The objective of the commercial was to establish that Fena Detergent offers the whitest wash in the industry. To cut through the clutter of a segment that is filled with products offering the same whiteness, we made Fena Detergent stand out from the clutter and gave consumers a chance to recall the brand in a humorous light.

Washing clothes in India is different from the rest of the world. Here unlike other countries we have a specific area where clothes are washed. It’s called the ‘dhobhi ghaat’. People who belong to semi urban towns and those who wash clothes to earn a livelihood, prefer to wash their clothes here. And we wanted to catch the attention of exactly those people. We came up with an idea to showcase to whiteness offered by Fena in a way no one has ever done. The clothes washed by Fena aren’t not just the whitest but the brightest. So much so, that women who wash clothes using the detergent, need sunglasses.

Casting for the FENA ‘SUNGLASSES’ film was tricky because we wanted these women to have strong personalities and a raw, authentic feel about them which we knew we would never find if we went the usual modelling agency route. Still we kept looking through dozens and dozens of pictures of models and junior artistes but to no avail.

Our Line Producer happened to know the head of the Versova koli fisherwomen's Association. ('koli' is the name of the fishing community in Maharashtra and kolis also happen to be one of the foremost inhabitants of Bombay). To say that these women are colourful is an understatement. In the way they dress, the way they walk and talk to the endlessly zestful way in which they go about their lives, personality is something that is never in short supply here. This were exactly the kind of cast we were looking for.

The only problem was trying to get hold of them.The koli women would be out all day selling the fish that their fishermen husbands caught in the morning. They got home late at night. Getting to meet them was a tough task.

Finally we set a date with them late at night, at around 10.30 pm. They greeted us warmly into their palatial houses (they may be simple fisherfolk but they sure live in grandeur). We took photographs of them (they happily posed for us), picked out their saris, looked at their jewellery (they are always decked to the nines in beautiful gold ornaments) and offered them a role in our TVC which they were absolutely thrilled about. Their only condition being that they were a close-knit group of twenty friends and we had to cast them all, we couldn't pick and choose from the lot. Our film required only eight principal characters but we obliged. We figured we could always use more and decide who we wanted to use as and when we were shooting.

The shoot involved a lot of action shots of rigorous washing, thrashing and wringing, the typical Indian trademarks of handwashing clothes. It was a physically very demanding shoot and only these tough and hardy ladies could've made it look as effortless and natural as it did on screen. Had we gone with casting ordinary actresses, it would've probably taken us days of practice to make it look even half as authentic.

After the shoot we all went back to one of their houses where they insisted we freshen up and then fed us some local delicious snacks.

After a long hard day of standing and in the sun, washing and thrashing clothes for the shoot and painstakingly following instructions, how they still had the energy to cook, sing and dance for us is honestly amazing.

These were surely Super-kolis and they totally won the whole crew over with their joi-de-vivre and unabashed affection for us all.