When I woke up choked from my sleep!

The nephew, in his first couple of years, had built the habit of taking his afternoon nap with me. Well, I understand the fun and the need to sleep in the afternoon, which I ignored (unfortunately) in my childhood days. And so does my sister. That's why, she insisted that my nephew should sleep in the afternoon so that he doesn't regret not doing so in his later years.

So, both of us are blissfully sleeping after hours of story book reading and coaxing the little devil to sleep. Now, babies crawl and climb on you unintentionally. No offense there. But, he found a better way. In his sleep, on this day, he didn't climb on me. Instead, he rested his little head with spiked hair on my throat comfortably. Interestingly, the head and my throat fit beautifully.

Photo Credit: www.dreamstime.com

I was having some weird afternoon dream where I was about to enjoy my ice cream but suddenly I find someone strangling me to prevent me from having my ice cream! I panicked and screamed in my dream and wake up scared. Oh! Thank God, it was only a dream and why do I still feel choked and why is that something scruffy? And to top it all, I am not able to move myself. Then it finally dawned upon me, the little sleeping baby had found himself a comfortable fitting pillow! :)

How this simple story of Ogilvy’s new advertisement melted my heart and left me misty eyed

Ghar ka khana, ghar ka khana hota hai (Home cooked food is home cooked food after all)! A scroll down my Facebook news feed one day caught my attention on a post that said, Ogilvy & Mather's new advertisement is bit long but you wouldn't regret watching it. The brand is Fortune Oil, this time.

I love advertisements. Totally. So, out of curiosity about the interesting story line and love for advertisements, I watched the 4 minutes 38 seconds ad. It has a Grandma visiting his grandson in a hospital who is not allowed to have any food that is cooked outside. Daadiji takes effort to walk up to her grandson everyday with the help of a walking stick, asking the attending nurse to let her feed him the home cooked daal (lentils). Priya, the nurse refuses her every time Daadiji requests her to feed only do chammach daal (two spoonfuls of daal) because it is not bahar ka khana (outside food) but cooked at home. Daadiji keeps insisting in various ways, either by saying that her grandson used to drink bowls of daal after he used to come back from his evening games, playfully saying I love you to Priya so that she melts but her efforts continue to go in vain. Priya does not comply and keeps rejecting until one day, she finds herself eating Daadi's cooked food on the occasion of her grandson's birthday. The next day, when Daadi comes with the same tiffin box containing daal, Priya is seen greeting the old lady with warmth, leaving her surprised. Daadi, on seeing Priya about to feed her grandson the same hospital cooked daal, makes another attempt to request her to feed him the two spoonful of daal. Her voice sounding choked now. Priya initially hesitates but goes ahead to close the door and asks Daadi to feed that ghar ka bana daal that her grandson has been longing to have. Daadi is overjoyed on hearing the same and wastes no time in quickly opening the tiffin box and feeds her son the home cooked daal. He also reaches out with shaking hands and drinks straight from the box after the two spoons are fed. The film ends showing Fortune Oil's new brand statement, ghar ka khana, ghar ka khana hota hai.

In the words of Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia, "I believe it is one of the finest pieces of work that I have written. It has to be a very brave client with a very big heart to make a commercial of this kind. I salute the entire marketing team at Fortune for making this happen. I am also hugely grateful to Vivek Kakkad and my own partner Sukesh Nayak, for bringing this story alive. Enjoy, and have some home cooked food!"

Yes, my eyes were moist when the film ended. My voice choked for a few seconds. My heart was filled with the warmth and love that all of us long for from our loved ones, especially when it comes to home cooked food. Daadi's adamant nature of convincing Priya to let her feed her grandson showed how important are these relations in your life. No matter how much you try, the love that you get from your parents and grandparents is irreplaceable. In my case, I still regard my grandmas’ cooked food the best in the world, and claim that not even my mom can beat them. Their food had more love and warmth and they can soothe your depressed and anxious heart and mind in seconds.

O&M’s advertisements always have a charm in them and they are pleasant to watch always. Their storylines, concepts and visualization with the perfect actors make it appear magical on screen. This particular one will always stay amongst the top few advertisements that I like and will enjoy for a long time.

Credits:

Brand: Fortune Edible Oil & foods

Client: Adani Wilmar

Chief Operative Officer: Angshu Maik

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather India

Chairman: Piyush Pandey

Group Creative Director: Sukesh Nayak

Vice President: Saji Mathews

Production House: Curious Films

Director (film): Vivek Kakkad

Producer: Shahzad Bhagwagar

You can watch the advertisement here.

Content Source: Campaign India

Eating @ Earth Plate

When the Earth’s cuisine came to one single plate!

They don’t say Thank God it’s Friday just like that. There are absolute and nice reasons behind it. This particularly Friday, we the colleagues, ganged up against one nice other colleague who was to treat on occasion of ummm….many many things. She successfully completed her Research course and officially turned into a Dr., followed by successfully completing her driving course and received her driving license and buying a brand new car and oh yes! She also successfully completed a year in the company. So, to celebrate her successful completion of many things, we asked her to treat us out. She just couldn’t say no. After all, it was only to celebrate her successes!

Since it’s a Friday and no one in the team is in no mood to work, we realised may be the food will wonders and bring us back our dedication. So, not deciding to go too far, we thought of exploring a new restaurant in HSR Layout, Bangalore that calls itself, Earth Plate. We’ve noticed this restaurant on our way back and had always wondered, so many cuisines at one place?? We have got to explore this place.

We reach and our super-food enthusiastic boss runs up the stairs to book a table for us. No buffet for us, he declared. We will go al-a-carte. And there we went deciding what each of will be having:

I ordered a Syberian Sunset (a cool and refreshing drink made of orange, pineapple, peach and apricot, topped with soda) for my drink while another colleague ordered Blue Island Ice Tea (a delightful crush of litchi, peach, apricot and mango with a dash of blue curacao topped with cranberry juice), a sweet and juicy rip off of Long Island Ice Tea, I suppose. The others, read the Boss and the treating host, our PhD qualified in this case, settled for sweet and salt Lime Soda.

Syberian Sunset

Blue Island Ice Tea

Vegetable Chimichanga (flour tortillas stuffed with jack, Colby cheese, cottage cheese, shredded carrot and capsicum, rolled and deep fried served with Spanish rice and Latino set) was my main course, two others ordered Stuff Mushroom in Smoked Barbeque Sauce Sizzler (Mushroom stuffed in spinach and cheese, served with smoked barbeque sauce accompanied with potato wedges and herb rice) and Grilled Chicken Sashlik Sizzler (cubes of boneless chicken served with rice, sweet and sour and Garlic Sauce) and lastly the good old, Chicken Biriyani. So this was a mix of food from all geographical zones. Truly, the earth was there on one table!

Vegetable Chimichanga

Stuff Mushroom in Smoked Barbeque Sauce Sizzler 

Grilled Chicken Sashlik Sizzler 

The food was good, and the ambience too. Only that it being a Friday, the place had office teams from all over. Well, guess we were lucky to have found ourselves a table. The foods were served a little late, for understandable reasons. The next time I visit this restaurant, I am going to try out the buffet menu, now that I am convinced about their quality of food.

Address: 1, 14^th Main, 17^th Cross, Sector 7, HSR, Bangalore

Zomato: http://www.zomato.com/bangalore/earth-plate-hsr/info#tabtop

Cost: Rs. 900 for two people (approx.)