Adyasha: Who thought you’d see a recipe in an edition of Manifest? But we’re feeling rather festive.

So, here’s a time-tested, much-loved recipe for a Diwali ad in 2024. Gather your ingredients, your media money, and your briefs (taste may change according to client feedback).

Ingredients:

100 gms woke.

1 Dadaji. Preferably sans Dadi.

Bacche – Swaad anusaar.

Emotion – 500 gms.

Random teenage girl – to make rangoli.

Female VO starting with – Iss Diwali, apno ke saath. Akshay Kumar – If budgets allow

Vada pav girl – If it’s a Swiggy Ad (Sorry, M!)

Mix well. Get treatment note from four production houses. Pakao well.

Serve hot.  Mayur, taste and tell me what you think?

Mayur: A, Adya, Asha, this is guaranteed Nirasha. Sun (Hindi wala sun)! Give this a stir. And let me know how it burns.

In-greedy-ents:

1 kg raddi - Burn ALL film scripts in a fire. Doused with enough kerosene to create a scene.

1 kg sugar - Sieve, grind, throw it away.

500 gm bhut jolokia - Tossed in gunpowder. Now we are talking. What will set the world on fire, is the only ingredient that matters.

10 kg - Why and what! Why the eff should anyone take notice? What’s in it for anyone?

100 kg - Dekhi jaegi. Guts mein dum (G mein D, but in English).

Serve on fire - Fingers must melt, tongues must wag.

It could all go spectacularly wrong. But what if it doesn’t?

1,000 Kg Popcorn (mixed, warm, buttery) - Sit back, watch the world burn.

Adyasha is stunned into silence. Mayur, just gave her the entire recipe. But forgot to add that how the recipe turns out depends completely on the chef. So I could repeat it, sure. But if I were to do that, my innocent little kitchen would swiggfty swifty blow up into smithereens.

“Is this how the multiverse of meme-ness came out, Mayur?”

Mayur looks away. “No comment” I might talk about this in my Koffee with Karan episode.

Tomar is creative director, McCann Worldgroup, and Hola is vice president - brand, Swiggy. This first appeared in the October issue of Manifest. Get your copy now!