At The Edge

VIP first started making briefs for men in 1971. Jaikumar Pathare and L Jaipal Reddy, two electrical engineers of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board left their jobs and started making underwear because they realized there was no competition. ( And when they did first have competition, in mid-1980s, it came from a brand oddly named Rupa ) The brief was first worn by a young man named Dalip Tahil in an ad that proved to be an instant hit - an eye grabber. The plot of the ad that made VIP synonymous with underwear was simple, and it had a subtle touch of Superman iconography:  A beautiful woman is being harassed on the road by a laffanga. To her rescue comes a man dressed only in a bathrobe and an underwear. And he makes a grand entrance jumping from a balcony - camera capturing his underwear while he is coming down, his rob flying - he lands down on the road, grabs hold of the dame in distress and Karate chops the bad guy. And then we realize it was all a dream sequence of tha...

The radiance of the sun can sometimes be fun. Tip top Tip top. But when it beats down hard You have to be on your guard video link An Ad for Garware Polyester Films She's so happy now. No sweat...she almost jumps on the typewriter.  After that groovy track, now some poetry from another one. When the Sun wears you down All you do is frown Skin's like burning coal It's time for Sun Control video link Apart from fighting UV rays, preventing the sun from entering your sabun dani (that's how a Maruti 800 is often referred), it even affords greater privacy! Somehow, a car with tinted windows became the power symbol of its rider. As terrorism started raising its ugly head. Privacy be  damned. Tinted windows were banned. But, if you still noticed a big car on the road with tinted black windows. It told you everything about the political clout of its owner. -0- Related post: Garware Plastics, makers of radio casings, a print ad from 1970s here -0- Check...

... Videsh janay walo ke liye woolen kapday har samay taeyaar Roopam.Kapar Market.Bambai.  An Advertisement of Roopam Store, Bombay: video link Stop dancing. -0- You may like to check out rest of the ad from the series here

video link In that celebrated sound of Ameen Sayani. Aap sardi se parayshan hai. Ha. Sar phat raha hai. Ha. Aur Naak bhi Band. Ha.Bhai Ha. Toh Sardard ki goli kyo...sardi ki khas goli lejiye. Vick Action 500. Wakai Jab sardi sataye Toh sahi upay Vick Action 500 but don't miss the plastered USE AS DIRECTED notice. These tablets were actually launched by Vicks in 1978 and became a house hold name in India because of this particular ad created in the 1980s for the television. Ameen Sayani was the voice for most of their commercials (and for many more brands) from that era. Another famous Vick Ad from the era was the ‘Khich Khich Dooor Karo’ ad for Vicks Cough Drops that were first launched in Indian market in 1966. Gale may Khich Khich Gale may HMmm Kya Karo Vick  ki goli lo Khich Khich door karo video link This is the another version of the popular ad that released by Vicks in the 1980s. This one introduced the orange flavor. It was sweeter and, yes, it t...

video link In life's lighter moments The font of Raymond's is same. The theme is almost same: Man-Woman-Relations. Shown subtly. So subtle, the word 'suits' is not even mentioned.  As you can see and hear, the brand was yet to get it's own (now famous) signature tune and "The Complete Man" tag line. Instead they used a famous western classic: Spring from Vivadi's Four Seasons - last part of movement 1: Allegro [ video ] Also, you get to see how Walkman was used in 80s as a handy tool in courtship. Here's another one: In life's more nostalgic moments This one had the right Jazz sound. video link -0- Check out rest of the Indian TV ads here

video link I remember this ad because of its cutting edge animation. A roving eye inside the bulb, a beating heart inside the bulb. A perfect sync sound. A peak into the process of a bulb's making. A blue electric current  zapping alive inside the bulb. This one had the perfect visuals. Another Bajaj Bulb ad of the era, the one that preceded it, had the perfect jingle: Jab main chota ladka tha (I always thought Baccha tha just rhymes better )   badi shararat karta tha Meri chori pakdi jati Jab roshan hota Bajaj Ab main bilkul bhooda hoon Goli kha kar jeeta hoon Lekin aaj bhi ghar ke andar Roshni Deta Bajaj  Check out the video video link I have cleaned up the sound a bit and trimmed it. You can download the classic Jingle here [ .MP3, 18 sec, 247 Kb ] Enjoy! -0- Check out rest of the ads from the series here

