Film-makers have a field day in Pollachi  ( November '15,2002, HBL)

HOW many times you must have seen the ad on the idiot box! A rustic Aamir Khan spouting earthy Punjabi to a bunch of thirsty girls who stumble onto his sugarcane field after their car breaks down on the highway. Their joy knows no bounds when Aamir draws up a pail full of Coke bottles from the depths of a well. All around are green fields, typical of the Punjab countryside, swaying gently in the breeze.

Only, the locale couldn't have been farther away from Punjab. The idyllic setting is actually deep South — at Pollachi — in the hinterland of Tamil Nadu. A 90-minute drive from Coimbatore, picturesque Pollachi, at the foothills of the Anamalai ranges, has been a hot spot for shooting scores of Tamil movies as well as Hindi movies like Virasat. A little-known fact, though, is that many of the big-budget television commercials that leap and croon out of TV screens were shot in Pollachi. One such is the Coke commercial, produced by Aamir Khan Productions and scripted by McCann Erickson's National Creative Director, Mr Prasoon Joshi.

Take too the Hero Cycles ad now on air. Produced by Rajiv Menon Productions, the TV commercial was shot in Pollachi where three hulking Sumo wrestlers were flown down from Japan. The ad shows a Sumo wrestler riding an elephant and yet another driving a road-roller, till they all three converge on a Hero Cycle to test its strength.

Ad filmmaker and director, Mr Rajiv Menon, who has shot in Pollachi for commercials such as TVS XL Super as well as for Mani Ratnam's blockbuster, Bombay, says the town is in many ways an ideal location for a filmmaker. For one, it's easily accessible, people are pleasant and co-operative and pretty much used to the sight of film crews tromping around. "The best thing about Pollachi is that you get a variety of locations in the vicinity — different crops, good roads; the mountains as a backdrop fill in the picture frame and the hills are just a short drive away," adds Mr Menon.

The other advantage to a filmmaker is that with low levels of pollution, the sky takes on a rich blue hue. The dramatic effect of the hills in the backdrop of a picture frame is not in a haze but sharper, unlike what it would be in a harsher topography.

McCann's Mr Joshi agrees. "Pollachi is a very friendly place; people don't hassle you or mob you. Even Aamir could walk around without being bothered." When the kind of greenery he wanted for the Coke ad was not there in Punjab because of the summer, it was Pollachi that he turned to.

A Punjab farm set was recreated in a sugarcane field an hour's drive from Pollachi town for the three-day shoot, which was directed by Ashutosh Gowariker of Lagaan fame.

Recalls Mr Joshi, "All the waiters in Pollachi's lodges have nice stories to tell you; about which celebrity had stayed in the rooms, what they ate and so on."

Pollachi hospitality was at its best, he says, when the entire crew for this Coke commercial, including Aamir Khan, watched a late-night show of Baba in a theatre opposite the lodge they were staying in. Nobody hassled the superstar in their midst.