Suman and Piu had asked me over for dinner. We were sitting on the balcony of their 17th-floor flat. The whisky was single malt, imported from the distant shores of Loch Lomond. You can?t blame us for overdoing it a bit. Within an hour, Suman and I were ready for our third large one. And the inevitable happened.

Piu returned from the kitchen unannounced. We did not know that cooking the prawn curry would take so little time. This is when I thought I would change the topic and reduce tension. I asked Piu whether she had seen any recent ad on TV that she had liked. It worked temporarily. Piu thought for a while and mentioned the ICICI Prudential insurance ad. She described the ad as ?beautiful and poignant?. The music was touching, the dramatic sequences very lifelike.

At this juncture, Suman decided to contradict his wife. One of the problems of good single malt is that it muffles danger signals. Suman had a point. He was convinced that the TV advertising for ICICI Prudential Life Insurance was barking up the wrong tree. Piu remained equally adamant ? the ad to her was not only beautiful and poignant but effective too. Poor me was asked to adjudicate the contest. It felt like umpiring the last ball of a One-Day match between India and Pakistan with one run and one wicket separating the two.

It was very, very tricky. The advertising film is indeed very well crafted and emotive. There are quite a few short stories visually interwoven ? from the melancholy of a wife leaving her maike to a desperate mother on a rainy day searching for her son returning from school. Each such plot ends with the protagonist lending his shoulder for support to his family ? a symbolism used in the film to establish the role of life insurance.

Suman acknowledged the appeal of the ad but felt that in these days of manic obsession with mutual funds and IPOs, the choice is no longer limited to just life insurance. The underlying motive has also shifted from a better tomorrow to a happier today. The day after tomorrow, no longer features in our thinking. The ad does nothing to combat the myopia that has crept into our lives. Nor does it tell us why, if at all, one should prefer ICICI Prudential to other insurance options.

So to Suman, it was a nice ad that may not do too much for the brand. At that point, I found a lot of merit in what Suman was saying. I was about to raise my finger to the LBW shout when Piu started her defence. Her point was very simple. She said we are judging the ad from our own narrow point of view. There are large segments of the urban milieu that either have never heard of mutual funds or shares or are too scared to dabble in them.

This ad will create an impact there. They would possibly transfer their liking for the advertising to the brand and create preference for ICICI Prudential. In support, she cited the language of the ad (Hindi rather than English), the ambience (more Salkia than Salt Lake) and the values (more middle-class family than upmarket individualism).

By now my glass was again empty. I was tempted to mention the first-class compartment on the train that the ad shows, but contradicting Piu was out of the question. I decided to ignore the LBW appeal to end the match in a tie. I had to heed the advice given by the ad: suraksha, zindagi ke har kadam par.

Self-preservation was crucial for me at that stage. I badly needed a refill.

The picture above shows New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns conducting ICICI Prudential?s cricket clinic in Mumbai. (PTI)