Fevicol ads always have an amusing storyline, with a quirky little
denouement. The almost bizarre co-relationship between the adhesive properties of the product and the situations being depicted creates the conditions for humour. When you see a bus load (which includes the roof top and the sides of the bus) of people rollicking through the deserts of Rajasthan, with not a soul popping off the impossibly poised ensemble, you know it to be a snapshot out of rural Indian transportation, taken to outrageously funny limits. And yes, the bus has Fevicol on board. It is quite the same when you see a mother seat an unruly kid atop an empty can of Fevicol, post which he remains stuck to the container. Or even that impossibly outrageous spot where a wayside cook can’t crack an egg to make an omelette, because the chicken feeds from a Fevicol can. The latest Fevicol ad makes the script stretch farther, following the usual quirky theme, but with a twist that has many intended, and perhaps some unintended, implications.
The ad traces the life of young girl through adulthood and beyond. She is a little girl in a school play when the ad opens, playing the role of a man, possibly some historical hero; she has a pair of mustachios pasted on her upper lip (with help from Fevicol, obviously). The mustachios do not come off even after the play. When she gets her picture snapped at her village photo studio, the photographer replaces the male Bollywood prop with a female star. She goes through with her nuptials sporting the moustache; she even turns mother sporting the symbol of masculinity, hilariously upturned in the fashion of nineteenth century Rajput fighters. When she finally lies on her deathbed, she ... no! does not get rid of them. What’s more she is shown reborn with the moustaches strapped to her upper lip. Here’s a bond that survives death, as it were!
Apart from the humour that obtains of the incongruity of a woman sporting a pair of mustachios (based on classical Aristotelian prescription on what constitutes humour), the ad initiates another level of enquiry. In a country such as ours, where gender roles are watertight, especially in the rural swathes of the hinterland, transgression occurs primarily through popular culture. Even within the domain of popular culture it is usually though carnivals, festivals and slapstick that gender positions are channelled. Song and dance sequences featuring the village belle are the site in Indian cinema for the overlord (usually the villain) of the village to be challenged. The raunchy lyrics accompanying the dance sequence usually make snide insinuations; importantly, the girl can sidle up to the overlord or at times even dance with her feet resting against his shoulders. These transgressions are understandably notional.
The girl’s transformation, though symbolic in the Fevicol ad, does present at the level of representation a strongly implied gender inversion, which visually one is forced to accept. Gender roles will take a while to set themselves right in this country, but in small interstitial spaces, like the one occupied by this ad, little challenges are continually mounted against our male dominated society. If we are alert, we will notice them all the time.