Years ago, somewhere in the 80s, sex and anything remotely associated with it were a taboo in the Indian drawing room.
I still remember when I was in class three, I had chanced upon a Doordarshan commercial, probably Nirodh. The ad would show a boy and a guy meeting each other and going out (with their parents' approval of course), getting married and post marriage the guy giving extra care and attention to the girl, to the extent of reaching out his hands for hers when she climbs down the steps! The clip ends here with perhaps a voice-over and a tagline -" to love is to care, to care is to share". Before blacking out a pink small box would be shown with some fine print flashing by which no one in particular would give any thought, nor was the time sufficient to catch the fine-print (remember these weren't the days of you tube where one would have the luxury to pause and read out the text as some do nowadays with the vanity cards shown after every TBBT episodes).
Anyways, on one such occasion when my dad was around and this ad happened to be aired on TV, in a perplexed manner I asked him whether he thought it's a chocolate ad like me. The change on his countenance and my mother's easy repartee from the adjacent room ("this is what happens when you allow kids to watch TV") was sufficient to tell me chocolate ads don't create such reactions from adults.
Fast forward some decades and here we are - a liberated society with practically nothing a taboo in the drawing room or dinner table.
I had collected a few print ads, of the 90s advocating condoms, which I think which bears testimony or as a bridge between the earlier puritanical approach to the recent explicit ones..
The Snake - I found this one extremely intelligent and playing upon the concept of "original sin". It clearly breaks the tradition of not listening to the age old wisdom since not all forbidden things are sinful..
The Swimmers - This one explicitly challenges to go ahead and accomplish the task.... it definitely plays on the subconscious to be a go-getter and trend-setter!
The Devil - This one acts out as the devil's advocate. Whoever had designed this, I firmly believe, had come across the extremely popular ONIDA TV ads during those days (neigbour's envy, owner's pride) and cleverly creates this promo as a continued spin off of the devil in the Onida TV urging one to be possess rather than it being possessed by the neighbour..Absolute genius is what I would say..
The last two once again a series of ads getting bolder for its times and almost urging folks to break free from their traditional moulds.. I wonder whether someone has a collection of the evolution of such ads in the Indian print media.
