It is quite strange and funny how the system in our country works. For the last couple of days I have been watching a series of advertisements promoting social causes sponsored by the National Rural Health Mission, a department under the Government of India.
As per me, such ads should be promoted by all television channels free of cost and their more than those stupid deodorant and underwear ads in which there is a competition between the male and the female model(s) as to who can expose more skin?
So, what is so amusing about promoting a social cause you may ask? Well, these ads are aimed at people living in rural areas or the mofussil towns who are not educated enough to understand that a girlchild should not be killed in the womb or that child marriage is harmful to the health of a gairl as well as illegal.
But the problem with all these ads was, hold your breath--- they were in ENGLISH. Is the NRHM so dumb that it cannot even identify its target the language its audience speaks? They show ads set up in a rural background but surprisingly the villagers speak fluent English. Are they in their senses?
It looks so damn funny that you just cannot take the poor villagers seriously. Just imagine two women attired in a lehenga-choli drawing water from a well in a village in Rajasthan and talking about family planning in English.
On top of it these ads are being aired on English news channels when a majority of villages in India still do not have a cable connection and they only get Doordarshan. Is not this a wastage of public money?
Even if these ads are aimed at those less privileged who come to the metros to earn a living as a mason or a daily wager, does the NRHM seriously expect him/her to tune into Times Now and CNN IBN? And even if (s)he does, would these people hailing from Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar etc. understand a word of what is being said?
Well like many policies, rules and laws which were made in the bygone era and are protected by the babus, no one paid any attention to this too. Just because an ad is being aired on an English channel it has to be dubbed in the same language, no matter who the target audience is, This is sheer lack of common sense.
This is mere dumbness and stupidity on the NHRM’s part.
