Five Ridiculous Things You Can Learn Only From Indian TV Ads

If one believed Indian ads blindly, periods give you the ability to fly and strong hair can help you pull trucks.

I was watching TV yesterday. Basically, what that means is, I was skipping the channels that had ads playing and I went through my entire list without managing to stick to one channel.

So I gave up and watched ads. I love how inadequate, underprivileged and poorly they made me feel. My face wasn’t clean enough, my clothes weren’t white enough and my car wasn’t giving enough people neck problems. Let’s not even discuss how terrible I felt when no one sniffed my deodorant.

Now, let’s have a broader look at a few things advertising has taught us about life. My top 5 lessons are listed below.

White Clothes = Happy Moms

A lot has been said about moms. How awesome they are, how they take care of us, how their food is all things wonderful and all that. But that’s not what moms want to be remembered for. Moms – working or otherwise – spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about how white their kids’ clothes are. Let’s keep the homework, grades, sports activities aside – because all that matters is how shiny a child’s clothes are when he walks in slow-mo. White clothes are the ticket to a better career, better treatment and even more respect. Apparently, education can go suck an egg or whatever.

Gaseous Men

There was a time when wooing a girl involved talking to her, taking her out on dates and actually getting to know her. Indian advertising said that was no good. Applying copious amounts of deodorant (gas, no gas, liquid nitrogen, I don’t care) is the answer. We women, with our tiny sense of rationality and enlarged olfactory senses, run to any guy who applies deo – especially when he wastes a lot of it. We also abandon all decency and attack the guy in bikinis and bare minimum clothing. Don’t you just hate it when advertisers pretend we have brains?

Periodic Capabilities

PMS is a real thing. So is being tired and a little grumpy during your periods. Yes, women do feel down and out during those few days. Ain’t nobody got time for that, says Indian advertising.

Somehow, women in sanitary napkin ads set out to accomplish anything they couldn’t (even on a particularly favourable day) during their periods. It doesn’t matter that you have a desk job. When you have your periods, you will jump over fences, wear the whitest pants you can find and even move your crotch right in front of someone’s face (because how else do you know that you have no period smell?) I don’t mean to offend anyone but I don’t think this is acceptable behaviour, periods or no periods.

Toothy Grim

Indian advertising may make it look like that but putting on a white lab coat doesn’t make you a dentist. Believe it or not, dentists have to get a degree and all that. Which they obviously put to good use by approving toothpastes and mouthwashes and not really working on any teeth.

Celebrities are also worried about their teeth. In fact, they are so worried, they carry shade cards along. Apparently, in the world of toothpaste advertising, it’s totally cool to barge in on someone and ask them what ingredients their toothpaste has and judge them for not knowing. I guess that’s a life lesson right there – know what goes into your toothpaste.

Hairy Situation

You may think you have decent hair but that illusion should get shattered by the many shampoo ads. So how do you know your hair is good enough? Indian advertising tells you this is best accomplished by giving your hair a good tug – which should prove either that your shampoo is awesome or at least give you a headache. Also, your hair shouldn’t have split ends, should not be dry and should not be limp. If you really want to test your hair, check if it can pull a truck. Apparently that’s a way to tell.

(Mansi Shah is founder of the blog Damsel in Destress which reviews experiences as varied as spas, books and plays. Mansi is, by her own admission, “clueless” at 30 with an easy penchant for humour.)