If Ekta were to get her hands on this, she would change it to ’Kklose Up ’Kklose Up Kkyun Nahi Kkarte Hain’. She would also throw in a soppy background tune (either her collection of dhun-tana’s or her a-aaaa’s).

Also, she would shoot it differently, portraying a crying female and a husband hurling accusations, while countless members of the family watch with a dumbfounded expression on their make-up laden faces. Luckily, some places are devoid of Ekta.

The first time I saw the commercial, it seemed very funny to me. The concept is about a girl walking down a street nonchalantly. Tall, dark (can’t say anything about the handsome part though) guy notices her and waves frantically, blowing her a kiss. Repulsed by the strong odour emitting from this guy’s mouth, the girl runs away and then finds solace in the arms of another guy who can blow icy, refreshing sprays from his mouth. So it was quite simple. The jingle goes like this:

Kya Aap Close-Up Karte Hain
Ya duniya se darte hain
Aur ’penalty’ bharte hain
Aap Close-Up Kyun Nahi Karte Hain

This ends with a line saying, ’Saans chale to baat chale!’, OK, Lyla, for your sake I will write down the translation. It is a very rough one, though. What can I say, I’m not a professional translator.

Do you use Close-Up
Or are you scared of the world
And you pay the penalty
Why don’t you use Close-Up.

There. Now, I found the jingle to be catchy. Certainly, it would not find a place in a Greatest Hits album, and I would not be murmuring it days on end, or tapping my feet loudly to the noise at a formal dinner. But it was still catchy.

The video is nice. It uses a fresh wave of colours. It is small and simple. I snorted the first time. But after that, I slowly started to get sick of it. Luckily, the channel did, too. And they took it off air. That all said, I would like to comment on the originality of the commercial.

To my relief, I have found no child riding on a motorcycle and shouting ’Hoodibaba!’ at startled passers-by. The commercial was also able to make me shift to Close-Up from sadharant toothpaste brand!