Art of Enchantment

Advertising is actually enchanting people to use your product with colorful visuals or sweet words. More than a business promotion the ads now days add more emotional stuff making it more appealing. A mom is lovable only when she buys Johnsons baby products for her baby. With 100 years of tradition in business, they have really used the mom-baby relation through ads. Their commercials are well watched and appreciated. And the same way these products are always on the top in baby products’ market.

Similarly multi-national companies do add flavors of culture and traditions of each country in their local advertisements. When you see the ad of Sony TV, you can obviously notice that they never have an ad for India without elements highlighting the diverse culture of the country.

Apart from being emotional, ads also take the advantage of celebrities as their brand ambassadors. If you observe the energy drink ads, Boost can make your kid strong like Sachin Tendulkar! Another point to note is the growth of ‘brand culture’. Pizza should be bought only from Dominos or Pizza Hut since it is a branded shop. Even for hardware products or handbags, the brand name plays an important part in business. Youth runs behind brand products rather than quality. This is indeed a huge blow for small scale products. They too try to be ‘branded’ by giving emotional ads or promos.

Most of the common herds are unaware of these business tactics and thus they go to get ‘the soap used by Aiswarya Rai’ or ‘cell phone recommended by Sharukh Khan’. Seeing and enjoying ads as a means of recreation is fine. But never go behind a product because of its ad story line. Verbal assurance of your friend about a product is far better than a commercial. If you really love your family and dear ones, believe in quality only after using the product rather than the popularity of its ad…

Show Must Go On

TRAFFIC is undoubtedly an amazing movie. The story line can be presented in a very dry manner. But the director Rajesh Pillai was not ready to go in that way to brand it under the name ‘award movie’. It has become one of the major hits of this year and is surely going to grab many awards in film festivals. The shots, editing and direction of this film is almost perfect. Inspiring from a real event that happened in Chennai, TRAFFIC is one of the first multi narratives of this decade in Malayalam.

When viewed from a journalist’s angle, this movie gives some terrific realities about media life. In the movie, the hero who is a television reporter had an accident while going to his office for a shoot. He was severely injured. However the show that he is supposed to anchor went on without any delay. He was replaced by another substitute. Similarly the same channel covered live all the further happenings related to his death. When a death of colleague and the follow ups can make a scoop and increase their ratings, why do they stop from airing that story!

This attitude of media is always a disputed matter. The reality is whoever goes, the show must go on… If a person disappears, there will be another to replace. Media never let audience know the stories behind the camera. Or else, it is also because viewers do not care about how a news story is made. The matter of how a news story is made or how a program is aired will always remain behind the curtains as it is not at all an interesting topic. They simply want the product when they switch on television or while going through a news paper. And that makes the livelihood of each media person. So just like soldiers in a war field, they never bother their colleague’s fall as they have to move on for their bread and butter.

Walking In Between

(Photo: Amith Sasi)

Walking through the lane,

Listening to the murmur!

One side it is still lake,

Other side it is monstrous sea.

Lights flickering around me

Crowd chatting all the way…

I’d see only smile and laughter,

Shallow and deep!

Like the phases of life

Silence and violence…

Last Friday I visited Beypore beach in Calicut. Apart from the usual wonders of the sea, this shore has another specialty. There is a lake which flows into sea. In between both, there is a bridge through which people can walk almost 1km. Street lights and seats on both sides of the bridge and brick pavement make it feel very special. More than that, what I felt amazing is that the lake stay silent on one end while other end it is mighty sea. Water hugging seashore and waves kissing stones gives it a romantic beauty. Wild wind from the seashore tempted me to fly like a feather; while the breeze from the lake shore swept my thoughts, worries and sorrows.

Street vendors with pop corns and ice creams were attracting kids and so making parents annoyed. The light house flashed light on each rounds of its turn. A few boats and ships were passing either quietly with dim lights or with full flashy lights and sounds. Gangs of youngsters were busy clicking snaps posing crazily. School kids on tour were walking in single lines maintaining equal distance as if they were going for the school assembly. When I reached at the end of the bridge, it was almost dark and sea was in its grand form. For a second, I wished to dive into the deep ocean and to be a part of that water realm. As I walked back, I could feel the quietness of the lake and the roar of the mighty water king…

Simply to Make You Smile

Tell me what to write about you,
Tell me how to write on you...
You call me your sweet friend
I call you my best friend!

