the main difference I find in the ads now a days to the ads before were that the older ads concentrated a lot on family, society and India as a whole...we do have them today... but the feelings don't seem very strong..

If you are someone who enjoyed something similar to what I have written…. just you tube Indian Ads and it will take you back to those days... atleast for a few moments...

Remembering Miss Lingoleela

For those of you who might not know Miss.Lingoleela.....was the character played by the Radio Jockey Priya Ganapathy on Radio City 91.1FM in Bangalore...It was the good old college days and we used to be hooked to the different shows on this FM, this was a snippet 'The daily kannada ward by Miss.lingoleela' where she teaches the audience the kannada slang, as she put it, her task was to educate the peepols about the lochales language. She was SSLC passed but currently unemplaaayed. A new word was taught every day…. though this was for the outsiders to get a taste of the slanguage, it amused a lot of us kannadigas and was a perfect coffee time chit chat.

Words like bombaat, sakkathu, jinkchak,ghoostlu, kireek, bejaan and many more became a part of our day-to-day conversation....some known, some new. A sentence was also framed in the show which showed the usage of the word...Perfect!!! You even know the context in which it could be used!!! There were mixed responses in the audience.....some totally loved her, some disliked the misuse of the language...but the show went on.. I don't have an idea of how many such daily words were taught….. but it went on for months or may be a year!

Someone has  had put up a list of a few words and the meanings on this page which I think thought was hilarious….. Take a look and laugh out!
- Lesson learnt to have a local copy of web pages you like and not bank on the links.