Mc. D or Not to D
It was 1999. A fresh, sunny day in November. I was very excited; pacing around the house in my oversized coat, and ill-fitting brown pants. (What’s with the weird fashion choices, mom?) After watching all those TV ads brandishing the golden arches on Cartoon Network, we knew Mc. Donald’s was a big deal.
The news was splashed across all newspapers. The first outlet had opened on the highway between our city (Agra) and Mathura (a popular tourist destination). My entire extended family and I stuffed ourselves in my dad’s Maruti Omni with the same agenda in our minds: visit McD’s, take photographs, come back and talk about it with everyone we knew.
The experience was better than we had anticipated. It was every kid’s fantasy. Bright yellow balloons in every corner, an exuberant Ronald Mc. Donald perched on a bench, a little garden right outside with swings and slides, smiling waiters in uniforms, and Happy Meals waiting to be opened (mostly for the toy inside. duh, who are we kidding?)
Very soon, Mc. Donald’s became a part of everything. Birthday celebrations, casual catch-ups with friends, post-movie lunches, quick meetings, sneaky dates. The fries were consistent, the burgers were comforting, the coke felt so good. Suddenly, we began to equate it with warmth and familiarity. Our toy collectibles grew in number, until we didn’t know what to do with them anymore.
It’s been twenty-one years since that day in Mathura, and we have all grown up. We know (spoiler alert) Santa Claus isn’t real, nursery rhymes are darker than we had imagined, and Woody Allen and Walt Disney have been huge disappointments. We have all watched Super Size Me and realised Mc. Donald's is one amongst many giant corporations that earn profits by making people unhealthy.
So, we evolved. We grew conscious of our health. We started buying organic produce. We watched The Founder and felt more anger towards the name. The golden arches didn’t evoke the same sense of nostalgia anymore. We knew we were emotionally manipulated as kids, and that happy fantasy we had found ourselves in was just a giant marketing strategy.
And yet, when we ran out of all options in a foreign country and saw the arches again, our stomachs grumbled. Relief washed over us. Finally, a place we knew. We ordered the usual, found a corner table as if it were already waiting for us, and enjoyed the taste of good old burgers, fries and coke. And of course bought a Happy Meal for good measure. Damn you, Mc.D’s.