I was flipping through Good Housekeeping (ok, reading the recipes) yesterday and guess what I spotted? An ad for 'India's No. 1 pre-school chain' Eurokids which literally had me shivering in my pants. Now I don't remember the exact text and I thought I'd scan it an post but then this blog would've been written next year. The copy goes somewhat like this: While painting children tend to mix up colours. At Eurokids we ensure they don't.
The visual (again if I remember) shows a blue mango with yellow leaf. To me the Blue Mango looks perfectly cute. Appetising even. But obviously at Eurokids they want mangoes to be yellow and only yellow. Considering I'm frequently taking A's crayons (kaiiiiyooons) and colouring Bob the Builder (Bobbbiilll) pink and red (not blue and yellow and as shown in the sample pic), I'm really thanking my lucky stars for having left preschool and all such things far behind. This is because I've a history of 'incorrect colouring' going by Eurokids' philosophy. Throughout school I loved painting skies orange and rivers brown and suchlike. Don't read too deeply into this now as my friend An, the psychologist might. I'm not such a rebel in real life. In fact, the exact opposite. It's only yummy looking crayons and sketch pens that bring out this rather reckless colourful side of me. I could almost imagine (a small and shrunk) me in Eurokids being shouted at by watchful teacher with a bunch of right crayons in her hand: Paint those mangoes yellow NOW. You are going the Indian Author Writing in English Way. We've chucked all those blue mangoes and red earths from here earlier!
Jokes apart, I wonder if the power-that-be at Eurokids have figured out the message that this ad is giving out. I guess what they are really trying to convey is that every child is well looked after and there is a good teacher-child ratio. This is all very nice but it's coming out completely wrong. Somewhat dictatorial. Very 1984. Big Brother is watching you type. I wish someone tells them that if they haven't figured it out by themselves yet. Now bye bye while I go paint Bobbbbiill's house crimson.
7 comments:
This is scary. Even if it was by accident. There's always a chance of a Freudian slip.
Shiver. Handing kids over to schools must be the scariest thing ever for parents.
Kahini
i agree! i guess the message got lost in the transition. anyway euro kids is not all that great as it's hyped up to be. just a glorified creche IMO. but then they did manage to get tara to stand on a stage and perform. hmmm!
Its funny u say this.. The Mad momma (themadmomma.blogspot.com)has also posted about the same ad.
Ditto Ditto Ditto !
Kahini: Yeah probably unintentional but scary nevertheless
Aqua: At least full marks to them for that! :). Personally at the end of the day I thnk what makes or breaks a daycare/preschool centre are the people/staff there and not the chain or brand.
Bluespriite: Thanks I'll check Madmomma out. I'm not surprised that others have posted. Have you seen the ad? It's quite irritating esp if you are parent
Yo, I tagged you !
Nope but I can imagine. Esp because teachers are supposed to gauge (in some fashion at least)about the child's internal struggle with this form of expression.
My sis, at one point, was colouring everything black.. and that led her teacher to call my mum to figure stuff out.
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