Watch out for my eagle feathers, dude.

"When in Rome," said film maker Tarsem Singh,"do as the Roumanians." Ching's Secret has a new piece of branded content on YouTube and it's loaded with visual disruption, including Ranveer in
a red indian chief's eagle feather head dress. The 5-minute film was reportedly shot on a ginormous budget, and is substantially richer than the regular branded fare one finds on YouTube. Slick compositing of the overseas studio sort plus Mad Max and other apocalyptic iconography have got it 10 million views and counting.

Reminds me of an FMCG brand manager rejecting my shampoo commercial script back in the day, on the grounds that 'ordinary people would get alienated by unfamiliar imagery.’

If customers survive on a diet of dal-chawal, was his theory, feed them more dal. I tried pointing
out that the Prabhudeva hit of the day, 'Muqabla', was set in a Wild West saloon with bat-wing doors and a chorus line of dancers in gingham dresses and cowboy boots, but the argument was in vain.

Bollywood is often several steps ahead of marketeers.

And to relieve the dal-chawal diet there's always Desi Chinese.

The Lost Faith of an Old Monk

Old Monk rum seems to be a dying brand.

I see quite a flap going on in the press and on social media, with last rites being conducted by many, who, I suspect, are middle-aged scotch drinkers reminiscing over their misspent rum-soaked youth.

The fact of the matter is that the old man had been declining for ages.

 His original mellow mood had grown steadily harsher over the years. 

He stopped caring about his appearance – the same rotund figure, perhaps, but the label stuck on at a haphazard angle. 

Getting him to open up required a knife, and the jagged edges of the cap were a constant hazard.

As a naval officer’s son, I am prohibited by law to drink anything but rum (and learned from my purist father to mix it with nothing but water). And I faithfully adopted my father’s brand, that jovial friar with the portly build.

As a hard core fan I defended him throughout my early working years, loudly proclaiming that Indian rums were the best in the world and that the holiest of holies was the God-anointed monk.

This despite having broadened my horizons with the suave Havana Club and that merry-maker, Green Island (thank you, Air Mauritius stewardess, for presenting me with 40 miniature bottles as I got off the plane, all because I praised your native rum so much and maybe for making you laugh a little – the whole conference thanks you).

Slowly my loyalist bastions began to crumble. The raw spirit after-taste offended my palate nightly. The throbbing in my morning-after head grew louder.

And finally, in one heretical fit, I did it.

Switched to another rum.

If Mohan Meakin is to keep Old Monk alive it has to take a decisive step – re-launch the brand. Clean up its act. Get quality back in the picture.  Maybe keep the bottle shape and update the label. Or vice-versa.  

 Old Monk needs to be rejuvenated, and its rich history and the equity it's built up over 60 years can play a part it its rebirth.

In today’s world, nostalgia can only take you so far. Shape up, monk, or die.

Terry Pratchett RIP

I first started to reassess Pratchett while reading one of his early books which featured Commander Vimes of the City Watch.

The Watch House has an inscription carved above the entrance, 'Fabricati Diem', which means  'To Protect and Serve' or so one policeman explains.

Fabricati Diem ?

Lets see, 'Diem' means 'Day' in Latin, that's simple enough, But 'Fabricati ?'

To fabricate...to manufacture...to make...

My God ! He's taking off on Dirty Harry. 'Make my day'.

Inspector Harry Callahan's iconic line neatly meshed into an other-world police story - albeit a comic one - and just left there for the reader to decipher.

In time I came to appreciate Pratchett's other depths -- his deft mixing of the preposterous and the profound, his unrelenting send-up of prejudice in its many forms, the immense moral fibre at the core of his chief characters, whatever their other weaknesses...

And he did love a good spoof.  I will never forget the giant woman climbing a skyscraper clutching a screaming ape, one of the vivid scenes in Moving Pictures.

He dug into history. He dug into myth. He dug into quantum physics. He parodied and stereotyped delightfully, making millions chuckle -- and then pause thoughtfully -- over matters as diverse as religion and gender discrimination.

Discworld, alas,is no more. And my world is a duller place.

Relative Darkness

Relative Darkness

It was the red and white cane that caught my eye as I swept past.

Right in front of the bus stop at Mahalaxmi Bridge corner, blind or not, a Mumbaiker, ready to board with all the competitive spirit of the veteran bus traveler, one ear cocked for the arrival screech of BEST brakes.

It was a half-second glimpse from my car window, but it was a snapshot that I could examine at leisure as I traveled on.

Stubble. Faded clothes. Sandals down to heel. This wasn’t NAB blind. Not pin-prick Braille blind, not Cumballa-Hill-leisure-lady-dabbling-in-social-work-will-read-to-you-Fridays blind. This was zoppadpatti blind. Bhiwandi blind. Blind and come far the hard way and not obliged to anybody, thank you, growled the body language.

And come far he had, for at his side was his wife, as meanly dressed, and the small pox scars so deep they forced her eyelids shut.

But she was smiling.

No cane for her, just one finger casually twisted around the hem of her husband’s shirt. Standing comfortably at his side and God knows the stony roads she had traveled to reach there.

And over the man’s shoulder, their daughter. Two years’ old perhaps, or three. Securely perched on the horizontal forearm used by fathers everywhere, and with one hand lightly resting on his shoulder for balance, she twisted this way and that, peering with huge inquisitive eyes at all the wonders around her.

And as my driver accelerated away from the signal, I leaned back to resume picking over my niggling little problems and financial worries. 

And I couldn’t.