AD OR BAD?

Lets look into two recent soft drink advertisement, namely pepsi and sprite, and see whether the advertising agencies really are worth the crores they take.

“Oye Bubbly Grind”
Pepsi is going all out on the ‘Oye Bubbly’ grind, roping in many celebreties, and also bringing out a compilation album. Ringtones of the jingle can also be downloaded from the internet. And you can view the video here.
In this ad, a bottle of pepsi in Shahrukh’s hand starts enticing inanimate objects. The bottle of pepsI is ‘Bubbly’ or ‘Babli’. Babli is a common pet name for a girl child, particularly in the northern part of our country. So while Shahrukh grabs ‘Bubbly’ and gets going from the beach, girls in sarongs gyrate to the grind. And their navel turns into vertical lips and starts mouthing the jingle in a female voice, which goes as,” Oye Bubbly, aaja bubbly, be my lover bubbly”. Next is the turn of a guitar, the Elvis doll on his rearview mirror, then overhead lights of a stadium and finally his glasses from inside his shirt pocket. All these characters have a male voice. Particular is the last one when from inside his pocket his glasses ask, “sirji mera chance!!”, which is a take on Coca Cola’s ad, featuring Virendra Sehwag.



Many people couldn’t digest the imagery of the vertical lips on the navel and that is probably why the Pepsi people have edited out that part. Predicting people’s response over things like this is very difficult and not everytime can a advertising agency succeed in doing so. But did they really want to show, navels (as female characters in female voice) going crazy about bubbly/Babli and wanting her as a lover. Most people would not have seen it as such but there is always some subconcious effect. Our society may be progressing, but same sex love is still looked down upon. And since they edited out that part, its likely that they realized it too.

“Kiss me”, says the frog!!
While not as big a campaign as ‘Oye bubbly’, Sprite has used the fable of kiss the frog and get a prince, or in this case a princess.
A young man takes a break and sits on a park bench. He is all sweaty and a ideal cold drink customer. He hears a husky female voice asking him to kiss her. He turns around to discover the source to be a frog. Not in the least flummoxed, he just picks up his backpack and cool as c ucumber starts to leave. Upon this the frog now a little desperate, asks him, “Kiss me, I’ll become a princess, then you’ll have everything, money, palace...” Hearing this the guy who now is at some distance comes back picks her up, and for a split second seems to be in a dilemma on which the frog asks, “Don’t you know how to kiss?” Upon which he proceeds to put her into his bag, while telling her, “Money, palace, these things can easily be found, but a talking frog is extremely rare.” And walks away grinning.
If the guy found a talking frog so amusing and even more desirable than a princess and money, why did he leave when first asked by the frog to kiss her. Its only when she challenges his manhood with, “Don’t you know how to kiss?”, that the guy returns. Or did they wanted to show the guy as impulsive and indecisive? Whatever be the case, here also I guess they realized their mistake as they have edited out that part. Advertising rates being in lakhs for minutes, how much would have they lost because of the redundant and contradicting scene.

'Naina' or 'The eyes'

NAINA is a supernatural / horror thriller directed by debutant Shripal Morakhia, releasing on May 20th. In this film,quote " a young girl of five loses her eyesight and her parents in a freak accident in London. Twenty years later, she is bestowed with the gift of sight. Thanks to the marvels of modern science, a cornea implant brings her vision back. Her period of darkness is over... or is it?

With the implant through which her vision is restored, she starts seeing a new world hitherto unknown to mankind." /quote

Very original, just that i have seen a the same movie without Urmila and in a different language (chinese). Its called "The eye", what else. And its not very obscure also, as it has been dubbed in english and released in the US. And I am pretty sure no related to the movie will ever mention this. And even though there are many film magazines I wonder why they do'nt have the guts to expose them. And i am also sure if by remote possibility the director is confronted, he will probably say that he is doing a favour to the indian masses by bringing such good movie to them.

From scripts to movie names to heroine's costumes not much can escape the copycats.

cliched - but what the hell - "Make Money"

There is this site called associated content which pays for writing articles (not any different from blog postings). And in dollars too...which in our country goes a loooong way. And you do'nt have too worry much about what to write. As long as its somewhat readable you can always find some category suitable for it.

So register here and do not forget to show me your gratitude for telling you about this great thing -plz click my name as the refferer. And when you have posted 5 articles i'll get paid (at least I hope so). And for the record my name is K.A.Anand.

fan of a 14 year old

ZoeElleGirl

Found this Zoe girl (BHMB:), all of 14 years, who hosts her own radio show. Though she uses the word 'cool' way too often, I must say that for a 14 year old she has good taste in music. Though she would have to try hard not to let the success go into her head. Check out her site, they also have the recordings for download.

