Chennai Express special Raksha Bandhan promotional gimmick…a “con-fusing” affair

So we woke up really early this morning, all excited to celebrate Rakhi with our beloved sisters. As is our wont, we picked up the morning newspaper and settled into the couch to read. Lo and Behold! The front page full-sized advertisement almost made us jump out of our seats. The ad said that Team Chennai Express is offering a ‘Buy 2 tickets and get 1 free’ exclusive Raksha Bandhan offer. “Wow. This Rakhi is going to be extra special,” we told ourselves and thanked Shah Rukh for his benevolent offer which we knew would make our SRK-crazy sisters extra happy. So after getting the Rakhis tied and exchanging pleasantries with all the relatives who had dropped in, we triumphantly held up the ad and informed our sisters of the delectable proposition of three people in a family watching the unstoppable ‘Chennai Express’ for the cost of two. After much deliberation on the choice of theaters, we decided to make the day extra special by watching the movie at SRK’s personal bastion, Maratha Mandir. Since we were not quite sure about the show timings, we dialed Maratha Mandir to check on the same. We were disappointed when we were told that Chennai Express was being screened at 9.15 pm. As an afterthought we told the operator on line that we were hoping to make most of the Rakhi special offer ‘Buy 2 get 1 free.’ To our utter shock, the man coolly replied that there is no such offer running at Maratha Mandir or any other single screen theaters in Mumbai. Taken aback, we thought of checking another single screen theater closer to SRK’s residence in Bandra – the famous Gaiety. We met with the same response here as well. In fact, the person who picked up the phone said that the advertisement is a big misrepresentation and he would be busy fielding similar queries for the rest of the day. This was enough to get the journalist inside us kicking. We immediately checked SRK’s Twitter handle and could see his tweet about the offer on his wall, wide and clear. Our next obvious stop was UTV Movies who we thought would give us a clearer picture. Sadly, our calls there went unanswered. We then tried calling Red Chillies. The receptionist who picked up the call tried to save the SRK’s back by saying that the offer is not valid at all theaters and asked us to ‘properly’ check the theater list given on the backside of the advertisement. When we pointed out to her that Maratha Mandir has been mentioned in the list and the officials there have denied the knowledge of any such offer, the receptionist hurriedly transferred the call to another lady, apparently at a higher position in Red Chillies, whose response shocked the living daylights out of us. “There is no such offer either in single screen or multiplexes. We don’t know who placed that advertisement in the newspaper. It’s not us or Shah Rukh,” she said with great confidence before disconnecting. ‘So what exactly was all the advertisement about?’ we wondered and thought of calling SRK’s publicist Mandvi Sharma, who we thought would give us a coherent response. Not surprisingly, her phone was continuously unavailable. Till the time of filing this story, there was no response from the venerable Khan. May be news about this entire fiasco hasn’t reached his ears yet. The only meek response came from Chennai Express’s twitter handled which said If anyone has problems or queries with respect to #ChennaiExpress Rakshabandhan offer, please connect with @utvfilms. Well, the movie says ‘Don’t underestimate the power of a common man.’ All we can tell SRK is ‘Don’t underestimate the intellect of a common man.’ Or should we say Halwai!!!