An utterly butterly delicious affair

KOCHI: In those days, he barely had the time to finish the advertisement with the girl with a naughty smile in a red or blue frock, and the catchline in bold letters. The whole city would watch the new Amul hoarding, giving a 'buttery' twist to the issue of the week. Often, before the paint dried on the hoarding, the new advertisement would land at the office of Outdoor Publicity in Kochi.
And for Lalu P S, the artist of the firm who painted Kochi's first Amul advertisement, it is a job that he never got bored of, for, the 'utterly butterly ads', laced with satire, were so funny that recreating it was never tedious.
"I joined Outdoor Publicity in 1978 and I painted the first Amul advertisement in the city in 1990. There would be a new ad every week. The firm in Mumbai which created it would send two copies by post -- a colour and a black and white one -- which would be enlarged through our hands. The next ad would reach our Kochi office before we could barely finish the last touches," Lalu said.
The painter, with assistants, used to start working very early in the morning and finish the work within 24 hours. They were displayed near the Shenoys Theatre and Atlantis. "There were months when ads were painted five times. Atlantis is the only place in the city where Amul ads are displayed now," he said.
"There were many admirers, especially Hindi-speaking people from the Navy, who would stop their vehicles to watch us working. They used to request us to show the paper version and then laugh enjoying the advertisement. Except the 2011 ad, using V S Achuthanandan calling Rahul Gandhi Amul Baby, there were hardly any ads related to Kerala. Themes were mostly related to national politics, Bollywood and sports, but were catchy enough to make passersby stop for a close look," Lalu said.
Arrival of flex material in 2007 put a full stop to Lalu's career as a painter with the firm.
However, the company offered him a job as an office assistant, and he continues to watch new Amul ads arriving every week.