There is a very handsome front page ad on ToI today. Generally I skip ads and look for tidbits and stories. This eye-catching ad had no Khan or Dhoni or KK (the female) endorsing it. In fact there is none...and that is perhaps why it is eye-catching.
The ad is by the ITC...(100 inspiring years). It is all gold and red with a hint of green. The ad is for ITC's Aashirvad Select 100% MP Sharbati Atta. There is just the picture of the atta bag and a golden bowl with piled up golden wheat grain and a couple of golden wheat sheaves beside. The blurb goes like:
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From Fields of Gold
At the heart of India is a land that yields gold. In the plush, fertile fields of Madhya Pradesh grows wheat that is sun-kissed to perfection and showered with just the right amount of rain. This golden harvest is called Sharbati.
Aashirvad Select is made from the finest Sharbati wheat, specially sourced through ITC's e-Choupals. Relish the softest, fluffiest rotis with a rich aroma and flavour that make every meal, a feast fit for the kings.
NON-STICKY DOUGH...ABSORBS MORE WATER...SOFT & TASTY ROTIS
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But for a needless comma after 'meal', the blurb is great prose. And the pic is fabulous. It just shows that you don't need a 'star' to sponsor your every ad if only you can be innovative.
Anyway, this ad reminded me of my friend of the 1960s, Tyagi, from the heart of Western UP, and our years in the Faculty Hostel at KGP (Tyagi left for TELCO and made it big there). He used to describe to me poetically the swaying wheat fields stretching far into the horizon as far as the eye could see in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of which we read in our Class VIII Social Studies.
Coming from the Coromandel Coast (of Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo) where the horizon is the Bay of Bengal touching the sky on one side and is masked by the rolling hillocks of the Eastern Ghats on the other, Tyagi's idyll was news to me. I just had a glimpse of it one morning when I was traveling to Mughal Sarai by the Neelachal Express on my way to Varanasi.
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Anyway, Indians of my generation can be broadly divided into two non-intersecting sets...wheat-eating and rice-eating. And when a member of one set is transplanted to the other, they cry with tears in their eyes on the Dining Table.
Tyagi (a Patelian) was one of the most even-tempered and witty guys you could ever meet. But, once on the Dining Table of our notorious Faculty Hostel known for its cooks graduating from who knows which profession, Tyagi would be the most truculent of boarders...he would refuse to touch the staple boiled rice, fling the so-called cold leatherine rotis, shout at the innocuous bearers, Narayan and Laxman, asking them to fetch the cook, bang him left and right comparing him to unspeakable specimens of humanity, summon the ever-smiling Manager, Rajan, to the Dining Hall, and in short make a scene...
This was as routine a show as the monsoon showers of KGP...with its rainbows.
Then there was another American-returned Math-Wizard from deep South, Dr P, who never dealt with any integral short of six-fold...like so many cobras in front of his tensor elements...and who spoke with none except SGH, another math-wizard from the Marathwad...they spoke in a jargon bewildering to the rest of the crowd.
Dr P used to look at the various dishes on and beside his plate as if they were offending differentials that spoilt the show. He would ask for raw rice...unknown in Bengal of those days, idli or dosa or their cousins, pick and taste tiny elements of the set on his plate, and tearfully tear the so-called rotis into bits and pieces and dump them in a heap in the center of his dining plate, ceremonially pour water on the entire grub, leave the Table in silence looking rather forlorn.
He left for Bangalore after a few weeks...and possibly lived there happily ever after...
Kipling was wrong...East and West are meeting nowadays...but I doubt if wheat and rice are even attempting...
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But for a needless comma after 'meal', the blurb is great prose. And the pic is fabulous. It just shows that you don't need a 'star' to sponsor your every ad if only you can be innovative.
Anyway, this ad reminded me of my friend of the 1960s, Tyagi, from the heart of Western UP, and our years in the Faculty Hostel at KGP (Tyagi left for TELCO and made it big there). He used to describe to me poetically the swaying wheat fields stretching far into the horizon as far as the eye could see in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of which we read in our Class VIII Social Studies.
Coming from the Coromandel Coast (of Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo) where the horizon is the Bay of Bengal touching the sky on one side and is masked by the rolling hillocks of the Eastern Ghats on the other, Tyagi's idyll was news to me. I just had a glimpse of it one morning when I was traveling to Mughal Sarai by the Neelachal Express on my way to Varanasi.
***************************************************************************************************************
Anyway, Indians of my generation can be broadly divided into two non-intersecting sets...wheat-eating and rice-eating. And when a member of one set is transplanted to the other, they cry with tears in their eyes on the Dining Table.
Tyagi (a Patelian) was one of the most even-tempered and witty guys you could ever meet. But, once on the Dining Table of our notorious Faculty Hostel known for its cooks graduating from who knows which profession, Tyagi would be the most truculent of boarders...he would refuse to touch the staple boiled rice, fling the so-called cold leatherine rotis, shout at the innocuous bearers, Narayan and Laxman, asking them to fetch the cook, bang him left and right comparing him to unspeakable specimens of humanity, summon the ever-smiling Manager, Rajan, to the Dining Hall, and in short make a scene...
This was as routine a show as the monsoon showers of KGP...with its rainbows.
Then there was another American-returned Math-Wizard from deep South, Dr P, who never dealt with any integral short of six-fold...like so many cobras in front of his tensor elements...and who spoke with none except SGH, another math-wizard from the Marathwad...they spoke in a jargon bewildering to the rest of the crowd.
Dr P used to look at the various dishes on and beside his plate as if they were offending differentials that spoilt the show. He would ask for raw rice...unknown in Bengal of those days, idli or dosa or their cousins, pick and taste tiny elements of the set on his plate, and tearfully tear the so-called rotis into bits and pieces and dump them in a heap in the center of his dining plate, ceremonially pour water on the entire grub, leave the Table in silence looking rather forlorn.
He left for Bangalore after a few weeks...and possibly lived there happily ever after...
Kipling was wrong...East and West are meeting nowadays...but I doubt if wheat and rice are even attempting...
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