Found the following classic advertisements in the video of great television film Tamas (1986-87) . A big thanks to Arvind Gupta who uploaded the entire movie at Google videos . A lot of old Indian ads are already available online at Youtube or at Google videos, but the following ads were not available earlier. So I scavenged through the film to get these ads. The ads include classics like  Vicks ki goli, Inhaler, Ha Bhai Ha Vick action 500, VIP undies, Raymonds, Bajaj Bulb and a few more relics.   Now, prepare for the trip down the memory lane. Here are the links to the posts on classic Ads from the 1980s: Bulbs. Best. Suiting. Subtle . Something for the Khich Khich and something for the nose and something for the head Very Important Chaddies and Undies GVC video cassettes Kapda Store of pre-mall days Control Sun. No Sweat -0- You may also like to check this post for Vintage Print ads

video link Non-linear story telling, gripping cinematography by Govind Nihalani and by legend V.K Murthy , some great acting by Om Puri, animal fear and implicit violence. The atmosphere and tone for the television film Tamas was set by this brilliant opening scene and the award winning haunting theme, that sounded like death laments, created by Vanraj Bhatia . Govind Nihalani's television film Tamas (1987), based on a Hindi novel of the same name and two other short stories (' Chief ki dawat ' and ' Amritsar aa gaya ha i'?) by acclaimed Hindi writer Bhisham Sahni (1974), told the story of Partition of India from the perspective of common men. In 1986, the film ran into trouble at the time of its telecast on the only available channel of the time, national broadcaster - Doordarshan. The film was shown at time when Hindu nationalism was just sprouting in India.  Shiv Sena leader Pramod Nawalkar alleged that Tamas showed Muslims in favorable light. And BJP ...

The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it. - Sir John Buchan Introduction to Govind Nihalani's year 1986-87 television film Tamas based on a Hindi novel of the same name and two other short stories (' Chief ki dawat ' and ' Amritsar aa gaya hai' ?) by acclaimed Hindi writer Bhisham Sahni (1974). The cover of Time magazine, October 27, 1947 (It has been available online for quite sometime as the magazine already has an online gallery of all its cover ) The cover of this American magazine read: INDIA Liberty and death Writer-Historian Patrick French, in the final words of introduction to his book Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division, tells us about Patrick Henry 's phrase from American War of Independence, 'Give me liberty, or give me death,' that was reworked into the slogan, 'Liberty or death' by Indian freedom fighters. Later, Muslim League p...

Salman Rushdie actually got to Fs from the Islamic world for writing The Satanic Verses: a Fatwa and a Film. Released in 1990, International Gorillay (No relation to big ape Gorillas...it's just that in the Indian Subcontinent 1 Guerilla = 1 Guerilla but 2 or more Guerillas = 2 or more Gorillay. It a linguistic thing.) was a big budgeted Pakistani film shot in shot in foreign locales by a man named Jan Mohammed ( according to IMDB he started his illustrious career as a director with a film called Hong Kong ke Sholay ) as a fitting reply to Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. The plot is simple : Rushdie is an Israeli Secret agent plotting to destroy Islam and Pakistan. How, you ask? Naturally, by opening houses of great vice like Discos and Casinos. Writing a slanderous (the right word is blasphemous!) book was just the beginning of his plans. Post Fatwa(for one, the scene of protest in the film look quite real!): In his secret hideout, an Island fortress protected b...

Acknowledgment and a word of thanks: Originally uploaded by  Kunjel at a post titled That 70's Show The post has some great scans of print ads from a couple of copies of Indian Edition of The Reader's Digest from 1970s.Do check out her post for some more fantastic scans. Gold Spot ad from 1970s The guy on right, the one rooting for Orange Pride, looks like Peter Sellers of Dr.Strangelove Campa Cola Ad from 1970s. In those NO COKE days these two were the most popular cold drink brands in India of 70s and 80s. For more on that and for some more cold drink ads you can check out my previous post on  Vintage Indian Cold drink ads . -0- You can also find these two brands in ads published in 1980s in Indian comic books like Indrajal. Spot them here at a fine collection by Soumyadip -0- You may also like to check out my collection of Indian Print Ads from The Reader's Digest of 1970s here

"R K Nayyar [director of her debut Love In Simla], and later my husband said they loved my nose --- one could land a helicopter on it!"   Via: An article about 1960s famous actress Sadhana at Rediff.com Her husband R K Nayyar was the one who asked her to sport Audrey Hepburn fringe. She styled her hair like Hepburn and India got Sadhana cut . "Sadhana cut" and that nose image: Altered from an image found at Tribute site dedicated to Sadhana . -0- Her one film that I have seen countless time: Ek Musafir Ek Hasina (1962).

