Ishtihar

It is an amazing ability of the advertising industry to even turn doomed love into a come-hither for trade. Move forward from the hawker’s call to the early days of the industry in the sub-continent under British rule and there are many such examples of the man-woman thing, taken from myth, literature and fantasy on the picture labels for cloth hand-printed in Manchester. From Draupadi’s chirharan, to the rubaiyat of Omar Khayam; from the pose struck by the lovelorn Nayika as painted in miniatures to the king gently unveiling his consort: it’s all all there on these quaint Manchester-made tickets which are now collector’s items.

These form a part of the exhibition, India’s Advertising History, on view at Vision Centre of Art in New Delhi till August 28. Besides the picture labels, Bobby Kohli of Vision has put together rare oleographs, calendars, enamel boards, toffee tins and much else. Commenting on the show, Sidharth Bhatia says, “Advertisement can be an invaluable tool to study social history. These ads we see around us today will tell future historians about the socio-economic landscape of these times and the evolving mores.”

A comment such as this brings out of the nostalgia of the Raj in which Maharajas endorsed products to the present times in which cricket stars recommend after-shave lotions. Interestingly, post-Independence Air-India used the Maharaja was the mascot, very creatively used by Bobby Kooka for Air India. For that’s how the West saw us and to some extent continues to do so. It was an amazing small-budget campaign to win international recognition. Changed times saw our own pretty Bollywood heroines replace the the blondes soap commercials. Much talked about were the Zodiac Man and the Wills Made for each other campaigns. Recent times saw a big row over the body-stocking embrace by Madhu Sapre and Milind Sonam.

One of the sweetest and most topical campaigns over the years was the Utterly-butterly Amul ads which spoke of `Shut-ellite Connection’ and `This Dish Works’. If butter be in focus can bread remain far behind. In fact it should come first. So it does in the Friday rhymes written out for Harvest Gold Bread by whiz kid Suhel Seth. These rhymes in Pinglish are full of fun and frolic. “I decided to use humour for after all how romantic or sexy can you be over a loaf of bread. And it worked. Not only is the ad talked about, our loaf of bread has captured 87 per cent of the market,” says Seth.

Successful, no doubt. But a recent ad caused the liberals to break out into a rash. The copy-writer, declaring himself apolitical and free of Shiv Sena, went onto advise `Yusuf Bhai’ to return the Pakistani award. Seth’s retort to this is, “It is all in good fun. Topical concerns are picked up and the aspirations of the people are represented in a funny manner. Significantly, in an earlier ad, the rhyme and reason to boo-hoo Deepa Mehta’s Fire coincided with the Shiv Sena stand. Does this mean that a social historian looking at the trends reflected by popular art in India in the end of the 20th Century, will wonder that to be apolitical then perhaps meant agreeing with the Shiv Sena? This is the big question mark.