Failed to Nail my Nail-Biting Ritual!

No More Bite"- Nail enamel did work brilliantly only for a few days though. I used to find it so bitter in those early days that anything I ate with my fingers would taste bitter. So nothing was Finger-licking good! Now it doesn’t taste as bad and I have started to like the taste which of course is duly defeating the whole purpose of why I apply it.

I started biting nails when I was in high school. My dad would bite nails whenever he sat in front of his PC and back then best imitation always was a talent well appraised . So whenever mom asked me to show ‘how dad does at his desk’, I would promptly-proudly show off my skills by actually biting my nails off.


Ever since then I have been biting nails and have been successful in reducing its size to half. Sometimes I bit it so hard that blood would ooze out of the edges and I couldn't eat anything hot or spicy with my hands. People say that you bite nails when you are scared. But I bit it for no reason. while watching television, listening to lectures, talking to friends, before dinner , after dinner. every time. It is more of an involuntary action in a comfortable position, which is usually my desk where i can rest my elbow on the desk and bend the arm in such a way that it is right next to my mouth. So usually one can find me with one hand on the mouse and the other in the mouth. eeeshhh!!!

At times I get so engrossed in biting I don’t realize that my head would have bent in a way cats do while eating fish! How horrible I must have looked and how disgusting it must have been for people to watch an ugly chewy head. Whoever has caught me biting nails might have thought a 100 times before ever shaking hands with me! So many a times mom has hit my hand when biting. Relatives, friends, neighbors everybody asked me not to bite and I never gave heed to what they said. Still after years, the count of which exceeds the count of my abominable nails, I still do bite. I have promised to many people and taken resolutions on the beginning of every new year ! But I have agreed so far with the fact that resolutions and promises are meant to be broken!

Two years back I met with an accident and just before falling out of the vehicle in which I was seated, I hit the handle rod that gave a internal crack to my front tooth. The tooth was quite sensitive for some time and I could not drink too cold or too cold,if I ever did then it would pain excessively. But even then I never refrained myself from chewing nails!

When my engagement date was fixed, I panicked and was overwhelmed with self-disgust! I was scared and ashamed to show my ugly filthy fingers to my would-be hubby. That’s when I decided to grow my nails and let myself out of this self 'infliction of pain'. But I had to do something about the nails for that D-day. I purchased artificial nails and glued it to the base of my nails , pretty confidently that it would stay unperturbed on them during the whole course of the event. It looked like a wig on a bald ugly mannequin. But the world was against me using false nails, I presume. Just before I stepped on the stage my would-be mother-in-law was supposed to take me by my hand to the podium and Bam! there it was ! She held my hand and all those pieces of plastic fell off my fingers and my nails were bald again when I reached the stage. !!

Recently my friend who is averse to my nail biting habit got me an Revlon nail enamel that is too bitter to be brought anywhere near the face. But the bitterness did not stand strong against the years of hard work and efforts my tooth enamel has been bearing to keep my nails short and trimmed always!

Well, that’s it. looking back and over the years and bestowing glory upon my feats, I have finally made up my mind to stop biting. It is a conscious effort willingly applied to fulfill the wish-list of my dear ones.! Hope I do succeed in this deed to show that I have a strong will-power and also that I do care for myself as well as for those who care for my nails. My nail’s well-wishers.

Ad-Hawkers

Sometimes what you have in abundance can make you fall prey to failure. Anyways,
One ad which really was very captivating in the recent times is the Happy Dent ad where in they show that chewing the gum makes your teeth so white that they can replace a bulb in the night! The concept, visualization is so very well framed and of course backed by a fabulous sound track. The same goes for the Vodafone ad which features the cute kiddo and the pug.. happy to help. Ad making is not an easy business. When a 10 second of ad can cost lakhs and in that minimal time period the whole concept of the product, usage, value of the product, how it is different from other competitors, punch line everything has to be brought in in a very effective way to capture the audiences’ eyes and mind.
I bet that 65% of the buyers of the product in the market are those who are sold to the product’s advertisement. These people are the total Risk Takers who are so much appealed by the ad that they instantly buy the product because it is new. Sometimes buyers buy the product because of recommendations by their friends, neighbors, colleagues . thay are the safe players. they also go through the product review published in newspapers, internet , user experience etc.. they are Choosy! There is another class of buyers who buy because their kids or other family members are forcing them to do so.

To make a product appeal to the audience, the ad maker has to (I’m not an ad maker but say probably I would ) think of so many varied stuff.
1. User / target audience
a. Teenagers, adults, senior citizens
b. Upper, middle, lower class (though the definition of the class has changed, I still use it to broadly classify between the Ambanis, Bachchans, Tendulakars, Wadias, Premji,Revankars Prabhus etc by their annual earnings)
2. ad jingle
3. The visuals (I can think of Lipton Taza where all green and white in the ad)
a. Shooting location (it has to be the tea mountains of Darjeling)
b. Colors used in the ad(a gal dressed in green and white salwaar) has to match with the product wrapper(green coloured tea plants on)
4. The audio
5. The concept – story line, dialogues, punch line.
6. Comparison with other competitors in the market
7. Product Company’s stand in the buyer’s market and share market
8. Already launched successful product by the same company
9. Brand ambassador for the product. l
10. The cast ..kids or gals or guys or both or all

Sometimes a beautiful face can sell anything and sometimes they don’t.! Jogger’s Park starrer Perizad zorabian advertising for cement ad is one thing which I loathe. How can some pretty faced model can add any value in a cement ad when the competitors use elephant to convey the strength of the cement?
The soft-drink ad makers seem to make their ads with the theme of their competitors. When Coco Cola came up with blue coke, Pepsi never left a moment to mock coke about it, in their next ad.
Also remember Wheel washing detergent powder? Well, another detergent ad made this very clear in their ad- ”wheel se mukti paavo, lo trishul apnaaoo”. However, Surf always seem to come up with original innovative ideas.
Master card ad is so wonderfully made..”There are something money can’t buy for everything else there is master card.” How inspiring that ad was.How can we not think of “Sar Utha ke jeeyo” of HDFC standard life insurance where an old man gets down a train rejecting the offer his son gave him. I remember when my FIL wanted to take an insurance, and when the company people came to tell about the various offers, he asked them tspecifically what was the plan which says ‘sar utha ke jiyo’ and he took that up. See how each mad makes an impact on the viewers mind. The Master card ad had me and the latter had my FIL buy it.
Finally I like to sign off with this Monster ad ! Cheers to all those creative thinkers who bring out a new dimension and value add to the products and services we use daily, making it a matter of pride to consume them.
“Caught in the wrong job, log on to Monster”
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