Show your tongue

On the virtues of speaking up... and making sense.

What I've liked
One hundred columns ago, little did I realise that I was beginning an ongoing dialogue with some incredibly sharp minds whom I had never met before. Suffice to say it has been my readers who have made these 100 columns a most enlightening experience, for which I thank all of you. And Mr Ninan who has made this exchange possible, besides giving me his much-valued insights.

Coming to an aspect of advertising that is often left out of the limelight "" language adaptations of national campaigns. I guess any language other than Hindi and English has, at some point in time or the other, borne the brunt of hilariously literal translations besides, of course, unabashedly flaunting glaring errors like signing off a Telugu ad with Kannada script! True, both languages use a very similar script, a bit like English and French, but surely there must be people who know the difference, considering the costs involved?

Clearly, many people are responsible for these rib-tickling goof-ups including the client, who is most likely the first to receive the feedback. But yet, they labour on, fearless in their ignorance. For the past three months I have been straining to decipher the lyrics of the Horlicks Lite ad in Telugu but with little success. Must be a new version of the language that I am unaware of, I guess! If there is one set of people praying for a one-language nation, it must be the advertiser, I am sure.

What I've learned
A small step for standing up, a giant leap for India

India is supposed to have the fourth happiest population in the world. Forty per cent of us are illiterate, 30 per cent live below the dollar-a-day line, 60 per cent are below the $2-a-day line, yet there we are, happy as can be!

Our schools are without teachers, our pipes without water, our nights without lighting, our roads waiting to be paved, yet we don't complain, we accept our lot and tolerate inefficiencies and weaknesses, all the while letting nothing take our happiness away.

On the other side of the globe, in a land of plenty, where people like you and me don't have to worry if there will be water in their kitchens when they wake up every morning, a heavily pregnant lady filed and won a suit for $700,000 against an airline because the hostess spilt hot coffee on her! Zero tolerance on her part definitely translated into a heavier bank balance and a more vigilant and efficient airline.

The point that I am trying to make here is that though we as a nation have a wonderful philosophy of tolerance, we as human beings unfortunately need to be constantly chastised into civilised behaviour. And the only way it can be done is when each and every one of us stands up for ourselves. We have to have a very definite sense of limits. And anyone crossing it should galvanise us into action or, at the very least, into an articulation of our discomfort.

It's strange how people push limits only till they are told to stop. Stand in any queue anywhere in the country and, sure enough, a queue-cutter invariably pops up. What surprises me even more is the mute, bovine complacency with which the rest of the line accepts it. Instead of a joint outcry, the most you hear is an under-the-breath grumble! Fatalistic acceptance of this kind is really taking our sense of karma a bit too far, don't you think? And when applied to more critical issues will cost us our future eventually.

agkbrandconsult@yahoo.com
For AGKspeak archives, log on to www.agkonline.com