We don't have a long history
Of friendship...
May be a few months
Or countable days...

Fun, fight, joy,tears...
Gossips,pranks,nick names...
Moments we shared,
Missing everything...

When everyone left me,
You stood with me...
We acted like enemies,
To see puzzled look of others!

I need you to irritate me,
I want you to make me angry,
To see the smile on your face
Just the way you smile now...

Whistling Lords

Today I got nothing else to do except listening sounds around me. Sometimes I feel it is good to have a fever once in a while so that you will know what all is happening in your habitat! After 10am, all the houses will be empty unless if there are some retired officers.

Lying on my bed, I could hear crows crewing and dogs barking for no reasons. A famous cinema script writer used to be a regular visitor of next door. He and my neighbor used to go and buy fish together daily. This writer is a big chatterbox and so everyone knows when he is around.

Apart from these sounds, the peculiarity of this area is that it is near a railway track. Since this is a national rail route, trains will be running all across 24*7. The house will tremble whenever a train passes. In the beginning, I felt a little uneasy as the block shivered each time. Now I do enjoy listening to the whistling of the giant vehicle.

Not all trains travel with same speed. There are super fast trains dashing off, passengers crawling enjoying each second of its journey and other trains moving at an average speed. Some passengers stop here giving way to express trains. It reminds me of feudal era, where countrymen pave way to Lords. The speed of trains can be recognized with the shivering of the buildings. Sometimes the vibration may last long and most often it will last only for seconds.

Each train will have a story. If a train starts writing an autobiography, it will be quiet interesting to read. Stories of murder, though not purposefully; tales of turning coaches into labor rooms and many more… Hundreds of citizens depend on a train for their day-to-day transport. From beggars to ticket checkers, there are a big list of people who get their daily means of livelihood from a train.

Trains move from one station to another crossing boundaries of state, country and culture. Once again I could hear a whistle of train coming from a faraway land waving apart all the trees and obstacles in front like a feudal lord…

Most Popular Issue of Campus beats

Campus Beats was a spirit, passion and a matter of pride for MA Communication Second batch of Amrita School of Communication. Our batch made it colorful from the earlier black and white sheets. We can very well say we are credited for the popularity and fame that CB has today. Oh well, Campus Beats is the in-house journal of ASCOM. Reporting, editing and lay out works were done with a festive mood.

However the best memory with CB was something very funny. Are you ready to listen? Yeah! When a Campus Beats issue is released, copies are distributed to all departments and hostels. The scene of crowd reading CB from hostel’s notice board used to make me very emotional. I think other team mates also feel the same.

Once when a CB was out, my friend Sreelakshmi discovered that it is pasted down in notice board and so hostellers may find it hard to read. She instructed the peon to place it properly. Once the peon started taking the pages, warden came and peon had to describe everything. As peon completed narration, warden started shouting at that poor girl. Sree too got her piece of cake. Do whatever only after getting permission from wardens, students are not the ones to decide, blah blah blah...

Later Sree was acting each dialogue to us. Suddenly loudspeaker vibrated, “All students of I MA Communication please come to the office room”. We know for what it could be. Time was 11pm and many started sleeping. We managed to gather all 11 girls, the notorious of Gargi Bhavan. Holding the hands of half slept ones, we marched to warden’s office. Nimisha warned Sree not to go for any arguments as it would worsen the scene.

All three wardens were sitting like wrestlers getting ready to fight. Our own warden started the procedure pouring all blames to our department and faculties for giving us so much of freedom. Slowly other two wardens also joined the party. But our warden was on the peak asking us to write a letter indicating the position in notice board where CB has to be placed. Her explanation for this statement was, “You can directly point out where to place your CB, only here and Mythreyi Bhavan (UG girl’s hostel). May be in Gautama Bhavan too, you’ll have your classmates. What about other boy’s hostels, Nachiketas and Agastya Bhavanam? So it is better to give us a written letter”.

We nodded our head for each word she said though many of us were struggling hard not to giggle. As soon as wardens’ finished their firing, we walked back to our rooms. None of the other hostellers cared to stop and check what is going on because this firing was a daily scene.