Famous English writer Somerset Maugham 's short spy story Giulia Lazzari was based on a fictionalized account of British Intelligence agency's year 1915 attempt to get rid of Virendranath Chattopadhyay (nickname “ Chatto ”). Virendranath Chattopadhyaya (1880 — September 2, 1937, Moscow), worked subversively from distant European shores like Germany and France for Indian Independence. The report ended as follows: C, has a wife in India and two children. He is not known to have anything to do with women. He neither drinks nor smokes. he is said to be honest. Considerable sums of money have passed through his hands and there has never been any question as to his not having made a proper(!) use of them. He has undoubted courage and is a hard worker. He is said to pride himself on keeping his word. Ashenden returned the document to R. 'Well?' 'A fanatic.' Ashenden thought there was about the man something rather romantic and attractive, but he knew that R. did...

A thread of rhythm runs through man, And blossom and brute and the body of God; But the critic, who oft is a lampless clod, Still comes with his little endless span A hollow phrase and a measuring rod.          - Harindranath Chattopadhyay Video link Clip: Harindranath Chattopadhyay (April, 1898 - June 23, 1990, Mumbai) as the fiercely patriarchal Daduji in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's year 1972 film Bawarchi . Quirky dialogues by Gulzar and a great natural act by Harindranath Chattopadhyay made this character very special and memorable. He also gave vocals to the refreshing classical based song bhor aayi gaya andhiyaara from this film.( video )   The following year, in 1973 Harindranath Chattopadhyay was awarded Padma Bhushan in the field of Literature and Education. Harindranath Chattopadhyay was a poet, a dramatist, a musician and an actor. One of his most famous poems is Noon. The vivid imagery he evokes in his lines is mesmeriz...

Spotted this oddity of an ad at Technorati . They are offering to teach you money making tips. But first lesson they will tech you :"What is a Wabsite?" The "company" running the ads certainly knows its target audience and its market. And they must have paid someone for creating this adword campaign. -0- Previous sighting.

video link Images: I had taken them back in June and posted here . Music: Pandit Ravi Shankar on Sitar and Ustad Alla Rakha on Tabla at Woodstock Festival of year 1969.  This was their last appearance at Woodstock, it proved to be too much for them culturally. ( video of their performance ) And yes, it was actually raining while they performed. -0- An interesting footnote: George Harrison visited Kashmir in 1966 along with Ravi Shankar to learn Sitar.

One of the biggest hit of year 1962 was Horror/Gothic Thriller Bees Saal Baad (1962) directed by Biren Nag and produced by Hemant Kumar. The film had (a newcomer) Biswajeet and stunningly beautiful looking Waheeda Rehman playing the lead in this - 'Whodunit it? May be ghost dunit it!' - story revolving around a house believed to be haunted by the revengeful murderous spirit of a young woman. Biswajeet, playing the lone scion of the family that owns the house, must get to the bottom of the affair to evade the mysterious death that also supposedly befell his ancestors.  The plot of this film was partly inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles .But instead of Sherlock Holmes and Watson solving the mystery using elementary , this film had character actor Asit Sen as detective Gopichand Jasoos providing the comic relief (all standard Bollywood nomenclature). Asit sen was famous for his characteristic long slow drawl style of dialogue devilery that went...

