World’s most disgusting advertisement!

Yup, this is probably one of my most disgusting posts ever. Not that the others have smelled of pine trees. (The association with pine fragrance is going to be clear soon)

This post is on the Harpic advertisement that used to be ‘aired’ (pun intended) on national TV. The advert story runs somewhat like this. A visually perturbed Roshan Abbas armed with a microphone and a camera crew, barge into a Gujju household asking a star-struck-wide-eyed housewife whether she has been having problems cleaning her potty. (Does this ring a bell? If not, you have blocked it successfully!)

Well, what happens next will make you throw-up your meal from kindergarten. Roshan then barges into the toilet. (He must have been paid a ransom to do this) The camera focuses on the most revolting yellow-stained-dirty-godforsaken-radioactive potty that you have seen in your … sorry you would have never seen such a monstrosity. (Hell, you could even smell it!)

Roshan then offers to pour Harpic into one half of the pot. (You begin to feel sorry for Roshan by now!) And hey presto! We have a potty with a split-personality staring you in the face. Most of us are choking on our vomits by this time now.

An amazing fact about this advert was that it used to appear on TV exactly when you would have sat down with your dinner. Thus helping the cause of millions of dieters around the country. Well, the advert ends with Roshan ‘passing’ (pun intended) comments on how good Harpic is.

Well, I have unsuccessfully attempted to collect pictures of the advert from the net, but it looks like other people too have blocked this heinous creation from their memory. Very recently, there was a hue-and-cry over an Amul Macho ad. What about the psychological consequences of ads such as these? I for one have been scarred for life having watched this!!

Global Warming?

Well this is one topic on which being objective would be near impossible. In all the debate that is raging across the world, I find that there are two highly polarized factions. There is a group of ‘Global warming doomsday conspirators’ and also a set of critics who believe it is nothing more than rumor-mongering. The doomsday conspirators may be starting to gain an edge over the critics given the Inter-governmental Panel of Climate Change report.

I will only try to bring out a few facts here. Hard Facts!

1. CO2, which is one of the many green houses gases, has increased from 250 ppm, during the pre-industrial levels, to 400 ppm. This has been termed ‘anthropogenic green house gas emissions’. In other words we have helped nearly double the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Models are ineffective in predicting what final increase in average temperature it will have. But it is an established fact that, there will be an effect, most likely a warming. How much? We can’t say!

2. Given the enormous effort required to reduce the emissions, this is likely to continue. This means we will keep on adding to the 400 ppm. There are ways in which the CO2 is sequestered, but the increase would be despite that.

Given the fact that we are changing the Equilibrium, we call nature, it is therefore established that there will be consequences. Are these consequences going to be as grave as the doomsday conspirators are making it out to be? I think not. I also don’t think that they will be as mild as critics say it will be.

There will be consequences.

Do read up this page on Global Warming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming