The Pizzazzy

Amul Butter Girl is soon to enter Guiness book of world records for the oldest running ad campaign. Launched in 1967, the Amul girl has been titillating the minds of the common Indian by dealing with contemporary issues from politics, sports, society weather, art, entertainment etc.

Utterly Butterly Delicious one liners have always been the traffic stoppers, eyeball poppers for many years. Although placed at common landmarks and heavy traffic spots, they were very subtle yet powerful always touching the core of everyone. Although the Amul girl in the ads is only a four year old she turns forty this year and last year with only a budget of 2 crores spent on the ad campaign it made around 500 Crores in revenue from the sales of the butter.

Simply staring at you from a billboard at the signal, the Amul girl makes an impact with the tacky liners on anything and everything Indian. Just to run through some of my favs

Sree Shant Raho! on Indian erratic bowler ShreeShanth
BUTTER TOUILLE on Pixar’s hit movie Ratatouille
In kam Tax Zyada when the income tax increased
VAT lag gayi when VAT was introduced
Brad Butter a Jolie good snack on Brangelina’s India visit.

I was interested to know what has been the latest on the billboards and came across this web site. Check out the complete list by year at http://www.amul.com/hits.html

Hope that Amul girl finds her place in the Records books. It will be one great achievement for something completely Indian from the product to the name, from the Ad to the sentiments. Amul truly the Taste of India.

The staple food of Manipur is Fish and Rice. And the common belief in this part of India is that eating fish develops the brains. Mom constantly told us this and made us eat fish, not that we didn’t like it and we grew up believing that our academic success had something to do with eating fish.

Eating fish regularly also gives good skin and hair as fishes are high in oil content. And fishes are the healthiest in the non-vegetarian section.

By the way fish is not considered non-veg in Manipur. Even my very orthodox grand parents eat fish but do not touch eggs. For auspicious ceremonies also fishes are prepared. Somtimes fishes are offered in prayers also. This is so unlike the tradition in other parts of the country.

Even though there is rarely any shortage of fishes as usually people have private ponds in the rural parts, fishes are so commonly used that they are made available round the year by different ways of curing. In fact there are many small scale industries associated with curing fishes. Commonly used methods for curing fishes are salting, drying, smoking, grilling, pickling. Then the fishes are stocked away for use in almost every dish. Treating fish and meat in these methods adds a different flavour and also ensures availablility of fishes at all times. In fact all the preparations with vegetables or pulses are also enhanced in flavour by adding fish. Manipuri recipes are unique in nature and very healthy. I’ll dwell into the different Manipuri recipes in some other segment of posts.

For today let me share what I read in a news item. Studies have proved that fishes are high on omega-3 fatty acids and these are essential for brain development in foetuses and newborns. It is proved that eating fishes regularly helps develop the brain in babies. Mostly fishes like Sardines and Salmon. This reminds of the popular line “Mum told me…”

But some fishes like King mackerel, swordfish contain high level of mercury, these fishes are to be avoided by pregrant women and nursing moms as these may cause harm.

In case you are wondering at this fishy post well… after the chicken rice post I needed to jerk myself awake into the world of my favorite diet: Fish and Rice.

What is this that I read? Himesh Reshammiya the-composer-turned-singer-turned-actor is turning into an English rock star. Yes, for the past few minutes the MSN live has been popping up this headline. Finally, I said let me take a look. I can’t stop laughing imagining Himesh in his new Avataar, he has already started considering himself a big bollywood star.

The news item says, yes news item, these bollywood stars do make the headlines. Okay it says, Himesh is going to perform in an international arena singing the english versions of five of his most popular numbers.

Can you imagine a Cap less Himesh singing “You made me Crazy, you made me crazy, you made me crazy” over and over for 5-6 minutes. Then “show me a glimpse, show me a glimpse” for another 5 minutes. That would be his popular songs “Aashiq Banaya Aapne” and “Jhalak Dikhla Ja”. And the icing on the cake for all Himesh fans is that he will be performing without his cap. Is the mystery of the Cap which has eluded thousands of Himesh fans finally going to be solved?

Himesh you do make us crazy.