New Moods Condoms ad: Congratulations, Team India. You nailed it!

After an idiotically fevered day, when Indians seemed to channel the same energy into an organised sport as they do into organised religion, India won the cricket match against Pakistan! Yes, really! Big, err... Well, big deal! (The word count of this piece would be a lot more if I did not believe that swearing is a lazy person's vocabulary).

Okay. So India won! I am sure it was good, happy Sunday entertainment for many but it appeared that for many more, their very existence had been temporarily validated - till the next Indian scuttled to find a place in front of the Western cameras, till another Bollywood film became a superhit overseas or till Modi shook hands with some ideologically compromised world leader again. In short, till the world circus fed them some more sound or word or visual bytes to make them feel good about their lives again, with another lofty victory, India had done it again.

And then what happened within an hour was little short of miraculous. Disgustingly miraculous, but still. I sit down in front of my computer screen to see an advertisement pop up on it. It is an ad for Mood condoms. An undernourished female model in a skimpy green bikini is lying down on a beige couch in what is supposedly a provocative pose. Her back is arched, she has hollowed-out cheeks, parted lips, heavy-lidded eyes, the works…

The copy is brilliantly done. No long-windedness, no meandering, no explaining, nothing extraneous at all. No. The copy is succinct, clever, pithy.

It just says - NAILED IT.

Below the image are the words: Moods Condoms

That's how to #PlayItRight

Congratulations Team India

This sorry excuse for an advertisement (and I say this even when we are used to seeing some really, really sorry ones every day) was probably "created" after "brainstorming" (yes, that is the lingo, from what I gather) by some bunch of clever, English-speaking people of a certain class who have high levels of belief in their own intelligence. Who probably mouth the right words about "women empowerment" when they sit down to have a few beers (men and women together, of course; they are the modern ones, after all),when the exhausting brainstorming sessions are over.

Nailed it! A losing cricket team and a "nailed" woman? Drawing parallels between the two?

This is the cool, empowered world view?

Cricket fever, jingoism and sexist rubbish cooking together dangerously in a crockpot?

This is "creative brilliance"?

I shudder to think of those storms in what passes for those brains.

Even if they wanted to be out and out commercial and capitalise on this grand win, (India defeated Pakistan, after all. It wasn't just cricket), could they have not avoided been so crass that the reader/viewer cannot even decide whether they are offensive or just terribly, pitifully dumb?

A Facebook contact asked me why I was so offended by this particular advertisement. "Not that I disagree with you," he said, "but give me one country where condom ads are not sexist." I agreed they are (for that matter, most advertising is). I realised that what was bothering me even more was that the "ad" was just the standalone image of a supine woman on a beige couch, with no indication of a sexual mood or ambience (not even in the usual slightly cheesy way that condom ads in India have - bedrooms, flowers, candles, satin sheets, blindfolds etc; the standard bedroom sensuality). There is also no presence of a lover, no man's embrace or touch. No, just this recumbent furniture-like woman in that passive stance with the accompanying words "nailed it", to my mind, smacked of non-consent. Or of a prostrate figure just waiting to be taken by the macho winner of a match. Seriously?

And talking of sexist condom ads, though I never remember any brand names, I can recollect several which might not have been brilliant but were certainly not offensive (also, they need to be sexy, because condoms are about…er…sex?) Showing the visual of an entwined couple is not sexist, showing happily-jingled advertisements where perpetually happy-looking women are always doing the laundry and the cooking is.

Another Facebook contact asks, "That is the most suitable form of positioning marketing targeting an Indian brain. (inserts smiley here) What to do?"

I am aware how advertising and consumerism work, thank you. Where does it stop, then? At what level of violence, political offence and sexual violence does one begin to hesitate? At what level does one finally draw a line? Perhaps one could actually be creative? Witty? No? Too much effort? Well, stick to writing jingles then. A couple arm in arm could stand smiling blandly in print with the tagline, "We can sleep because we used condoms so there is no bawling baby." Or any other random idea. Why ask me? I am not a copywriter. As a reader, writer and consumer, though, I will like, dislike, relate to, or find content offensive.

And yes, before I make the huge error of forgetting, thank you, all you modern, empowered female models. Thank you so much for your focus on your careers, thank you for all the wonderful work you do, thank you for helping our capitalistic, patriarchal system uphold our noble values of misogyny and mindless, sexist consumerism, in the process undoing a million daily struggles that your countrywomen go through.

Congratulations, indeed, Team India! You nailed it.