The Beatles, With You, Always

For a recent public service campaign, the Kolkata Police have apparently enlisted the help of The Beatles, making use of the iconic cover photo of their 1969 album Abbey Road, which features the four band members walking in tandem on a zebra crossing on London’s Abbey Road. Joint Commissioner of Traffic Police Supratim Sarkar told the BBC that the police wanted a catchy and appealing campaign. It seems they thought it would be a good idea to cash in on the universal popularity of The Beatles. However, this does not seem to have struck a chord with everyone. Rahul Dutta, a senior copywriter with a Kolkata advertising agency, calls it “absurd” and “irrelevant to the masses”, adding, “a bystander or a pedestrian [would] hardly have a clue [about] these four young folks walking over the zebra crossing. It looks nice from afar but [is] not strong enough to carry the message of securing [civilian lives].” Even the Kolkata Traffic Police Facebook page has some commentators calling the campaign an unnecessary waste of money, and others saying it would be understood by only an elite segment of the city’s population.

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Ronny Sen