A Brew to Rue

A certain coffee brand has taken it in its head that a coffee-making machine, together with milk and sugar, is not quite enough to relish its brew. So, it has enlisted the help of Deepika Padukone—and her skinned hips—along with a shaker. Perhaps, she has great mixing skills, you say? Well, you may be right. She does mix around rather well. She mixed around with Ranbir Kapoor, then with that Kingfisher guy and thereafter, she left them both with a whole lot of trouble: Ranbir had trouble explaining what he did to her and then to Katrina Kaif and God-alone-knows who else. And as for the Kingfisher guy, poor fellow! His father's company crashlanded into bankruptcy!

Deepika, on the other hand, cakewalked into several films and managed to prove how one can not act and yet cause no trouble with collections at the box office.

Perhaps that trouble-free act of hers got this coffee brand to sign her up for their coffee-making ‘tutorial’. So, there she is—before and after every 10 minutes of Dharma and Greg, The Wonder Years, and several other television serials—shaking away to kingdom come. Yes, she does whip the shaker into a frenzy. But I don't understand the reason why she puts in so much of effort to shake her hips as well. I have used a shaker, you know, and apart from my hands and my belly, I didn't manage to move anything else—least of all my hips—to get my brew shaken and stirred.

But I may be brewing it all wrong. For Deepika—if the tutorial (that also happens to be an advertisement) is anything to go by—does a whole lot more to get that frothy brew the way it has to be. She shakes her hips, gives you the come-hither look, lets her hair down, gets her skirt to fly, and then stops mid-air to allow the accompanying jingle to coo: "I'm waiting for you baby!"

Once she hears that, she jiggles all over again and allows an ice cube to roll down on her and then into the coffee! And the beverage's ready! All this in less than a minute!

I really doubt anyone has bothered to do all of that in less than a minute for the sake of a cuppa! With my newfound belly, it'll take me at least five minutes; and after that entire procedure, I am quite sure I'll need more than just coffee to walk out of the house and get to work!

I am rather surprised then that this advertisement got made at all! It hardly needed intelligence, forget acumen, to be shot: Deepika merely had to gyrate to a rather raucous tuneless melody. And since someone in the production department thought she'll feel ostracized doing that all alone, Karan Johar and Purab Kohli were asked to stand around her and watch her performance. To think they spent more than a million on such a 'classy' production is scandalous to say the least!

And it will be even more scandalous if they continue to broadcast it any further. It is tiring to watch, has not a jot of repeat value, and leaves a bland distasteful froth in the mouth. And that froth—I'm sure—is exactly what the coffee brand will want to avoid.