Patriarchy

Leo Coffee Ad - AR Rahman

If you are an ARR fan, you are probably aware of his pre-Roja ad jingle work and probably know this 1991 Leo coffee advertisement too well.  If you are like me, you probably have the avant garde bass line (avant garde even for the time when Ilayaraja's eclectic bass riffs reigned supreme) committed to memory and have tried to notate that psychedelic sounding key flute bit that provides beautiful contrast to the crisp tone of Veena Pacha's veena lead.  If you are at sea reading this, do yourself a huge favor and watch this ad.  You will see ARR's genius shine through so clearly that you will almost ignore the blatant sexism in the story depicted in the ad.  If you are saying, "what sexism?", and I don't blame you for it if you are, do go back and watch the ad again!  In case you are still missing out on the nuances, let me break it down for you.  Here's how it all goes down.

The lady of the house is the first to wake up.  She hurries down the stairs while tucking in the end of her pallu, indicating that she is ready to commence executing her long list of responsibilities for the day.  Clearly, she has already showered and is exuding an air of madi and aachaaram.  First, she lights the lamp.  She is then seen drawing a pretty complex, almost Van Gogh level kolam (rangoli) next to the front doorstep.  Suddenly she remembers the coffee filter in the kitchen and rushes to it.  Now here the camerawork is meticulous as it shows her extract the bag of Leo coffee from the shelf, place it on the counter, scoop up some kapi podi in a spoon, transfer it to the coffee filter, pour hot water, and secure the lid of the coffee filter.  Ironically, this task probably took the least amount of time compared to most of the lady's other morning responsibilities; which at this point are far from being completed because she is immediately seen rushing back out the front door and performing a short puja for the tulsi in the courtyard.  Next, she is seen walking back into the house with a big bowl of jasmine flowers, likely plucked individually and carefully from the flower garden.  She then sits and makes mini jasmine garlands, presumably for all the ladies of the house and last for herself.  Finally she gets a few minutes to dry her hair, but even that she has do while walking back hurriedly to the kitchen.  The meticulous camerawork resumes as she retrieves the first degree decoction from the coffee filter and transfers it to a tiny little designer coffee pitcher; an unnecessary step but no doubt performed under instructions by her mother-in-law or whoever, as it is a family custom aka "namma aatthula idhu thaan sampradayam" or some such drivel.  The pitcher is so tiny that she has to probably repeat this step for every family member that drinks coffee.  She then proceeds to pour the decoction from the pitcher to a tumbler and mix it with hot milk.  At this point, the dude, her husband, finally comes out of the bedroom holding a newspaper.  All he does at this point is take in a whiff of the coffee aroma and eke out an obnoxious "hmmm", approving his wife's coffee making skills.  In the next scene, the dude is seen sitting at the table engrossed in his newspaper, completely oblivious to all the elbow grease put in by his wife around the house before he manifested like royalty.  His wife, now decked up with a couple of the jasmine garlands she had made earlier, likely in order to look presentable in front of her husband lest he cared enough to glance at her, comes and serves him the coffee with the requisite amount of respect, bhavyam, meekness, admiration, and what not.

Patriarchy and misogyny are so ingrained in our social fabric that we don't even see it.  Here's a meme based on a scene from the show F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I recently came across.  This meme basically illustrates our inability as a society to understand the difference between patriarchy and kalacharam or culture, however granularly broken down and explained to us.  Many, for example, still don't find anything wrong with the below tagline.

Now, I hear you saying, "but that Leo Coffee ad was 30 years ago!".  Yes, agreed.  But honestly, how much do you think has changed in the last 30 years?  Granted, Prestige did eventually get on the wokeness bandwagon and change biwi to apnon, but I guarantee you, if you took a survey and asked people if they truly understood why this change was necessary, you will get mostly second-rate responses.  Here’s another example.  Remember Seagram's Imperial Blue's series of problematic "Men Will Be Men" ads?  If you have forgotten, here's a cherry-picked 'gem'.

Seagram's Imperial Blueu Ad

See the trouble with this ad?  The dude tries to grab a conventionally attractive woman's attention by pretending to help an old woman cross the street.  Once he finds this to be an effective tactic, he takes the old woman in the opposite direction to impress the next conventionally attractive woman, effectively making the old woman slog for him so that he could satisfy his ego and lust.  And when was this ad made, you ask?  As late as 2020!

We as a society have a long way to go.  And the problem isn’t confined to just Indian society.  It isn’t even confined to just adult society.  This problem is prevalent everywhere in some shape or form.  Even in children’s books!  For example, if you read the popular book series The Beranstein Bears, you will see that while the stories educate kids about sharing, manners, kindness etc. through the various conflicts and their resolutions between brother and sister bears, they almost always show mama bear busy cooking or cleaning while papa bear is relaxing and watching TV or something.  What is needed, at a minimum, is conversation.  Unfortunately there are still things that are deemed inappropriate and, in some cases, downright hazardous in public discourse.  Meaningful exceptions like the Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen (check it out here - https://m.imdb.com/title/tt13299890/) are few and far between!