What do people buy motorcycles or scooties for?

The best advertisement I have ever seen for a two wheeler was not even an advertisement – it was Gregory Peck ferrying Audrey Hepburn on a Vespa scooter in Roman Holiday. Period.

When I saw the movie in 1977 at Kanpur, I understood what a two wheeler was for. But neither was I Gregory Peck nor could I locate Audrey Hepburn. It is another matter I did not have money to even book for a two-wheeler (Vespa, Lambretta, Rajdoot, Jawa, Bullet), notwithstanding the interminable wait.

However, I did learn that an advertisement depicts implausible scenarios.

But the level of unreality in present day two wheeler advertisements is way beyond a step or two of implausibility. They are impossible.

Now, people buy two wheelers, motor cycles in particular, to be in the embrace of one’s love interest after bouncing over rocks in an off-road setting; slicing through a muddy patch; trundling down steps in a narrow lane; splashing through a puddle of water; lassoing a herd of wild horses to clear the road; leaping across a narrow street, from roof to roof; weaving through between parked automobiles at a traffic signal; doing a Abhishek Bachchan / John Abraham in Dhoom, but going one step further, not with a custom-made 500 cc or more monster but with 125 cc midget.

Young women, of course, have no reason to be macho, but scooties have to be sold. So, a bevy of bewitching beauties go on a night on the town, on pink scooties (the color is very important). Unfortunately, they have to wear a helmet and there can be no “wind in the hair shot” in the ad campaign. But who asks, if the PYT bought a scooty and cast off the helmet?

Nowhere do you come across a tired salesman, with an office bag slung across his shoulder and on to his back cursing the traffic, riding to his next appointment; a man ferrying his wife and two children to visit his brother-in-law on Raksha bandhan / Bhaiya Dooj; two guys carrying (one of them simultaneously driving) some construction item, say an oversized wooden plank. These are the things I thought people use their two-wheelers for, but I now stand disabused of this notion.

And, I think we have laws on “Truth in advertising”.

Raghuram Ekambaram