What’s the connection between Washing Powder Nirma, Chopsticks and Mithila Palkar?

Storyboard18's Brand Blitz Quiz decided to have some fun with brand nerds from the Indian advertising and marketing community. We got Sai Ganesh, founder, India Wants to Know, and Varun Duggirala, founder, Plot Device Entertainment, to join us for the North Regional Final round on September 3

Ganesh asked the quizzers a question related to a Netflix film. In the 2019 movie Chopsticks, Mithila Palkar plays an independent woman working in Mumbai who loses her car. Throughout the film, people make fun of the name of her character because it’s the same as a popular brand name in India. Coincidentally, the brand too is named after a girl who died in a car crash. Ganesh asked the participants to guess which brand the question is referring to.

Palkar’s name in the movie is Nirma. And yes, she is named after Nirma, the washing powder brand.

Karsanbhai Patel, named the washing powder brand – Nirma, inspired from his daughter’s name Nirupama who was the girl who died in the aforementioned car crash.

Read More:Brand Blitz Quiz: And the winners are...

Ganesh showed an illustration of Palkar as the Nirma girl and also shared that her character in the movie was made fun of and she was asked about discounts. “Madam, if we help you, we will get a discount on detergents, right?” flashed on the screen!

Varun Duggirala shared an anecdote about his childhood connection with Nirma. "As a kid whenever this ad played, I was made to close my eyes." It was his mother who made him do so, so that her son would watch less television! Quite appropriate, no?