12 episode TV serial!!!

Imagine yourself back when you were 8. A little boy/girl donning a red nikker and an oversized shirt (which actually emphasis the size of your parent’s love towards you), who enters this big pandal all set for someone’s marriage. (I wish I knew how to sketch I would have rather come up with a comic strip here).When every eye is on the Bride and Groom, you run towards the waiter serving the cold drinks and get your favorite BLACK drink. Now if you can actually feel that fizzy sensation going up your nose then you know here we are talking about the very Indian cold drink which combated against every international cold drink giant and which India is hooked onto, for three decades now.

ThumsUp!! O Yea, we are talking about the thunder here.

In year 1977 when the cold drink giant Coca-Cola had to say bye-bye to Indian markets, two very smart men Ramesh Chauhan and Prakash Chauhan, the Parle Brothers, came up with this idea of lagao an Indian tadka of Betel Nut to the American thanda and banao a super desi drink ThumsUp suiting the Indian taste.

So when you celebrate with family and friends or cheer for cricket players, ThumsUp goes “HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN”.

Even the ThumsUp logo has a story. Of course it is a Thumbs Up sign but no, that is not where it came from. The logo of ThumsUp that we see is actually the shape of Manmad Hill of Maharashtra. (duh! That is still a Thumbs up sign though and I wish I could draw betterL ). So pertaining to ThumsUp’s pahad wali tough qualities, it was then made popular as the macho drink. That means you would always see a (handsome) rough-tough ThumsUp man riding on horse/bike, performing brave acts, fighting the bad guys and still being good to them claiming “I WANT MY THUNDER”. (They also made him wear lousy ThumsUp T-shirt at times, eww..)

In year 1993 as the govt. had allowed the international companies to enter the Indian market, the panting beast Coca-Cola re-appeared. The smart brothers, ah… I mean, the Parle Brothers thought it was in best of their interest to sell ThumsUp to Coca-Cola while it was still offering to buy the company. By the time the deal was done another beast, Pepsi had also entered into the picture and was slowing capturing the market. ThumsUp was still leading the race. So Coca-Cola thought “Pepsi is anyways second to me in the world but because of ThumsUp my own baby is not able to win the race. So I should ask ThumsUp to opt out of the race so that Coke can win” (Bells ringing??). So, that is what they did. They stopped investing in ThumsUp altogether.

That was why one day, when you were in college, and were searching for your favorite ThumsUp

The Bhaiya replied “Nai saab ThumsUp toh nai hai”

At this Coca-Cola smiled, his plan was working.

But then that Bhaiya continued “Pepsi chalegi” (:D)

It was then that all the big hopes of the giant (Coca-Cola) were shattered. It realized “while in India, be Indian”.

It went running back to ThumsUp, said sorry, jazzed it by adding a little blue to its logo and there, ThumsUp was back with a bang. This time ThumsUp was way more adventurous, ready to take any challenge and Salman Khan daring you to “TASTE THE THUNDER”. And guess what, it worked!

Being good hearted as ThumsUp is, it also did a one to one with Pepsi for his brother Coke. Therefore in 2001 while ThumsUp was calling Pepsi “baccho wala drink” openly and Pepsi was busy in answering back, our Coke tried to capture the market its back. Howzzat?

Since then many brands retried or retired but ThumsUp kept its place so much so that now the Akshay ThumsUp Kumar himself would jump off a cliff, get all his bones cracked or even do parkour for that matter just to get his ThumsUp.

So once you have tasted the thunder it’s not easy for anyone to let go of the adventure. On that note I’ll take your leave as my ThumsUp Can just got over. But don’t worry, we still got more…

…because “Aakhiri ThumsUp, Wo kya hota hai?”

-Signing off

P.S. – If you were in hurry you could have skipped the comments in brackets.

P.S.S- Thanx Nammi