The first time I saw the Nokia Saral Mobile Seva (i hope i got that right) advertisement, the appearance of the model reading the SMS struck me a little inappropriate. She had an anglicised urban look and seemed to be on a holiday out in the country home of a granny. Her carefully worded message to her brother to bring “gulabi lipstick, jeans aur bade heel-wale joote” brought some amount of semblance to the localised version of the service being promoted, but it failed to convince me. Later when I watched it (rather had to watch it) more closely, I noticed the little subtleties that had been worked into drawing up the modern Indian village. It is not a lost-in-the-desert-middle-of-nowhere kind of place (unlike the radiowalla gaana coke ad). The post-man on his errand passes by a chaupal where turbaned villagers are watching cricket on a colour TV and an STD booth that also offers Internet surfing facilities. This eye for detail establishes the seeping in of technology in the seemingly rustic locale where the village-belle can sport western outfits and yet get her message across in the local language, which she would assumably be comfortable in.
But one advertisement that need to be pulled off immediately is the Badhshah pav bhaji masala ad in which a girl, hardly over 7 prepares “bhaji pav” for her even younger kid brother. Now since when did kids get the license to play with fire without adult supervision.
