Morbid Commercials on TV

Watching Bangalore Royal Challengers at times reminds one of death. Nothing seems to happen. Run rate keeps increasing but the batsmen barely go through the motion of playing. One wonders whether they are alive to the situation.

As though this is not enough, we are reminded every few minutes that death awaits us at every nook and corner. There is this commercial where a lady returns from shopping and keeps calling for her man ‘ Sanju ‘. There is no answer. The tap is running and when she comes to the balcony she sees that it is all chaotic. The shoes are helter-skelter and coffee is spilled on the floor. Then she comes near the arm chair in which ‘ Sanju ‘ is reclining with his head thrown back. She keeps calling his name , but he does not answer. She is scared like hell. Then she touches him. The man immediately wakes up. She tells him that he scared her and then they hug. As they hug there is a voice which says that troubles come without warning.

This commercial is from a Life Insurance Company. I personally feel that this is in very bad taste. Yes, everybody knows that death is unpredictable. It can happen any minute. But do we need to be reminded of it so often ? . I also noticed that it is not from our good old LIC . It is from a New York based company. May be I am wrong but I think it has to do with something American.

Decades ago I lived on a mountain forty miles from a town called Almogordo in the state of New Mexico in US. Incidentally, the town is where the first atomic bomb was tested. It was a small settlement with barely 10-15 families . We were all working on some experiment in astronomy. Anyway, the television on the mountain used to catch stations from EL PASO in western Texas , a town 3 hours drive from Almogordo.

One of the strange things on the EL PASO channels was frequent commercials for undertakers/funeral parlours.. I asked several people about it but I did not get proper answers. Then I thought that this must have something to do with the fact that it was all a part of wild west at one time. I do not know whether people see western movies any more. This was a rage with us and the directors always remembered to show the local undertaker’s parlor. Anyway I thought it was very unpleasant and morbid seeing these commercials night after night. But several people I talked to did not find it unusual at all. They told me that one should be practical and there is nothing wrong is being reminded about death.

May be there is nothing wrong with all this. But I really wish that next time I watch it  Sanju is more careful with his things and answers immediately when his wife calls him. As for Bangalore Royal challengers, it is more and more a matter of life and death .Mostly latter !