This dew creates a different ‘darr’ – fear much after !!

Sure you would have seen the campaign ‘Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai’ – appealing to your emotion of something lying beyond our fear and actors displaying victory over fear with………………  On a hot day, when you are thirsty, body loses vital fluids and taking some water is essential – this could be plain water, lemon juice, citric juice, glucose, tender coconut, buttermilk. All these will do your body good.  But our mind is so tuned by advertisements that we tend to have a cool drink – a carbonated drink refrigerated – not any drink but the one whose advertisement appeals to mind.

In earlier days, there was Campa Cola, a drink of Pure Drinks Group, who were the sol distributors of Coca-cola in 1970s till they were asked to leave.  Campa cola was people’s choice for long till PV Narasimha Rao’s liberated policy regime saw the advent of Pepsi & Coca-cola.  Pepsi is from the stables of Pepsico.  Created and developed in 1898 and introduced as "Brad's Drink", it was later renamed as Pepsi-Cola on June 16, 1903, then to Pepsi in 1961.   This was introduced as a delicious drink that would aid digestion and boost energy.   In 1931, when Great depression haunted, this Company reportedly became bankrupt largely due to wild fluctuation of sugar prices.   It is often reported that during that decade, Coco-cola declined the opportunity to buy the Company.  It contains  carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, sugar, Phosphoric acid, caffeine, citric acid and natural flavors.

These carbonated soft drinks from Giant Manufacturers have virtual dominance over the local counterparts as they claim that their drinks are pure, extremely quality consciously made with automated processing.  Once in a while you hear of foreign particles being found inside the bottled drinks – that might hit the newspaper headlines – but have a natural death.  Such news perhaps never deters the common man from buying the drink nor would there by any news of improvements in quality by the manufacturer concerned. 

Darr ke Aage was the campaign for promoting Mountain Dew – the citrus flavoured carbonated drink of Pepsico.  Recently there is a law suit brought against Pepsi at Illinois  where an oil company worker stated that he was startled to find a dead mouse from a drink that he had taken from a vending machine.   He reportedly kept the dead  mouse in a Styrofoam cup and displayed it to his co-workers, called the Manufacturer.  His advocates state that this was done so that the company could stop production on the assembly line that allegedly snagged a mouse.  But it is stated that the representative of the company collected the dead mouse and evidence was since destroyed.  The soft drinks giant was sued for damages. 

The normal line of defense would be to speak of the quality standards and the checks that a manufacturer would have which would ensure that no foreign material gets into the manufacturing line and how their product is made, sealed and handled.  Virtually denying everything. 

It is reported that the company’s defense was totally startling – reportedly they said this could never happen for the Mountain Dew’s powerful ingredients would have dissolved the rodent’s body before the can ever reached the vending machine. By then, Pepsi’s experts insisted, it would have become “a jelly-like substance.”  Once in a while there would be e-mails in circulation that such carbonated drinks are not good for health and if one were to put one’s tooth inside a can of such drink, it would dissolve……. One used to wonder whether such stories had any base at all ?  - but now, perhaps the Company is claiming that ‘the drink is stronger than you ever imagined’. !!!  It would be very disturbing to even think of such a possibility !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.