The Hindu Business Line : The bilingual pun

I think it was a line in one of Mouli's plays going back to the '70s - `where there is a vil, there is a way' which comes readily to my mind as a superb example of a bilingual pun. It must have involved Lord Rama making his move to land in Sri Lanka from across the waters, shooting an arrow to help form the bridge. Tamil speakers will easily understand vil for `bow' and the humour is thoroughly enjoyable for all those who can relate to English and Tamil. The bilingual pun is probably heard more in one-liners in movies and plays but it has potential in certain forms of advertising, especially outdoor.

The pun is stubbornly `low-brow'; my English professor in the late '50s used to dismiss it as a figure of speech thus: `men of class will give it a pass.' The first time I noticed a bilingual pun used in a big way was in the '80s and it had to do the launch of a brand of cheese from Hyderabad. The media chosen was outdoor (hoarding) and the caption said, "Kya cheese hai!" and introduced Vijaya cheese. The provocative headline did catch one's attention.

My interest in the outdoor medium stems from the fact I always associated it with Air India and Amul. They continue to use them at unchanged locations throughout the country and they are perhaps the only ones to adopt line drawings, even today resorting to hand painting of their ads. They have tended to be topical with a touch of humour. It was Amul which experimented with the bilingual pun more often and with great effect. I still remember after the World Cup Foot Ball event many years ago which Argentina won; Amul's hoardings advertisement simply said "Marad hona tho Maradona." There is plenty of scope to use English with similar combinations of other regional languages in purely local situations.

Hoardings strategically located with minimum clutter can enhance the urban landscape. Well-planned and regulated, they not only lend colour but also soften the monotony of roads and brickwork. And a touch of humour is well worth the trouble as it can bring a chuckle to the scooterist or motorist. Where the audience in most urban locations is fluent in more than one language other than English, the bilingual pun can be of great help in registering a brief message successfully. We now have examples of the bilingual pun in all mainline media also. The latest worth mentioning is the TV commercial for Cadburys Perk Chocolate where the God of death (Yum / Yama) is bribed by a bar of Perk and the model Preity Zenta gets a fresh lease of life - his enjoyment is conveyed by his comment "Yummy!" He adds "Yum-me!" as it sounds like his name! The bilingual pun format has great potential and scores well on memorability.

(The writer is President, Telekonnectors Ltd.)