'ad'in 'em

Most of the regular ‘TV-watchers’ get irked by the ads that are displayed when they are trying to give their undivided attention to their favourite TV serial. On the other hand, in my case its quite the reverse. I feel apart from cricket and other sports, ads are the only things worth watching on TV (not that I don’t watch anything else).Some of the ads are so creative that its gives me a special joy to watch and understand them.

Among the ads which I appreciate, Vodafone ads rank first. Vodafone alert ads are really special and keep you guessing till the end. Some of the unforgettable ones are the guy pacing in front of the maternity ward suddenly looking into his mobile which displays “India needs 6 runs from 2 balls”, a guy spending his entire day in the elevator to the annoyance of the lift-man only because of the alert which says “you’ll meet your soul-mate in the elevator”.

The MasterCard ads which come with the tagline” there are some things money can’t buy and for everything else there is MasterCard” are really cute and one never gets tired of watching them several times.

Meanwhile, there are some other ads which I remember because they are deliberately made sound dumb (I’m being nice when I say they are deliberately made dumb… God knows, probably it was an attempt at humour that miserably failed).The “bingo” ads deserve a special mention in this category. First, it was the “vango, pongo, bingo” one which was not only dumb but had this uncanny knack of getting on to my nerves. Though the next one which involved a guy tasting “bingo” before and after an accident is not as irritating , its much more dumb.

Though the primary aim of this post was to talk about television ads, I shall digress to mention a particular a bill board ad which impressed me a lot. It was near a bus-stop I used to frequent and it read “Even in Business dailies there is a business class and an economy class ”.The joy of reading and understanding it still lingers in my heart everytime I think about it. For those of you who didn’t get it, it is a dig at Economic times by the “hindu” group which runs Business Line.

changing 'times'?

When I went home for my sem hols,my dad had a surpise in store for me. Guess what??He had started subscribing for "times of india" which meant we were getting 4 newspapers everyday!!!(times, hindu, economic times(for my dad ,of course),indian express(i seldom read this)). Sounds Crazy?? Yeah, me and my Dad are crazy about newspapers.

Earlier our day used to start with "hindu".Not that I am a fan of "hindu",in fact , me and my Dad hate it.One of the prime reasons for our antagonist feelings is that "hindu" is a highly left-ist paper while both of us are extreme right-ist( ok, atleast i am).The reporting in "hindu" is also highly biased(if you are as ardent a reader of the sports page and the cricket comments as i am ,you would be nodding vigourously in agreement).Several important news items do not find an appropriate place and end up stowed in some small corner in the company of news that is much less significant.Some of the news are highly outdated and would have been covered by some other newspaper a couple of days ago.Hence,I hoped the entry of "times" would be a welcome change.

Now,after having read "times" everyday for several months I have a few words about it. While the volume of news in "times" is much more than in its competitor the quality of news is highly substandard(as my mom puts it).One of the "best" articles I have come across in chennai times is tittled"Hrithik Roshan has nothing to say" which goes about saying that Hrithik has no comments about Harman being his look alike!!!! And this is called news which is what chennai times is filled with!!! ("hindu's" supplements are so much better).One thing Ive noticed after having read the paper for several days is that once you read the title of the article and go on to the piece you find its got nothing more than the heading rewritten in more words.

Now that Ive spoken about some of the despicable aspects , let me come to those that I appreiciate.The reporting of several cases of public interest (like bomb blast)is highly praiseworthy as the final reports fill up the reader on the earlier phases of the case.The reporting is a highly balanced one(if the reporter has personal views ,it is seperately given as times view).The "times view and counter-view" is one of the best sections which elaborates on the pros and cons of a topic instead of just putting down a highly opiniated view of it.

After balancing the good and the bad points, I feel "times" is way better than its counter-part though all my hopes about it haven't come true.Actually ,nowadays ,after reading "times" I no longer feel like reading "hindu".

P.S: One of the articles in "times" that takes a dig at "hindu" for its biased reporting ,titled "Paper tigers , Tiger Papers" is an amazing read.