Dec.10.2008 I am seeing Geotagging feature in draft.blogger Now, one can add info. about Location to the blog posts. It's looks same as the feature for Geotagging Youtube videos. But still no official word on what it actually does, its use and its benefits. But, it certainly looks a neat little feature. -0- Update: Dec .11.2008 Here's a word from Blogger team on Geotagging "When you publish your post, the geotag is displayed below your blog post as a link , which will open up Google Maps . We also include each post’s location in your blog’s RSS and Atom feeds using GeoRSS , a standard for geotagging. This means that feed readers, map applications and search engines can associate your posts with their locations." Quite a useful feature for travel blogs. And yes there a couple of bugs in the feature right now. Fix for blogs with customized template and not able to see the Location in the post. In the Dashboard, goto Edit HTML First and the most im...

In 1968,  musical duo Shankar-Jaikishan released an album called Raga Jazz Style. As the name suggests, keeping up with the era of Flower Power, this album was a beautiful experiment in fusing Indian melodies - ragas with Jazz. One of the tracks from the album was based on a raga known as Raga Todi . Shankar-Jaikishan had earlier worked on this raga for a song from their 1956 film called Basant Bahar. The song was Duniya Na Bhaye Mohe, Ab To Bulale in Raga Todi . It was sung by Mohammed Rafi and was picturised on top star of the era: Bharat Bhushan. (You tube video ) I found the Raga Todi Jazz track by Shankar Jaikishanat at a delightful blog named Eastern Eye by Phil . (You can download and check out the track here ) The blog has a wonderful collection of what we often call "eastern-fusion sounds" -  some of Ananda Shankar, some of RD Burman, some of Bappi Lahiri and among many others it also has musicians like Big Jim Sullivan .The blog has a beautiful track from ...

After that post with shrill voices from Pakistan , here are some varied opinions (comments on the posts tell the real story) from Pakistani Blogosphere on Mumbai Terror Attack of 26/11: Manan Ahmed at chapatimystery.com got (a few) comments as he broke the story on 26th. His first sentence had Lashkar-e Tayiba. One commenter (5) on 28th came up with pretty much all the possible scenarios. According to Scenario No .4: India will survive this crisis and if they can control the impulse to kill a few thousand innocent Muslims, they will actually emerge stronger because this will lead to some serious reorganization of their extremely primitive and inept security services. On 27th,  Shaheryar Ali at Pak Tea House wrote an Ode to Bombay . He writes a line that many Indians believe and take strength in: They will fail to destroy India , they will fail to destroy the thousands of years old tradition of culture of tolerance and wisdom. On 28th, Adil Najam at pakistaniat.com , in a show...

Amresh Mishra of Times of India too has termed the attack on 26th November as an attempt to divert attention from saffron terrorism. He lamented that with Hemant's death have got buried many secrets. Was the attack then meant to scuttle investigations that were exposing the ugly face of Sang Parivar which, after exploding bombs at Malegoan and Samjota Express, used to get away throwing muck on SIMI, Indian Mujahedeen, HUJI and Lashkar. Some analysts in India do not rule out the possibility of involvement of Bhonsala Military School or Abhinav Bharat, which have recently come under scanning lenses of ATS. A Perspective from Kashmiri Newspaper (probably the most popular one): Greater Kashmir This is nothing new, during the Amarnath Land Row earlier this year, the same News paper carried an opinion according to which the way Jammu agitation was being managed, [it clearly]:  substantiates the much talked about the Mossad plan for strangulating Kashmir economically. There have bee...

video link Ramu the psychotic looking Maali is perhaps one of most common and essential character in any true classic (often otherwise) Indian Horror film. The above clip is from a 1965 film by Mehmood called Bhoot Bungla . The role of Maali in this film was essayed by great Indian character actor of yesteryear - Nana Palsikar. He did it with such conviction that the role almost became a model reference (like: Thou Shall Always Carry Lantern!) for almost every future horror film ever made in India specially the cult favorite ones made by Ramsay Brothers. Remember, in Indian Horror classic Veerana it is the crazy looking house help who turns out to be the evil one. In Bhoot Bungla, the role of brave maalkin / betiya was played by beautiful Tanuja. Maalkin is not only brave but also intelligent, she does say, ' Maali couldn't possibly be smoking Regent Cigarettes '. The music in this clip is by RD Burman for the song ' Main Bhookha Hu ' from the same fi...

