Meet the team behind the 'jalebi' Dhara commercial

Adman Jagdish Acharya at his Andheri office PicRane AshishIt was the time just after the economy had opened up Television sets had still not found their way to many households and owning a cable connection was a luxury The Indian consumer had just begun to grasp the meaning of choice And to introduce him to that television commercials of the rsquo90s played such a powerful role that even today long after theyrsquove gone off air they can unleash a flood of emotions at the slightest prompt mdash be it the Hamara Bajaj jingle the lsquoI love you Rasnarsquo punchline or simply the word jalebiStills from the commercialA little boy in denim dungarees arrives at the railway station sulking Hersquos decided to leave his home because ldquosab gussa karte hairdquo he tells Ramu Kaka an avuncular character Ramu Kaka informs him that mummy has cooked ldquogarmagarm jalebiyaanrdquo at home The kidrsquos eyes light up ldquoJalebirdquo he says with a squeak salivating The plan of running away gets scrapped instantlyIf that feels like yesterday this Dhara Oil ad completed 20 years recently We caught up with the minds and the face behind the iconic ad to relive their creationThe Dhara boy all grown upThe conceptualisationldquoTo give you an idea of how this ad came about Irsquoll have to take you back to Indiarsquos oil market of the rsquo80srdquo Jagdish Acharya the brain behind the commercial tell us seated in his Andheri office ldquoEdible oil used to be subsidised but the consumer often fell prey to black marketing and hoarding The government ultimately asked the National Dairy Development Board NDDB to launch an oil brand that could be sold at a fixed price at all timesrdquo he explainsHowever some years later the oil market like many other sectors got deregulated ldquoBut even then people saw Dhara as a rationshop oil that had to be cheaper than other brands The NDDB however had to ensure the farmers got the right price Soon Dhara sales dropped to a thirdrdquo says AcharyaIn 1996 Acharya who was vice president of the Mudra Group in Ahmedabad and was heading the account management department a role far removed from the creative process was roped in to salvage Dhara ldquoThe NDDB headed by Dr Verghese Kurien had been our client for a while and some good commercials had been produced But this was a crisis and we needed all hands on deck The brief was simple do something to motivate people to buy Dhara at competitive prices Get them to forget the past and reinvent the brandrdquo he sharesThe making and the glitchesIt took months of brainstorming to crack the winning idea mdash food had to be portrayed as the gamechanger in the family capable of turning around a bad mood and winning emotional battlesldquoMy idea of a little kid running away from home got approved but it became what it is because everyone involved pitched inrdquo recalls Acharya ldquoThe scene was originally supposed to be set at a bus stop but Namita Roy Ghose and Subir Chatterjee of White Light Moving Picture the production house that was filming the commercial suggested that a railway station would be far more romantic Our external creative consultant the wellknown Kamlesh Pandey also gave us valuable guidancerdquoAcharyarsquos mother contributed too ldquo lsquoDonrsquot use kachoris to tempt the kid Children donrsquot like spicy food and no one in South India knows what kachoris are Use jalebis insteadrsquo she saidrdquo smiles AcharyaAnd that brings us to the adorable and expressive child actor Parzaan Dastur ldquoWe realised on the day of the shoot that for some reason we couldnrsquot work with the kid who had been selected for the role And there was no way we could reschedule the shoot given the constraints We knew Parzaan from some earlier assignments we had done with him and he had shown great maturity for his age We contacted him and he was availablerdquo recalls Roy GhoseFinding ParzaanDastur who was four then fit seamlessly into the role ldquoIt was all completely unplanned I walked into the Kamalistan Studio right after school my stomach growling For the very first scene I had to grab a handful of jalebis and gorge on them What else could I have asked forrdquo says 24yearold DasturldquoWe were glad that we were allowed the time to let the chemistry develop among the characters One of the reasons the ad struck a chord was because of the way the bond between Ramu Kaka and Bablu showedrdquo Roy Ghose explainsThe commercial timed at 50 seconds much longer than the 30second TVCs of the time ldquoBut the client loved it and understood the pace the emotion running through the ad requiredrdquo says AcharyaHowever soon after it was aired the Advertising Standards Council of India slapped a notice on the ad agency Someone had filed a complaint that the ad was a bad influence on children for it encouraged them to abscond Those were the days of children attempting Shaktimaan stunts ldquoWe sent an explanation saying how our focus was family bonding The council it seemed liked the ad toordquo quips AcharyaAmusingly though a child of an NDDB employee who enjoyed watching the commercial did run away only to be found shortly after When the NDDB employees approached Dr Kurien regarding this his reply was ldquoFantastic That means the ad is workingrdquoThe Dhara TVC went on to air for five years and Acharya felt drawn towards the creative process In 2009 he started his own agency Cut the Crap in Mumbai where he draws from his experience in both client management and conceptualising storylines Roy Ghose and Chatterjee continue to make ad films Dastur decided to take up acting and took a professional course for it He also learnt filmmaking and worked with Dharma Productions for a while to understand acting from behind the camera He has worked in a few commercials recently and has auditioned for roles for the big screen ldquoI donrsquot know whether my face is still the same or people have a really good memory or both but even today people recognise me as the Dhara childrdquo says DasturTwenty years laterHow have things changed in the last 20 years we ask the Dhara team ldquoThings have changed and yet theyrsquore the same The emotions are the same even as media has splintered So today the Dhara commercial would be much shorter on TV but can afford to be a twominute film onlinerdquo explains AcharyaBut in this age of media bombardment would there ever be ads of such recall value ldquoBack then a lot of effort went into the story picturisation and the product organically found a spot in it The screen time given to the actual product in the Dhara ad was no more than a couple of seconds but everyone recalls the brand Thatrsquos no longer the case and you see a tasteless brand overkillrdquo says ChatterjeeAcharya has a different view ldquoGreat commercials are still being made and in much bigger numbers So the pause between two good ideas has disappeared Ten years from now you may remember one ad and someone else would remember anotherrdquo he saysThatrsquos perhaps a rational explanation but wersquod like to believe there was a certain magic in the commercials of the rsquo90s and the jalebis undoubtedly sweetened those memories