From Granny to Kurien. Review on Amul Butter

Utterly Butterly Delicious is the advertising jingle for Amul Butter. The jingle has a beautiful rhyme Utterly Butterly, and the operative adjective is 'delicious'. The jingle means something is 'Butterly' and it is 'Utterly' 'Delicious'. This describes Amul Butter without anywhere mentioning the name.

Amul is a brand name, and a very popular household name. But, it is something more than that. All brand names are not based on the success story of the product. Some brand names are created to sell the product. But, Amul is the success story of the cooperative effort of hundreds of individual milkmen/milkmaids whose efforts are energized and coordinated by the Anand Diary, established at Anand, near Ahmedabad, by Dr. Verghese Kurien, the visionary, who introduced white revolution in India and made it a success. You should visit Anand to see what can be done by the efforts of the village people, coordinated by one man. And he was Dr. Kurien. He had proved that the rural people also possess management acumen. This has been reflected in the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). Once I had gone to Anand as a candidate for the position of Director (Education). I was interviewed by the Selection Board, and was to meet Dr. Kurien. Then I was the Director of the State Resource Centre for Adult Education (SRC) at Angul. Mr. Anil Bordia, the then Joint Secretary in charge of Adult Education in the Ministry of Education & Culture somehow came to know about my interest in a Director's job at Anand. He called Kurien and told him that Mohanty was needed at the SRC, which was at its formative stage. It would be easy for Anand to get someone equally qualified as Mohanty, but it would be difficult to get a person like him at the SRC, Angul. So, when I met Kurien, he thanked me for coming to Anand. He further told me that my services were more valuable for the SRC in Orissa. We would have been happy to have you here, but SRC's gain is Anand's loss. Never mind, in the larger interest of the country, we have also a duty to make the National Adult Education Programme (NAEP) a success. Saying this, he directed his PA to hand over to me a packet containing money towards my TA, and gave me a standing invitation to visit again. I had a comfortable stay at the Guest House and left for Orissa en route Ahmedabad the next morning. I wrote to Mr. Anil Bordia saying that I gave up a 5-figure-salary job because he wanted me here.

Amul is a grand diversified enterprise. There is Dahi, Cheese, Srikhand, and Mithai. There is butter sold in the tin, and also butter sold in small packets. The taste of Amul Butter is really delicious, the jingle apart. It has driven out from the market butter of other brands. You enjoy the taste of Amul Butter when taken with crisp toasts. It is also added to the knead for baking Cakes.

As a child, I used to take a lot of fresh butter when my grand mother was churning Dahi in a big pot. This scenario is still a reality in some rural areas. I used to drink a lot of butter milk (Ghola Dahi in Oriya ) with drops of lemon and Jeera powder in summer. Despite the grand success Amul Butter has achieved, can it stop the grannies in the villages in churning Dahi and get fresh butter ?