Eye sore

Take this product which claims to be an “evil-eye deflector” for instance. Naturally,considering the products nature we can hardly expect conventional advertising for its promotion. But nothing in the world can justify its bizarre advertising campaign. A worried mother complains about her little daughter falling sick quite often,her mother-in-law says that the child is a victim of evil-eye. To illustrate the fact a portly lady (probably a neighbour) is shown showering the little girl with red rays. These rays are shown emanating from the lady’s eyes of course.

Then they show a young woman narrates her tale of woes. Apparently,her marriage was arranged with an eligible,Mumbai-based software engineer. But just months before the scheduled marriage date the groom’s family cancelled the wedding. How did this happen? Evil eye,of course. The same portly lady is now shown concentrating her evil eye on the young woman.

Offensive,you say. Wait till you hear this. Apparently,factories are torn-down,marriages are broken and careers destroyed all because of buri nazar. All this can be stopped with the help of an innocuous looking ceramic disc with blue concentric circles painted on it. This wondrous discovery is a fruit of the marriage of science and religion (to illustrate that fact a still of Caucasian scientists playing around with test tubes is shown). Then of course there is the do-mukhi rudrakshs (double faced rudrakshs) which boasts of similar powers which are very crudely illustrated in similar manner.

It goes without saying that the very fact that these products sell in our country is appalling,but the manner in which they are promoted is so incredibly regressive that it’s laughable. It took a very shrewd mind indeed to fashion a booming industry out of our country’s greatest curse—superstition. However,we must not forget that some scared mother or lonely young woman is probably dialing the number of home shopping networks to order these very products right now. Shudders.

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