By Ranjona Banerji

I’m taking off from next week and staying with the advertising industry since it is also “news” as some Indian media organisations have told us for years. Also, you cannot escape advertising if you watch the news or read newspapers and magazine. After careful consideration and consultation with others, it is clear that Priyanka Chopra’s “chip chip” ad for Garnier remains the most annoying on television. It comes on so often and with such clever cross-channel planning that you are forced to watch it unless you jump up and run every five minutes. By this time, the sun, the dog, the grass have all started looking extremely embarrassed at being made party to the ill-matched song and dance routine.

But close to this one are those with annoying children like the rude boy in the McCain’s ad. I don’t see why he deserves to be treated with various kinds of fried potatoes. He should stay in his room downloading food while his family has fun without him. Next is the little girl in the Cadbury’s ad who is smiled on indulgently/ protected for not wanting to share her chocolate. (I am far more generous. If anyone gives me a chocolate product made by Cadbury’s I promptly give it away.)

Today’s newspapers say that table manners are becoming a thing of the past. The advertising industry has long known this which is why it is particularly fond of promoting messy eating. People who eat Cadbury chocolates not only give each other long and profound looks while discussing vegetables they don’t want to eat, they also manage to get half the bar of the chocolate they’re eating all over their faces. This is an Indian rule I think and also applies to eating ice-cream. To save money, these ads should be joint ventures with washing machine/washing powder companies and maybe even whatever Garnier is selling in that “chip chip” ad.

Then there are irritating mothers – based on the general feeling that the advertising industry specialises in mothers you want to murder. The Kellogg’s mother, who does something as amazingly innovative (sarcasm emoticon please) as putting almonds on top of a bowl of cornflakes, wins the current round of MYWM. If Kellogg’s only sold their variety of cornflakes with almonds in it in India, she wouldn’t have to be quite so smugly clever.

An award has to be given to both Rahul Bose and Mahesh Bhupathi for agreeing to tell us that their mouths are full of germs. This is courage extraordinary. Also, for the ungrammatical manner in which they both say: “and much less germs”. Since both speak very good English the rest of the time, one assumes (or hopes) that Colgate paid them a lot of money.

Vodafone’s attempt to make old men cuddly and lovable after Tata Docomo’s portrayal of them as curmudgeonly and crotchety should win an anti-ageism award at one of the next 1,000 award ceremonies the advertising industry seems to organise. At which, the best actress award has to go to Anushka Sharma for not only being convincing in selling cameras, internet services, scooters and so on but also for beating Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra and all the rest of the stalwarts for successful grabbing of TV time.

Currently, there are several ads for a film called Cocktail starring, I think, Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. I saw a film called Cocktail once. It had Tom Cruise in it. Any relation?