Thums Up to Happy Days and Kishore Kumar

The other day a friend said she'd mailed an article, but since I could not find it in my inbox, I went to the spam folder. I found the article there, and along with it, dozens of messages that relentlessly promise penis enlargement. One of them caught my eye:

Prove your manliness! Take MegaDik and be a man!

What impressed me was the directness of the message. It took me down memory lane, to the innocent days, when advertisements were to the point and did not play on the charm of a sexy model to convince you into buying a product. Some catchlines from the past:

Iodex maliye kaam par chaliye (Rub Iodex and get going)

Vicks ki goli lo khich khich duur karo (Take Vicks tablets and cure your throat)

Sirf ek, sirf ek, sirf ek Saridon (Just one Saridon to get rid of your headache)

Khao Gagan, raho magan (Use Gagan oil, be happy)

And my favourite jingle:

Happy days are here again, everybody is feeling great on Thums Up! Refreshing cola, Thums Up...!

By 'happy days' they meant the summer. Those days, no one drank soft drinks (or 'cold drinks') during the winter. And when the sun turned up the heat, the jingle sounded enticing

Thums Up also happens to be my favourite drink. Nothing else matches its tang, believe me. It is very sad that Thums Up is not available in Chennai: my grocer tells me there is no demand, so no supply. I think I first had Thums Up in 1978 or 1979. Those days, Parle made two other drinks, the lemony Limca and the orange Gold Spot. Gold Spot has long disappeared, but Limca, touch wood, still adorns the fridges of the grocery stores.

The arrival of Coke and Pepsi turned the soft-drink market into a highly aggressive market, and that aggression has evidently spilled over to the commercials. As a result, having a soft drink is no longer a way to beat the heat or thirst, but a very macho thing to do. The Mountain Dew ad shows two men conquering their fear and driving down a cliff. The Thums Up commercial, inspired by the new sport parkour (the chase scene in Casino Royale), shows Akshay Kumar jumping down a building. And which soft drink is that whose commercial shows a boy asking Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham to step aside so that he could get to the vending machine?

A soft drink is supposed to make you cool, not to make you look cool. But that's the USP these days. Happy days have gone away, I don't even get to drink Thums Up! Refreshing cola, Thums Up...

That makes me bow before the manufacturers of Nirma. Even decades later and in spite of stiff competition from Surf Excel and Ariel and what not, their basic jingle remains the same:

Washing powder Nirma
washing powder Nirma
doodh si safedi
Nirma se aaye
rangeen kapde bhi
khil khil jaaye
Sabki pasand Nirma...
Washing powder Nirma
washing powder Nirma
NIRMA!!!

Now before I sign out, let me remind you that today is October 13, 2007. Exactly 20 years ago, Kishore Kumar died. There was only Doordarshan then, and only one evening bulletin, and the news was announced in a matter-of-fact manner by the newsreader. Today, that would have been 'breaking news' on all channels.

Of late I've written a lot on the singer, and I don't wish to bore you with more of my thoughts on him. This song should suffice: it is my most favourite Kishore Kumar song.

If I may suggest how you should listen to it. Set aside everything that you are doing. Pour a drink. And when it begins to mellow you down, put on the earphone and click on the play button.

The special song is dedicated to you. You know who.

Main akela hi apne...