And talking about music, got to hear Antony and the Johnsons. Found its review on anarchytect's blog. And in his words, it has :

"strange beautiful voice singing songs of longing and loneliness - songs that lies in the interstices of genre and gender."

KungFu Hustle

Roger Ebert says,"imagine a movie where Jackie CHan and meets Quentin Tarantino and BUgs BUnny" and I agree. Gangsters do choreographed dances and march in formation. Closet kungfu experts cloaked in ordinary roles. Moves straight out of Naruto.

The best kung fu movie I have seen till date. The thing I like most, it doesnt try to be something which it is not. Well some people would definitely find some deeper philosphical bullshit out of even this, but let me assure you its only there imagination.

The fighting scenes are done mostly on land, and are mostly realistic unlike in some films where everything happens in air.

I saw it in chinese with english subs...downloaded it with bittorrent. I am all in for piracy.

cycling anyone?

I have had some long cycling trips using racing bikes. When you travel on highways and want to save time you have to take racing bikes. They are very light which means your efforts are being used to propel you not your bike. But on the other hand the riding position is such that you have to bend at an angle of almost 90 degrees. And to keep an eye on the traffic you have to further keep your head up, which means another 90 degrees bend. After a long ride the part of body which hurts most are not the legs but the back and neck. So all in all long rides are a pain in the ass. Which brings us to the seat. I have not a found a single well designed seat which optimizes between comfort and support. Either it is too hard or it is too soft not providing enough support.

The other type of bikes are primarily those with wide tyres and a very strong steel frame generally called mountain bikes. They are good for small rides but they are very heavy.

Bigha Bike

So when I found this company called Bigha which has come out with an extremely well designed bike. For starters it has its pedals in the front. This gives the rider a posture similar to that of cruiser motorbikes. The seats are situated nearer to ground which lowers the centre of gravity. It also has a backrest. And its seats are gel filled with adjustable hardness. Many other things can also be adjusted like the seat height and its distance from the handle. And as good things do not come cheap, this starts at $3400 but if I had that much to spare I would have definitely gone for it.

casting couch

With all the inspiration doled out by our media, i just had to do it. See the tshirt i have designed.

Well the members of this site are mostly americans, dont know if this phenomenon is as hot there.

Bid on ..

Have read enough stories of people auctioning varied things like their virginity, to sparing the life of their rabbit for $50,000. Found out that people here have caught on. Stumbled upon this bid on ebay (former bazee) where a guy wants to auction his friends first name. You can read it here
Its most probably a joke, but in a country where people desperately sell their kidneys there will be more of these and not all of them will be jokes.

morrr rrrambling

Please read the previous entry for context.

And all that has set me thinking. let me describe the possible situation. Two people come together ... stay together for a while and become friends. Now its highly unlikely that the friendliness quotient (of how good one considers someone a friend) for both regarding each other is the exact same. And what are the implications. That more often than not,no two people can be equally friendly to each other.

Well i am assuming there is a thing like the friendliness quotient, based upon my personal experience that though we know a lot of people but we could grade them according to the intimacy/caring/etc/etc we share or have with them.

Revisiting the conclusion (that most often than no two people can be exact equally friendly to each other), i would like to see whether this has any major effect in our relationships. Well i am extending the friends funda to other relations as well. At least where both the subjects are on an equal footing, like friends, lovers, etc

One case in which i have recently seen this happen is when one of them thinks the other as his best friend but the other end has somebody else. So when it comes to a showdown between them, who is the one to blame. These are not deals which we peruse carefully and then sign. These things just happen and even we do not put tangible names/words/etc to them. Is it fare to not reciprocate with the same warmth to somebody?

My personal view is feelings like love, affection, respect etc should not be demanded but earned slowly. And though our hearts are week, we should not expect the same love, affection or respect in return, or then it would turn into something like a grocery deal at the mall. The word which comes to mind is unconditional.

H9 valfi

It was my hostels validictory functiin today, well yesterday but since we were drinking all night long I dont know the difference. I have passed out of my institute last year itself, but i have so many loving juniors whom i consider my brothers i just had to be with them.
You have to witness one to know whats it like. peolple get drunk like hell and then its a total cathartic experience .....people who habe small grudges from long ago actually come out in the open .....there nothing in our hearts which 5-=6 pegs of romanov and signature whisky doesnt do....who says alcohol is bad ....its such a cathartic agent as not even been discovered by greek bloody philosophers..... i give you my theory make a whole group of people drunk together and all there misunderstandings and etc etc ...will get sorted out blooody hell .....
well then with that pearls of wisdomness i am signing off to the mess hall to get aloo parathas with sweet curd. Sweet bhagvaan have mercy on us souls with a weak heart,we cannot endure so much emotions witihin one day.