A Pepsi too Far!!!

Coca-Cola recently completed 140 years of existence, which, for a drink consisting largely of sugar, coloured water, and a formula guarded more carefully than nuclear launch codes, is not bad going at all.

Invented in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton as a refreshing alternative to coffee, Coca-Cola has since risen from humble medicinal beginnings to the status of a global deity. There are tribes in remote jungles who may not know the capital of their country but can identify the Coke logo from three kilometres away in dim light.

I often ask my students why marketing professors speak of Coca-Cola in the hushed tones usually reserved for saints, freedom fighters, and retired cricket captains. The answer, of course, is simple. Many companies sell products. Coca-Cola sells emotions, nostalgia, happiness, friendship, Christmas, American capitalism, and occasionally, if time permits, soft drinks.

From a nutritional standpoint, Coke contributes approximately the same value to human health as eating sweet sugar pills. Yet millions consume it with tears of joy in their eyes. That, ladies and gentlemen, is marketing.

The company’s famous line” that there are places where water is unavailable, but Coke is not” sounds at first like a cheerful advertising slogan. On closer inspection, however, it resembles a declaration of planetary dominance issued by a highly sophisticated empire.

Last year, Coca-Cola Company reported revenues touching 48 billion dollars, which is larger than the GDP of nearly 100 countries. There are governments which, if Coca-Cola executives sneeze during quarterly meetings, begin checking their fiscal deficits nervously.

The disaster began, as many great disasters do, with student volunteers carrying trays. At first everything had gone splendidly. The auditorium was full, the microphones were functioning, which in itself bordered on the supernatural, and our distinguished guest from Coca-Cola India sat upon the dais radiating the serene confidence of a field marshal inspecting conquered territory.

Then came the refreshments. To this day, I maintain that the students were innocent. Young minds, though energetic, cannot always grasp the intricate blood feuds of multinational beverage corporations. To them, cola was cola.

And so, smiling brightly, they placed before the Coca-Cola executive... bottles of Pepsi. What followed cannot adequately be described as surprise. I have seen people react with greater calmness upon discovering cobras in bathrooms.

The lady’s eyes widened to dimensions rarely achieved in nature. Her expression suggested that she had just witnessed the assassination of civilisation itself. One almost expected distant thunderclaps and the sound of cavalry bugles.

She turned slowly towards Dr. Madhusudan Kota a former Coca-Cola man and loyalist of almost medieval devotion and began whispering with the urgency of a wartime intelligence officer reporting enemy troop movements.

At that point I understood that immediate action was required if the institution wished to survive the afternoon. I summoned a volunteer with the desperate authority of a ship captain ordering lifeboats lowered and instructed him to remove the offending bottles before the guest decided to quit.

Our explanation, though truthful, did not help matters. “Madam,” we said weakly, “Coca-Cola is not available in the canteen.” She looked at us with the sorrow one reserves for morally collapsed societies. Then came the immortal line.

“No issue,” she said with icy dignity. “Give me water. Tea. Coffee. Buttermilk. Coconut water. Boiled rainwater collected from tree leaves. Anything. But I will not share the dais with that thing.”

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