Ah, the Innocence of Childhood!

Now that I have successfully embarrassed my "old ancestors" now is the time to embarrass the siblings and assorted kids in my area!!!

The following incident highlights how advertisements influence kids!! I am really going to need Z category security after this as it related to my brother, and the stud that he is, this will not do his reputation of a chick magnet any good :)... the only reason I can chronicle this here is because he is saat samundar paar at the moment and by the time he comes back I have time to find my way back into his good books :)

Ok, so here goes, when we were kids, Hindustan Lever ran ads for the shampoo "Clinic Plus" where a girl shampooed her hair and when she walked her hair would sway and there was blue halo around her hair, my sister and I managed to convince my mother that we needed to have that shampoo and so the bottle was duly arranged. That evening we had shampooed our hair and all was well, except that my brother seems to have a perplexed expression on his face, he asked us to "please shake your head", we did as told, but still no go...after much cajoling he said, "In the ad the girl has a blue halo around her after shampooing her hair, you guys have been ripped off, no such thing around your head!!"...

The second one also has my brother in a starring role :), a big shoe giant had introduced a new kids line of shoes with some very catchy name (though I have forgotten it now, old age you see)...the advertisement had kids wearing the shoes and walking not only on the floor but on the wall and even the ceiling...my brother made a very careful case as to why he absolutely must have a pair of those particular shoes... the case was decided in his favour and a pair was arranged for him...I have no words to describe the depths of anguish felt by the poor child when he realised he had been ripped off and that the shoes only allowed him to walk on the floor and not on walls and ceilings!!!

Now it is time to embarrass the assorted kids...There is a tree right opposite my house and every summer it has tiny yellow flowers, which fall off the tree and there is a perpetual carpet of yellow flowers under the tree...now the kids in my area are connoisseurs, they will not pick the flowers that have fallen down, they will stand under the tree and wait for fresh flowers to fall and then run to catch it before it touches the ground, the way in which they catch the flowers makes for some interesting watching, given that the flowers are about half an inch in size, you would expect them stand like a fielder on the green with his eyes on the ball, ready to catch, but noooo, they have their hands spread wide apart like they are expecting a jackfruit to fall into their arms!!!