[Reader-list] P. Sainath :Where India shining meets greatdepression (The Hindu)

[Shivam Vij]

>What struck me most in the ad, was the word "tan".

The ads, I think, are not only about being subjects of the market
economy but there is also a strong element of class in them, and it is
played out in the images rather than the text. The women in the Brand
Equity ad are not described by words - Sainath says they are probably
landless labourers. But I think they are more likely to be urban
household helps - the sort we all hire for a few hundred ruppees, who
do work that costs so much (in per hour terms)  in the US that Indian
immigrants are aghast they have to clean their bathrooms on their own!
The appearance of the 'models' (and I wonder how much they were paid
for the assignment) without description plays on the English newspaper
reader's middle class 'gaze' of the urban poor.

S.