Wanted: vigilant society

AGKspeak/ Well-packaged protests can move mountains

What I've liked
It's been a while now since we saw anything as charming and tasteful as the new Bombay Dyeing TVC 'Bring style home'. With delightful visual surprises in every frame, it brings the design story alive at every turn.

Making the entire communication totally product centred and a treat to watch every single time. Yet another charming way to tell a boring story is the Whirlpool "" single-door frost free TVC.

With a Broadway-musical spin-off as its audio track "" which is strange but entertaining to the average Indian's ear, the product's USP, the world's first single-door frost free refrigerator is so entertainingly told that after a few viewings it actually grows on you, even though initially it takes a while to register the story and then the sound track and then put them all together.

The problem is of course narrated with typical theatrical extravagance and complemented by an equally dramatic chorus and it does manage to break the clutter from the existing fare on TV.

What I've learned
Tolerance "" where do you draw the line?

There is something about the way we in India tolerate abuse. Abuse has almost become a way of life with us. We let people infringe on our space, rights, dignity, and self-respect.

Let me narrate an interesting experience I had at the Singapore airport. Just when I was paying my bill at the counter of the Duty Free Shop I noticed that I needed to add to my list.

So I left my billing half way and went to pick up my stuff. When I returned there was another gentleman already paying for his stuff at the counter.

When the counter lady saw me she attended to my bill instead of his, at which he questioned her about it, stating that he was there first. His attitude struck me as admirable.

He had no grudge against me personally but yes he was quite aware and awake to the fact that the system had been violated (even though strictly speaking it wasn't because he did not see me first).

So he questioned the 'keeper' of the system. If it were India, I would have been accommodated quite willingly. Are we large-hearted all the time or is it that we believe it is our fate or karma or a way of life?

Queues are cut everywhere, even in traffic. At home and at work husbands ill-treat their wives, clients infringe on agencies and, in every instance, it is received with passive acceptance because the abuser is perceived as having greater power and the event, just fate.

I believe we do it because we feel we are either paying for our past sins, or we are busy paying for future moksh hoping that our 'investment in this life' will lessen the debt we carry over into our next. Not so much out of the goodness of our hearts, but more like bribing our way into a problem-free next life!

I had in an earlier column made quite a strong comment on the marketing of India as a brand. Expecting a deluge of angry replies. I was surprised to receive only one protest. It was strange how unprovoked everyone was.

It is also frightening because unless we have a thinking, reacting society no change can ever happen. It is not necessary to be abusive in our protests (after all we live in the land of Mahatma Gandhi "" the gentleman protestor) but we can make a point even if it doesn't result in an immediate change.

It will definitely register in the mind of the abuser that he/she has committed a violation. And these tiny but firm stands taken at every infringement and by many, is what keeps abusive behaviour in check.

Difficult to accept though it is, we are all only as powerless as we choose to believe. And protests packaged in good societal behaviour do have the power to move mountains.

Email : agkbrandconsult@yahoo.com