Great Power Shoes

Bata Shoe Company Limited was incorporated in India on December 23, 1931. On April 6, 1956, it became a private company and changed name to "Bata Shoe Company Private Limited". Then on becoming a public company it became "Bata Shoe Company Limited" on April 18, 1973, but then only days later on April 23, it was renamed "Bata India Limited", the name by which we know it today.

Three ads from the 80s for the famous athletic shoe brand 'Power' from Bata. These shoes were first launched in the year 1972.

Birth of the fitness cult
Power Jogger
















 




However strenuous workouts
your feet never had it so good.
Body by Workout

Power

The future of tennis rests on this pair
Power Ultimo










(Agency: Clarion)





If shoes be the criteria (and it's a good criteria) to denote periods in personal or non- personal history, then this history can be traversed easily by dividing it into two eras: BATA era and the Post-BATA era. According to this fine classification, in case of personal histories, all your adolescence years can go into BATA era and the rest goes in post-BATA era. And since BATA came to India in 1931, everything since then, right until liberalization of economy, can be filed in BATA era and the post-liberalization can simply be called post-BATA era.

The first thing one noticed about the post-liberalization 'sports' shoes was that they were lighter (which was good), cooler (it was a new word), costlier (definitely bad but didn't pinch much now), its sole wasn't covered under any warranty(?) and these shoes never lasted very long. And still people bought them.

Image(right): Young Sachin Tendulkar from BATA era with his Power logo bat. Post-BATA era Sachin played with his famous MRF bat. That MRF logo apparently earned him 1.5 crore.