Opinion Modern families

Tanishq jewellery’s new campaign has gone viral on social media,the quickest and best way today to judge what has tickled the public’s fancy. The campaign was received as “progressive”,“modern”,“realistic”,“iconoclastic”,among other superlatives,and was watched on YouTube by over five lakh people in just three days.

It features a woman getting dressed on her wedding day with a young girl in tow. The woman and the child walk to a wedding mandap where the woman is to be wed. The young child wants to take part too,and says,“Mamma,” only to be shushed by her mother. The groom scoops up the little girl in his arms and the trio proceed with the pheras,the rounds and vows taken around the wedding flames. “Aaj se Daddy bulaun?” asks the young girl,driving home the point that this bride is remarrying.

The campaign is momentous on many counts. Most compelling,it is one of India’s first advertisements discussing remarriage. It is especially cogent since the ad isn’t really “discussing” anything. Rather,it simply — matter-of-factly,even — shows a mother and her daughter getting ready for the mother’s wedding day. (This when almost all jewellery ads revolve around a mother and daughter getting teary-eyed on the day of the daughter’s nuptials.)

There is also much chatter about the model — Priyanka Bose,a beautiful,sun-kissed theatre actor — being dusky. Of course we are all done with the fair-and-lovely jibes already. The child is a daughter,not a coveted son,which only adds to the campaign’s efficacy. The campaign’s softness is its greatest strength. It has barely any dialogue,except for a few mutters by the child. It isn’t aggressive or preachy like those ads where all women who go to work seem to want to be air-hostesses.

The advert was made by Lowe Lintas and directed by Gauri Shinde (of English Vinglish fame). Deepika Tewari,general manager and head of marketing,jewellery division,Titan,says the idea of a commercial around remarriage was the company’s. “Tanishq has always represented progressive thinking. Women have greater empowerment and greater independence. With this wedding campaign and TVC our strategy was to position Tanishq as the wedding jeweller for this modern Indian woman (bride-to- be),who believes in herself. Remarriage is a reality and we are simply mirroring that.”

Even the wedding festivities are rather mature. A.R. Rahman’s shehnai from Rockstar plays in the back. There are no nana-nani heaving thank-god whews. The commercial has been styled by Niharika Bhasin Khan,who won a National Award for The Dirty Picture. “Gauri wanted to make the idea of a second marriage commonplace. My brief was to stick to pastels,to look subtle and yet beautiful,” says Bhasin Khan. No one’s dressed in flaming reds or fierce yellows. The bride wears a muted ecru,shimmer-free lehenga. Her head is not covered in submission. She’s played the game before,and now the bride doesn’t want the shenanigans,only the real thing. In that,the story is feminist and yet feminine,too.

Shinde seems to be making quietly feminist films her leitmotif. “You don’t need to shout out from rooftops if you want to make a point,” she says,humbly attributing its instantaneous popularity to teamwork. “I was called in when the agency and the client had decided on the remarriage theme. I just jumped at it,I thought it was the most fantastic idea. Funnily,a friend in the UK watched it and said it made him want to return to this ‘new India’.” Arun Iyer,the national creative director,Lowe Lintas,says the agency took special care to keep the look as normal as possible. “Remarriage isn’t an alien concept today,it’s all around us. We needed to handle it perfectly with the casting and setting so it would look just right: like a marriage of equals,not something that was done out of pity.”

The campaign heralds a new era for Indian advertising,and for India. Especially in television’s most crowded hour — festival season — it celebrates women’s rights as the flavour of the season.

Zakaria writes on fashion and luxury