'Humein to apno ne loota; Gairon me kahan dum tha; Hamari Kashti wahan doobi; jahan paani kam tha.'
Above lines fit perfectly on Nitin Paranjpe, the MD of Hindustan Unilever who went into depression after his much hyped 5-crore fairness challenge was won by CBI’s special product “Clean Chit”.
Of all the fairness obsessed people in India, CBI was the last name he could have thought would accept his challenge.
Almost three months back ‘Fair & Lovely’, a fairness cream by HUL launched a nationwide challenge and bragged about their ability to provide whiteness and fairness that cannot be matched by any other product in the market. Little did they know what is in store for them.
“We had created our terms & conditions in such a way that nobody would be able to win this challenge. Even if somebody claims the prize we had drafted enough legal tangles angles in the contract which will ensure that we can pursue the case in courts till 10-15 years. The rate at which rupee is falling, 5 crore would reduce to 50 thousand by then. So it was a win-win situation for us,” explained Paranjpe.
But then suddenly some babu named ‘Gorelal’ working in New Delhi office of CBI claimed that their ‘Clean Chit’ was more effective than Fair & Lovely. To substantiate his claim, he produced examples of various politicians and ministers whom CBI has given clean chits in the last 10 years. “It even successfully cleaned up the coal stains from MMS’s face,” explained the babu.
Although initially taken aback, HUL top bosses have started their investigation and are not denying the involvement of foul play.
“We were confident that in India, nobody gives a damn about tall claims made in advertisements. Previously we threw 1 crore challenge (by Pure It) that went unclaimed for 2 years. We doubt that ‘Yami Gautam’ (the lady we signed for the advert) is behind this claim. She has been going around asking people Agar aap challenege jeet gaye to 5 crore aapke, lekin mujhe kya milega? Batao batao,” explained an insider source.
At the time of filing this report, HUL had filed a complaint against her in Tees Hazari court. The judge has ordered a CBI inquiry to investigate the matter. CBI is likely to give a clean-chit to her soon.
