Safar Badnamah Season 1, Episode 13: “Public Buses & their Cheap Songs and Shampoo Rivalry”

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Heba Moeen 0 Comments



At times I wonder what the exact target audience is for outdated cheap and weird songs, however, if you have had the chance of travelling in a public bus you would know. I am still not amazed to know that quite a lot of people around me haven’t been in a public bus or rickshaw for that matter . . . Rickshaw?!! Oh common give me a break! How can anyone not sit in that joy ride, the flying jet rickshaw, I just love the old version not the CNG one that crawls inspite of it’s wonderful spacious attribute.

Some make an excuse that they cannot wear the duppatta the way I wear to have to travel in a public bus or that their parents won’t allow them no matter how much they are genuinely interested . . . For the first one . .. What’s wrong in covering your head and tying your hair at least while being out? To me a traditional look is modernism and then the ‘running short of time, flying buses’ are fun to be in as long as you are sitting.

Yesterday while I was waiting for the bus I witnessed outright stupidity; it was some PPP rally with hundreds of bikes adorning the so called ‘double sawari’ and that too with police vehicles for their safety, what was more annoying was the fact that it was 9:40 and my stupid bus had still not come after waiting for about 15 minutes and I felt like blowing the cars that slow down to honk their horns at the very place. Anyway, this was not the first time when roads got blocked at Dou Talwar, there are times when these idiotic politicians pass by in their ‘rip off nation and buy BMW’s’ to make their presence prominent and waste our valuable time on the road. If they ever get to bring their bulky selves out of their cars they would know how it feels like wasting our time.

Anyway, I got into the bus to find some old Indian songs being played and I must say old is not always gold . . . I recalled the time when some awfully cheap songs were being played by the bus driver and I simply cannot forget them, just imagine the silly lyrics and the person who wrote these:

“Maira dil chahey tujhe kiss karoon lekin public kharee hai, mai kiya karoon!” It was a series of cheap songs; I don’t remember the rest though.

Oh God! What goes into the minds of these people?! And then there was another one: “Chitthee aa’ee hai aa’ee hai, chitthee aa’ee hai” . . . that made me wonder the last time I would have written a physical letter, thanks to emails that isn’t needed at all anymore and that shouldn’t be needed hopefully.

“Hum tou chaley pardais hum perdaisee hoga’ay . . .” . . . “Duflee waalay duflee baja!” The last one is stuck in my head since a week now . . . when I’m sitting alone, this one pops in my head and can’t stop bugging me, it gets so annoying, thankfully it didn’t reprise in my midterm.

I don’t remember the exact line but it was very catchy . . . the one put up by McDonalds about their Rs. 100 items mentioning their cost effective purchases in just this amount, however, the amount might be their USP, the quantity has been reduced substantially, it’s easy to lose customers this way.

Then there are these billboards by Sunsilk and Pantene with the former trying to win the self invited competition with their cheeky monkey line, “Tried & Decided”. What effect would these brand wars have on consumer buying decision and influencers? None maybe . . . people will buy the shampoo they have been buying or the one that suits their hair. It’s more of a “My baby is cuter than yours you weird mom! style or “Mairay bachha ziyada gora hai”.


 Photo Courtesy: www.theideaartist.com

They have placed their billboards at every other place where Pantene’s is even when they changed their message they are there opposite or in front of their competitor. When notorious kids grow up to be marketers maybe this is what happens. .. :) 

Maybe it's never too bad to pull each other's legs  but that won't have a profound effect on the ultimate consumer . . . 

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