All in the Great Indian Family: Published articles/DNA 4

Article in DNA, Jan24, 07


All in the Great Indian Family!

The announcement of the engagement of Abhishek Bachchan and Aiswarya Rai
opens up a world of the most exciting opportunities for the Indian advertising industry and it is now up to advertisers and the Great First Family of the Indian Subconscious to shape the future of family values in the country.

First, we quickly need a new company – ABJBABABCL - that will strike package deals for all four Bachchans to appear together, or in combinations. Before the wedding invitations get printed, we need the Official Camera, the Official Paan Masala, the Official Nail Polish and the Official Dishwash Bar.

Some key questions arise. Having blown the whistle as it were and told the male species to look after the dal in the pressure cooker, will Ash continue to drive the rise and revenge of the Indian woman – get him to wash clothes and make Sunday meals, or will she become the good wife? Let’s see… she can remind him about the insurance premium, and he can buy her foot cream – this will really prove that they are made for each other. She can make him run in the park and help him to reduce all the weight he had to put on for his recent success, and we do hope she’ll look after him with the right cooking oil. Or will she keep him on a leash and expect him to sit when she says sit? Will he listen to cricket commentary over their anniversary dinner or will he rub her back pain away? Will she win him over with the right atta as rishvath, or will she lock him out of the bedroom for an air conditioner? Let’s just hope we save ourselves from them fighting over their mobile phone on their wedding night, and let’s hope their bedroom has the right switches. Hopefully, he won’t be so foolish as to ask her to throw his handkerchief down the balcony without breaking it. Nett, nett, my psepho-wedding-ology prediction is that men won’t be portrayed as such idiots, and women won’t be portrayed as such shrews. A new, loving, equal relationship between man and wife will emerge. Much advertising will start looking rosy.

In fact, this wedding will not only herald the return of the Great Indian Husband Wife Relationship but the Great Indian Saas Bahu also. Please, please, please may we have a special appearance in Kyunki…? Let us pray that no quarrel breaks out over whose masala smells better. We really don’t want to put the new groom in an unnecessary emotional dilemma …however we have to give We The People a chance to express their opinion. If you think Ash’s cooking will be better - sms ABAB, if you are on the ma-in-law’s side - sms JBAB. The best slogan will win an invitation to The Big Fight!

Of course, the elder couple will be standing in the background, while the young ones take their first housing loan. As time progresses, hopefully she won’t be so coy as to need a baby cup of coffee to tell him the “good news”. And no two guesses which car they will be in, when they drive to hospital to see the first-born. But we do look forward to an occasional chatar patar in grandma’s mouth to reveal family secrets.

A word of caution though, to the elder AB: no KANK type advise please, because according to marital therapists, Indian housewives take his advise very seriously, and we certainly don’t want Ash doing any of that.

Which is why leading advertising industry representatives will be gifting the Jodi Number One a tube of Fevicol - because there is nothing we want more than for them to be stuck together, forever.