Vividh Bharati, the Commercial Broadcasting Service (CBS) of All India Radio , was started in 1957 to compete with already famous Radio Ceylon that used to broadcast popular Hindi film music and had interesting broadcasters - it had Binaca Geet Mala and Ameen Sayani. So Vividh Bharati came up with a bunch of some great programs like Inse Miliye , Chhaya Geet , Bhule Bisre Geet , Jaimala , Aap Ki Farmaish and Hawa Mahal. Among these I certainly remember Hawa Mahal. Radio remained quite popular till late 80s and then declined in 90s - Television and Cable proved too powerful a foe. But if you grew up in a power cut prone area, even in late 1990s, often some cold winter night, dinner time, religiously around 8:30PM, was animated by the familiar sounds - the throaty laughs, dry sobs, contemplative Hmmm s, irritated Ohho s and intelligent Aha s - coming from a play of Hawa Mahal. Same voices, different plays and a tune that seemed to sing, 'Attention Listeners! I have something imp...

Google Friend Connect is now open for all and live at google.com/friendconnect . I have added this functionality to this blog (look blew to see how it looks and fits in). Friend Connect is basically Google's attempt at creating 'Facebook and MySpace kind of Social features'. According to Google: "You'll be able to see, invite, and interact with new friends or, using secure authorization APIs, with existing friends from social sites on the web like Facebook , Google Talk , hi5 , LinkedIn , orkut , Plaxo , and others. And quite simply, you'll be able to do things together." Google has made it quite easy for people on its Blogger platform to implement it of their blogs! It hardly took me 15 minutes to configure and customize Friend Connect for two of my blogs! If, the blog is hosted on Blogger.com, one only has to login, add site, customize and add code to the blog. However other websites will have to upload two files on the web server - one for gadget...

I am going crazy listening to this:  Video link Meri Jaan A a a ... Meri Jaan B b b ... Meri Jaan Cccccc The song is from a film named Om Dar Badar directed by Kamal Swaroop in 1988. About the Film The film, having an absurdist plot and unconventional narrative style interweaving different sounds with different images, told the story of growing up in small town India. Set in Ajmer and Pushkar in Rajasthan, the film revolved around young Om's passage into adolescence. The film straightaway faced trouble on its release: Censor Board had trouble understanding it, they banned it, thought it was surely incriminating someone, but couldn't pin point anything particular, and so finally gave their nod with an A Certificate. In 1989 this art film even manged to win praise from commercial viewers winning Critics award for best film at the Filmfare Awards. The Song Notice the band in Om Darbadar playing strains of Bobby Darin's Come September Theme . I wondered how c...

video link It's a conspiracy by Isrealis, Americans and Indians i.e. Western Zionist and Hindu Zionist. And some one called NeoKon sitting in US of A. And yes Mossad... Just like Americans orchestrated 9/11, now Indians have tried to re-enact it. But unlike US, India incompetent - as usual - couldn't fool anybody.  This is not real. I grew up watching PTV and other Pakistani channels, they used to have only old men as panelist then. It's not even a real News Channel. It's a promotional stunt for a forthcoming Sunny Deol film called Zion Ki Kasam Pakistan Ko Jala Kar Raakh Kar Dooga . I think the film is being produced by Isrealis...that's the only kind of producer he could hoodwink into producing this classic. The guy in lal topi is a Hindu actor and the poor guy is not that fiery in real life. The woman is not that good an actor, she didn't even know urdu, so English just kept slipping in. She was given some tapes (and a haircut) of Shireen Mazari . S...

In 1990, in the immediate aftermath of Czechoslovakia’s November 1989 Velvet Revolution" that led to overthrow of its Communist government, during a trip to Prague, American novelist Philip Roth asked Czech novelist and playwright Ivan Klíma : As Czechoslovakia becomes a free, democratic consumer society, you writers are going to find yourselves bedeviled by a number of new adversaries from which, strangely enough, repressive, sterile totalitarianism protected you. Particularly unsettling will be the one adversary that is the pervasive, all-powerful archenemy of literature, literacy, and language. I can guarantee you that no defiant crowds will ever rally in Wenceslas Square to overthrow its tyranny nor will any playwright-intellectual be elevated by the outraged masses to redeem the national soul from the fatuity into which this adversary reduces virtually all of human discourse. I am speaking about the trivializer of everything, commercial television – not a handful of channe...