What a (rotten) Idea, sir ji!

Yet another Indian festival is coming up, and like every other brand, Idea has decided to make a new advertisement for Raksha Bandhan.

Every year, Idea has been making ads on everything that plagues the nation. Corruption, Cultural Differences, Overpopulation, Illiteracy, and Environment.

Each and every of those problems, solved by some half shit idea that wouldn’t be published in Champak, and a smug Abhishek Bachchan at the end smiling like he pooped an Oscar statue in the morning.

Now, I don’t have anything against bad ads. Pepsi has been making shitty ads since decades. Brainless montages of clips and punchlines that have no link whatsoever to each other. There’s no harm in that (except to MJ’s hair).

But it is pretentious ads that make me puke. And I don’t really see a point in it. I mean, it’s not as if you are educating the people about the problems of the country. Neither are you putting forth a serious (or even a funny) solution to the problem.

Instead, all the ads have asinine hypotheses like wives watching 3G on their phone to reduce population, or people using their phone numbers instead of their names. Which not only makes a mockery of the problems in the first place, they mock our intelligence. It is not interesting, it is not funny.

It is plain stupid. The kind of thing I would make my enemy watch on his deathbed.

With Rakhsa Bandhan coming up, the think-tank drink-drank at Idea Cellular decided to come up with another idea.

In this ad, a girl is riding towards somewhere, asks a cop for directions, and then ties him a rakhi. In the end, in the same smiling, pompous tone like in all their ads, we are told what a brilliant idea it is.

It is not, sir. It’s a fucking stupid idea.

Here’s why.

1. Cops are assholes.

The police is supposed to be the protector of law. The ones who enforce that everything goes in order and no one harms anyone else, and perfect law and order is maintained.

But in reality, the cops are hated. They are scoffed at, loathed, feared. Anything but respected. And with reason.

I have never seen one, not one, policeman who is polite, and seems like he is paid to follow some rules, and is not fucking Zeus.

The cops are bullies, modern day bandits who go around in their vans, immune and fearless – shouting, beating, bullying, and extracting money from anyone who they see fit, on that particular day.

No one questions it, no one says a word. You keep quiet and avoid a cop at all costs. I have seen young Home Guards – hardly 25 – abuse and slap an elderly gentleman. Films like Dabbang give the image of a cop a halo, making it even more acceptable that a cop can enter a room and start beating up people. No one finds any problem with that.

The government pumps in money, fuelling their vans, so these fat, unfit, uncouth bullies can go around striking fear in the hearts of people.

And no one says a word.

Transparency International, in its Global Corruption Barometer 2013 survey, that tracks public opinion on corruption, reported that about 75% of the country thought that the police was corrupt. Second only to political parties. Also, 62% of the respondents said they had paid bribe of some sort to the cops. Also, the figure for annual bribes paid on the road in India is 4.5 million dollars, and Transparency International themselves say this figure might be understated.

But it is not really the corruption that is unsettling about the cops. It is the impunity with which they treat people – like thieves and slaves.

But then, that’s not the only reason your idea sucks donkey balls. Here’s the second.

2. Cops don’t give a fuck about women.

Keeping general behaviour aside, cops mutate and transform into monstrous assholes when there is a woman involved.

You may get away with a few hundred rupees, or a litany of apologies, but take a walk with a girl at night, and you are walking around with a can of worms. They will haul you up, ask you for identification, your parents’ numbers, and generally talk to you as if you are a pimp and a whore, taking a walk in the night.

You have to watch how cops look at a woman in a police station, even if most times it is she who is the wronged one.

And before you accuse me of basing my opinion entirely on personal experience, kindly google up on crimes against women by policemen themselves. Forget sensitivity and a sense of duty, even basic courtesies aren’t observed.

An intelligent system identifies a problem, and tackles it in the most efficient manner. Crimes against women have been reported everywhere, even causing ripples in the heart of power in the country.

Do you think anything at all has been done, anything at all, to even solve a bit of the problem?

Zero. Zilch. Shunya.

On the other hand, Salman Khan, a criminal who ran over people, will star in Dabbang 34, Sanjay Dutt will star in Policegiri, and Ram Charan, who asked his bodyguards to beat up two software engineers on the road last month, will star in the remake of Zanjeer, where he will play a cop who beats up people.

I am sure he’ll be natural in the role.

And still, no one says a word.

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So dear head honchos at Idea Cellular, if you could step out of your boardrooms and have a look at the real world, a world that isn’t infested with Bachchans, you’ll realise that the girl would stand in front of a raging bull, than approach a cop. No good can come of that.

And oh, you should fire the guys who make your ads for you.

They’re fooling you. They’re whoring out the biggest problems of the country to you, making you seem like an educated, concerned conglomerate. Do you have an idea that you seem like a bunch of no-brainer idiots, parading around with your lazy, hair-brained ideas, that have no link to the product you’re selling?

No? Well, how about you get idea?