Thursday, May 21, 2015

Sloganeering - 13

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"As it happened, India was then passing through a veritable drought and so our diminutive LBS came up with the delicious slogan:



"Jai Jawan Jai Kisan!"

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2015/05/sloganeering-12.html





So, there was a wee scarcity of grains and we had to still get to know that America was passing through a glut of wheat that was rotting in her godowns.


And the so-called PL 480 was in the future tense of Indira Gandhi:





Johnson with Gandhi, March 28, 1966. (White House Photo Office)



And in any case our PM Lal Bahdur Shastri must have been too shy to beg. So he invented the new slogan:


"Miss a Meal!"


At first we thought he wanted us to miss a meal everyday, students and teachers alike. But the fine print read that we were only asked to miss a meal once a week:

...He asked all Indians to make a supreme sacrifice: Miss A Meal once in a week. The savings combined with this single act of a meal saved will save India millions of import bill of food grains and also a national embarrassment...


http://booksmoviesandwhatever.blogspot.in/2013/10/a-lesser-known-fact-about-lal-bahadur.html



That was a breeze, we felt. But the meal we were to miss was the Monday evening dinner. And all hostel messes and hotels were closed by order that night.


Folks with families like our HoDs living in the huge Qrs could skip their meal for a few hours perhaps. But we, who were staying and eating in the Halls of Residence at IIT KGP, were forlorn.


But, as they say, where there is life there is hope. And we had this Nair Canteen on the outskirts of our campus. And Nair's was no hotel...it was just a snack-canteen. And our authorities conveniently ordered Nair to keep his canteen open. And how glad he was!


So all of us trooped to the Nair's and waited happily for our orders to be duly processed. And a couple of Rocket Dosas, a couple of Veg Uttappams, topped by a couple of steaming cups of coffee saw through the night more than enough. And the Miss a Meal was a festive night for us although the said order cost a whopping Rs 5 (the hall mess charged us only Rs 80 for a whole month giving us four meals each day).


And our senior teachers and their families discovered that Monday night at Nair's was a swell holiday for the housewives and we got duly overpowered and hunted out...


And within a few months the whole affair dissipated like snowflakes in the sun, barring the slogan.











...Posted by Ishani


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