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Genuine Fake

 

It's likely you've used, or at least heard, a couple of oxymorons in your everyday life, even if you didn't realise it at the time. An oxymoron is a figure of speech containing words that seem to contradict each other. Let's see if any of these examples of oxymorons hit home for you:

Act naturally, Bittersweet, Clearly confused, Deafening silence, Only choice, Open secret, Original copy, Weirdly normal and GENUINE FAKE.

It is "GENUINE FAKE" which attracted my attention what with so many fake news, stories we come across in our daily life these days. Quite a few forwarded messages in social media turn out to be fakes. When I googled for "Genuine Fake" I was surprised to notice that there is a shop on Jalan Legian (Legian Road) in Bali, Indonesia with that name. However, when I hear this oxymoron, it brings back old memories connected with my (once) favourite drink (Coke) and my job in pharma industry.

Double Seven was an Indian soft drink brand. It was manufactured and marketed by the Indian government after Coca-Cola quit the Indian market in 1977 due to changes brought about by the Janata government policies. It was speculated in those days that due to the suddenness involved in Coca-Cola company's quitting India, that Company sold the stocks of concentrate lying with it at that moment to private bottlers before going away from India. This concentrate was used by the bottlers to make original Coke like drink in unmarked bottles (GENUINE FAKE Coke) and sold after the Original Coke became unavailable. There used to be a petty shop (బడ్డి కొట్టు) in Guntur on Brodiepet 4th main road abutting Ravi College (India's first tutorial college coaching students for medical and engineering entrance exams) building. The shopkeeper used to sell this GENUINE FAKE Coke. I was a willing buyer since Coca-Cola wasn't available then.

You are aware of my connection with Pharma industry. Many of the big MNC Pharma Companies were engaging the services of small contract manufacturing companies for making their big seller brands. It was rumoured that these contract manufacturers indulged in making extra quantities of the products than contracted. These extra quantities were put into the market bypassing taxing mechanisms through unscrupulous wholesalers in various places (outside of the official channels like Company- Distributor- Wholesalers- Retailer) These packs are thus Genuine Fakes. 

Van Heusen, Crocodile, Peter England etc printed on the t-shirts and sold on our city pavements are invariably fakes masquerading as genuine. 

My friend sent me this mythological story about the first genuine fake in the world:

Unable to bear the heat of the Sun god, his wife Sandhya Devi went to the forest to perform penance. Then her Shadow (Chaya devi) faking as Sandhya Devi, took her place and lived with Sun in the latter's absence. Even Surya Bhavan (Sun god) could not find the difference. God Shani (Saturn) was their son.

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