Western Railway presents, Yamraj to the rescue

Indians are a spiritual lot. And among the many gods worshipped, the one that they're respectfully scared of is — Yamraj — the Hindu God of Death and Justice. Probably the reason why, the Western Railways summoned the deity to help make a stern point about crossing railway tracks and instil fear in the hearts of those who do. Here's how Yamraj descended in Mumbai.

The awareness activity was carried out on Mumbai’s local train network between two heavily used train platforms — Malad and Andheri, reports moneycontrol. RPF personnel, dressed as Yamraj, stopped commuters who were found hopping onto tracks and literally ‘picked’ them up and carried them across to safety on the other side.

A few years ago, a restobar in Chennai named Sera (formerly Zara) carried out a similar awareness activity on the eve of New Year’s, as a part of a campaign titled “drink and get driven”. As a part of this activity, whenever a patron who had consumed alcohol asked for his car keys from the valet parking, he would be accosted by an actor dressed as Yamraj, sitting in the backseat as a visual reminder of the consequences of drinking and driving.

In Melbourne, Australia, the Regional Transportation District (RTD) came out with a morbid awareness campaign titled “Dumb Ways to Die.” The campaign featured bright colourful visuals, cartoony characters and a catchy tune. The characters in the campaign risk their lives in ‘dumb’ ways such as by having a pet rattlesnake, poking a bear, selling both your kidneys on the internet and walking or driving in front of trains. The video eventually turned into a popular game that prompted users to play and try and save the characters from their imminent deaths.

In February 2012, Ogilvy undertook an eerily musical initiative to support the Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA). The idea was to ambush smokers as they lit their cigarettes at public lighters. The public lighters were engineered to play the 'Raam Naam Satya hai' chant (a chant sung when corpses are being carried to the funeral pyre) when a cigarette was about to be lit.

Apart from awareness initiatives drawing on caricatures of the God of Death, the ad world is also fascinated with Yamraj - so much so that even Akshay Kumar donned Yamraj's costume for an ad campaign by Policy Bazaar. Check out the ads and a few more examples below.

In the Western world, the God of Death is called the Grim Reaper – who appears to individuals whose lives have ended and takes their souls away. The Grim Reaper has also made multiple appearances in commercials for various products, apart from PSAs about HIV-AIDs and smoking.