Recently a classmate of mine from School posted this link on facebook. It was an advertisement for Pepsi, or what was called as Lehar Pepsi in those days. What is special about the ad is that part of it was shot in our School, Lawrence School Lovedale, and features some of my School classmates in it.The school scene happens between 00:33 and 00:40 seconds into the ad.
I still remember the time it was shot. (If I remember correctly) It was during a long-weekend and I wasn’t actually in school as I was spending the weekend in Ooty town with my parents. On my return to school, everyone was abuzz with talk about the Pepsi shooting. I of course was disappointed that I missed it. What was hilarious was that the scary looking teacher who says AHA was actually a scary person and the word “aha” was actually a part of his regular vocabulary!!. Mr Bhopiah, as he was known officially, or Bhopi as we called him, was our physical education teacher. Bhopi believed in a policy of not “sparing the rod” to ensure that the child was not spoilt (and some of us really bore the brunt to not get spoilt!). I remember the days of relentless athletics and cross country practice. Oh I must mention here that while I enjoyed football in school, I HATED any kind of running or jumping for competition…and that made it all the more worse!
Being in a school with military traditions from the British times we had no option to opt out of hard practice…and Bhopi was always there to ensure we did it! Fat or thin, fast or slow, sporty or handicapped we had to run…if not, the menacing figure of Bhopi was sure to catch up with you along the trail and make you pay! Of course, when he caught up with you, you could be sure the first sound to emanate from him would be Aha! (almost in glee of having found his victim!). Those were the times.
And so it was , while watching the video on YouTube, I came across more classic Indian ads. This one for example on Luna mopeds:
..took me right back to when I wished I had one myself. But then time passed and technology moved in so quickly that the very benchmarks of life also changed.One of the comments left on Youtube summed it beautifully when he said:
“When I was Kid.. I wanted to buy one when I grew up.. But I bought a car instead.” !
I`m sure all of you remember this sequence:
Back then TV meant Doordarshan! There was just one channel and it went off at night and woke up only at 5:30 AM! Often, when we were kids and woke up early we would switch on the TV and wait for programs to start. Sundays were a special treat, Starting with Rangoli in the morning while we sipped on tea and sat glued to those enchanting songs and were then reluctantly dragged off to church. But when we returned there would be entertainment galore waiting! Ramayana Mahabharatha….(mind you we couldn’t understand Hindi much but it still was a treat, what with all those colourful characters shooting arrows at each other!) followed by He-man and the Masters of the universe!! (and later Jungle Book) ..it went on and on,featured programs followed by films and finally wound up with “The world this week”( or was that a Friday?)
The above sequence would come on just before these programs would begin. We watched it every week, not knowing who those people were (except for Kapil Dev), mostly with full attention imagining wild imaginings in our childish imagination which I cant even begin to describe here, but sometimes impatiently waiting for the next program to begin! Those were the days indeed! (oh, our school figures in this sequence too)
Did I even think then that time would go so quick…all those days in school, when I just wished I would grow up fast, did I think that one day I would be sitting in a nation half way across the world and wishing that those days lasted just a bit longer or even that I would be old enough to be nostalgic!
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