Jaunted

Television

India Update: What's on the Tube?

March 1, 2006 at 7:55 AM | 0 Comments

It's impossible to overlook the ads here. For one thing, they're always louder than the shows themselves. During HBO's or AXN's frequent movie broadcasts, the ads come in randomly, at times that have nothing to do with the action or the plot. If the ads wait until a scene has ended or when someone's finished being killed, then that's purely by coincidence. That's OK, though, since many of the ads hold your attention more than the movies.

Most of the ads are in a mix of English and Hindi. One ad, for a new kind of noodles, ends with the happy slogan "Taste bhi. Health bhi" ("Both taste and health"). The less English there is, the more carefree and entertaining the ads often seem. One of the more riveting ones showed a woman hanging onto a rope over a cliff. Gloating over her was a big evil dude  -- going by his big handlebar mustache and other accessories, it was probably the demon king Ravana. As far as I can tell, the lady in peril got out of her predicament by distracting Ravana with a delicious Cadbury candy bar (only 5 rupees! And they're very good).

The English-language ads are rarely as fun as this. They are slicker, though. A major proportion of them are for cell phones, especially the models that cost the equivalent of $200 and up -- not exactly pocket change. Scooters are also very popular subjects -- one ad, for a brand that can evidently only be operated by a cheeky woman, uses a song that asks a little plaintively, "Why should boys have all the fun?" I don't know, but I do know that no guy is ever going to come within 100 meters of that thing.

And then there are the saturation-level ads for Café Chino, Pepsi's mashup of coffee and cola. The scene takes place in the sort of office in which attractive workers can easily dirty-dance with each other. After the semi-sexy guy in the ad is done tussling with the gorgeous Bollywood stars Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, he ends up tamed and covered with lipstick kisses. The ad is annoying in the way that most successful commercials are the world over. I just wish I could get the damn song out of my head.