Swadesi Cola Movement
Along with the Zoo and Suraj Kund, an
outing to Campa Cola Factory was de rigueur during the school days. This was
Marketing 101 at its best before the MNCs figured it all out and hired the
hotshot IIM graduates helping them sell more chips, burgers and instant noodles.
The plan was simple and ingenious - Get busloads of school kids, stuff them
with sugary fizzy drinks and make them your customers for the rest of their
diabetic lives with the dark syrupy drink always at arm’s length. Coke’s
Harvard MBAs figured this out even later. Of course, during those Roohafza
days, your only chance to guzzle down that aerated syrup was at the few
weddings you were invited to; so yes, this visit to the factory was god-sent
opportunity and beat the imagination-less regular picnics to Safdurjung Tomb
and Nehru Park hands down!
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| The Erstwhile Campa Cola Factory, Connaught Place |
The marketing trick worked. The love affair with the cold drinks continued. You still remember the first time you tasted American bottled Coke in 1991; in USA. American Dream was finally realised. Over the next few years, you would down three sodas over the course of a meal. All good times come to an end and now a dark cold drink is treated like a sporadic treat.
You can’t remember which year or which standard this was – possibly 8th standard and the year would be 1982 - but you still remember going around the factory shop-floor wide-eyed as dirty bottles came out looking sparklingly clean and then magically filled with this god-blessedly wonder beverage. Later you giddily gulped down the colas that were handed out at the end of the tour along with some Campa branded school stationery stuff. This was the Perfect Picnic!
Salman Khan in his first Ad
This epochal event dropped out from memory until you read Sam Miller’s account of adventures walking around Delhi. It has been a couple of years and that image of rundown factory façade has stayed with you. Even though you have been going to Bengali Market - the backyard of your school - regularly for the lip-smacking, street food, you have never ventured beyond Babar Road to explore the back alleys of Connaught Place where the Campa Cola Factory could be found.
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| TOI - Campa Cola on a Comeback Trail |
In 1977 when Janata Party came to power defeating Indira Gandhi in the aftermath of Emergency, it was time to reset. George Fernandes thundered - give me your formula or get the hell out. Coca Cola, who wouldn’t give the formula to their mother, left India. Along with gold and two-in-ones, coca cola began to be smuggled into the country. It was a huge opportunity for the local swadesi entrepreneurs like Charanjit Singh and Ramesh Chauhan. Filled with nationalist fervour they launched their own shudh milk er... sugar filled flavoured aerated water beverages.
Pure Drinks was the bottler for Coca Cola and when Coca Cola left, they launched the Campa brand with similar looking logo. The new desi cola had the swadesi tagline, ‘The Great Indian Taste - Campa’; as if touting some freshly churned grandma frothy lassi. Ramesh Chauhan owned Parle will soon launch ‘Thumbs Up’ which would later lose the ‘b’ and become popular as ‘Thums Up’. Now Thums Up was the real deal and soon cola wars broke out. Government too saw an opportunity and launched its own sarkari brand called ‘Double Seven 77’! 77 lasted till 1980 when the government fell, Campa soon fizzled out, while Thums Up continues to thunder even today. The Parle cola brands were bought out by Coca Cola when it returned with its formula intact during the liberalisation era of early 90s.
The Hunt
It is a sunny and breezy spring afternoon. The streets beyond The Lalit Hotel are surprisingly clean, wide and forlorn and are variously christened Babur Lane, Fire Brigade Lane, Connaught Lane and Barakhamba Police Station Lane. You pass by this huge sprawling, abandoned building with no apparent sign and then circle around the streets. Google Maps is going crazy. You have had enough. It is time to ask the old trusted swadesi direction teller – the paanwalla.
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| The Lalit far ahead, Vidyut Bhawan on the right and the Campa Cola Factory on the left |
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| Mayur Bhawan on the left far ahead |
So, this abandoned building with signs
by municipal corporation declaring the building unsafe for occupation is the
Campa Cola factory. When Sam Miller had last visited about ten years ago circa
2010, there were some employees outside waging some legal battles with the
management. Sam was duly taken on a tour inside. But today, the entrance is
locked.
Shivaji Bridge Railway Station up ahead
Next door is the Shivaji Bridge
Railway Station. A Rajdhani train seems to be resting on the platform. Vendors go
about their business selling street food and fruits. The factory seems to be
sitting right on railway property. You are not sure. Everything is possible.
What is definite is that there is some legal wrangle over the property going on
in the family in the true tradition of Indian families. Desi Cola Desi
Families.
The Facade of the Campa Cola Factory
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| Photo from Sam Miller's Book |
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| Fading Footprints on Sands of Time |
Sam’s photo shows few letters on the
Campa logo on the facade surviving. Today, the letters have all disappeared leaving
behind the faint grey footprints of another memory being wiped out.
References
Delhi, Adventures in a Megacity by Sam Miller – the Book that started it all - funny accounts with some quirky photos and sketches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campa_Cola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvcJ4p6Z9Vg - Cola Wars of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o7GT3Jcnfs - Campa Cola Ad featuring a 16-year old Salman Khan
http://www.campacolaindia.com/about-company/plant-photo-gallery.html
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