Children’s minds are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression. And when it comes to education, children perceive the whole world around them as their teachers, so it is very important to keep the little things in mind.
In this day and age, especially in India, self-made English experts breed by the dozen. It’s not an uncommon sight to see a ‘Poma’ bag in the train, or ‘Adibas’ shoes, or ‘Child beer’ being sold at the roadside dhaba.
Tanmay Shah from FridayFictionFilms made a short film incorporating the same theme, to spread awareness about how even little mistakes which might look harmless to you, can affect a child heavily.
A child looking at these misleading advertisements gets really confused and starts questioning everything he’s taught.
“One thing which has always fascinated me in Ahmedabad was the way billboards were designed and the way people write their company names on it. One of the most prominent observation I had was most of the billboards in Ahmedabad had spelling mistakes, especially the ones written in English. I felt it doesn’t portray the city well,” Tanmay Shah told Storypick.
Wrongly spelt billboards, hoardings, shop name boards, and other paraphernalia are a result of innumerable memes on social media since a very long time.
Tanmay Shah further said, “In 2015, I came across more than 50 billboards in my surroundings that have wrong spellings on it.”
But he saw a little change in his surroundings after his short film was launched. One of the billboards featured in his film had their spelling corrected.
Tanmay said, “Today, as I was passing through the same place, I found to my surprise that the owner of the shop had revised the spelling of “Designer.” It was amazing to see how it really impacted him in a positive way to take care of communication and the purpose of our film got served.”
You can see his full short film below.
This is a great way to nudge people in the right direction and the angle taken is really refreshing!
तलफ़्फ़ुज़, the word itself holds magic in it! ✨