*IPL Weds Branding*

And you all (crazy cricket fanatics, businessmen/women, Dada/Nana followers, wives/girlfriends of all non followers of soccer, sponsors and whoever is left) are cordially invited to the auspicious wedding that’s taking place at various stadiums in India, and costlier the gift you get(ticket), better will be the service from our side! Namaste.

I’m not an avid fan of cricket or even IPL or any other Indian big fat wedding. Nevertheless, I happen to observe few aspects of IPL just like various movie trailers that I get to see, seated along my excited-for-new movies-siblings.

On every ‘IPL day’ at dinner, my mother ridicules some random poor guy because he is rich and awkward and gives insights about IPL on TV, and some female who would have put up too much of make-up or dressed in revealing attire. My dad condemns every catch that is dropped, gets exalted every time the ball kisses or flies across the boundary and opposes every team that my mother supports. I instead focus on the teams’ t-shirts and caps, bats and grounds, umpires’ uniforms, giant screens. If you take a ‘who’s in whose team?’ quiz, I’ll shamelessly terribly fail. But ‘the bigwigs-sponsors’ of various teams have definitely spammed in my ‘memory-the mailbox’.


So whether it’s 'LUX COZI 'written on uniforms of  ‘Kings XI’ and ‘DC’ or ‘Manyavar ethnic wears’ partnership with ‘KKR’, or even small firm like ‘Burn Fitness Port’ which has invested in 'DC', they all have converted these cricket men into playing talking living hoardings and cartoons ( in various comic features like ‘Rock 'n' Royals' and ‘Electric Chargers', The 'Delhi Daredevils' in Diamond Comics' special series where they join the latter's characters 'Chacha Chadhury' and 'Sabu') and models ('KKR' team dressed elegantly, posing in 'Manyavar ethnic wear', and they look so cute, some look hot..!! see the link below, no wonder I know who all are in this team!!).



 The above video with ethnic wears reminded me of big fat weddings that most of the people like to be invited to. We love to celebrate know, whether it's a child-birth ceremony, marriages, or cricket and its various forms. WE push the boat out.
Not that I’m against it, not at all, but it is more like the Indian wedding where everything (designer clothes, people wanting to be captured by camera, shiny 'firangi' hopping cheerleaders, the ‘pandol’-stadium setup) , except the couple, is noticed. Obviously little happenings like ‘SRK-MCA fight’, etc are bound to take place in the big wedding (controversies are main features of such grand occasions)!!

Anyhow, the couple is going to make a good profit out of the whole wedding and we, the invitees, the audience, the viewers will get entertained somehow( I’m going to have spicy ‘chhole-bhature’ while checking out some cute guy wrapped in the ‘wedding’ dress on TV). Also, I have a gut feeling that the strong couple will have a long-lasting marriage with pompous anniversaries to be enjoyed equally, later on.What a charm!!

With 302k followers on twitter, 1.1 million on facebook( thanks to various FB pages, youtube accounts devoted to these teams), others whether invited or not, whether a fan or not, this wedding is being attended by many.

So are you attending the wedding?

White UP White DOWN…

 So basically once again we got manipulated by ubiquitous commercials. But this time, it’s different!! We don’t want fairness creams (for females’ private parts).

I got to know about so called fairness cream after I read that there was a furor in Rajya Sabha (upper house in Indian Parliament) regarding it. According to them, the concerned commercial was debasing females. Well, the first thing I did after reading that article was signing in my you tube account( so that I could see the commercial even if it were X-rated). I had to see it as I wanted to know what it was that made it more attention-seeking and women debasing than various gang-rapes, eve-teasing, honour-killing of women, all of which never create such furor in Rajya Sabha, on print-media, digital media..

I saw it. I saw it once again and read the you-tube users’ comments on that commercial. And I started to figure out what exactly was wrong.

I was sure that one of the reasons for the uproar was that the product dealt with female private parts. Another reason was the story-line of the commercial, which according to me was confusing, like other commercials. It showed a husband/boyfriend ignoring his plastic doll-like-wife/girlfriend. The sad female is shown with the product, followed by a not-so-offensive-sketch of a female applying the product on the darkest area of the body. Meanwhile, the specifications were told which were mainly about keeping the concerned part dry, clean and also making the complexion lighter. And so in the end, the husband/boyfriend was happy. Yeae!!

And so, viewers focused on only one aspect of it and that was the fairness one, not the hygienic ones. Even the product’s name has got no word related to fairness. But still they took it as female-private-part-bleaching-cream.

Men thought that the next product might target their private parts’ skin. And so they felt offended in advance. Also they thought that the product was typecasting them as racists and narrow-minded.

They won’t say it openly, “ darling, if you don’t have 'it' fair,

                                             you may use the product there,

                                            at least you can have it considered

                                             I might even do it for a longer time, my dear.”,

                                         Ha! But that’s what many of them may say it loud and clear,   

                                             but only in their private minds’ corners……..

                                                                                     

Women professed that the concept of the product was senseless. They don’t have to show 'it' to impress/attract men. And because showing *it* is not involved in the process, unlike what was shown in the advertisement, they don’t really require the product.

Now let me ask all these thoughtful critiques that why such uproar is not created when almost all the advertisements for men deodorant show skimpily-clad-females going wild after males using the advertised deodorant. That’s not debasing women? And will they use their moody logic towards such advertisement? Because going by the advertisement, I should transform into a sexually hyperactive female running crazily after some random guy using ‘the’ deodorant; also I’ll smell the scent even if I were a mile away. But no, they won’t use their logic over here.

I’m not judging the product or its usage. If you don’t like or want it, don’t use it. Why does anyone have to get the product banned? Do we take care of those body parts only which are to be shown in near future? We all go to beauty parlor and saloons and use shampoos and soaps and other ‘beauty’ products. Do we use them to attract the opposite sex? I personally like to keep myself groomed (at least at basic level) even when I don’t have to step out of my house.There are already facial fairness creams and fairness ‘body’ lotions for females. 

There are advertisements that show using certain toothpaste (once again) attracting female mindlessly towards a random guy using the product. Now do we all use tooth-paste for that? May be some do. And this is where the manipulation comes in. Read the specifications and advantages of a product. If you think some of those might help you in some way, then use it.

There is definitely something wrong with the ‘fairness addiction’ that Asians have. I already spread my views regarding it on an earlier blog-post(You may like to read Copper Maiden ).

But guys, grow up (pun intended). And women, we all are lovely and intelligent, but we don’t really have to sniff sense at everything(pun intended)!

image source: http://free-extras.com/images/black_and_white_daisies-1551.htm