As a guy who’s been responsible for at least a hundred original brand names and possibly a thousand and more brand promotions, I have always heard the brief from client as “Make it classy, make it unique, make it customer friendly etc.”

Of course I used to chuckle when friends and peers would respond to the same brief and come up with generic names like Classy, Excellent, Unique or even Best. There was of course another school that would borrow from International Icons. 10 Downing Street (the pub). Whitehouse (the building). Stonehenge (the apartments). And so on.

I don’t know how many of you noticed, but sometime back the idea of using low brow names for hi-brow establishments became fashionable. So we had the Chai Shop at the Taj…oh by the way, they were the first to introduce Dhaba Nights too. There are several other examples of people using ‘basic’ names like Sigree, Angeethi, Chopsticks. Damn there is even a Big Fork.

But the latest is a class apart. Those of you who have Parsee or Maharashtrian friends, may remember how their penchant for adopting names derived from their professions always made us smile. Ghaaswalla. Pithawalla. Doctor. Major. Poonawalla. Daruwalla. And of course the quintessential Waghmare (Tiger Killer). But this one was always a winner.

Soda Bottle Opener Walla.

Now who could imagine that there was somebody who was a professional Soda Bottle Opener Walla, and that a family could be named after that profession.

But there is. You can check the Bombay Telephone Directory for confirmation.

That said, when I heard that the people behind the exclusive Olive Chain were starting a new outlet in Hyderabad and naming it “sodabottleopenerwalla”, I was amused. (Opening on 20th May I understand).

Conversations took shape in my mind.

Hey Bro…where you going? Sodabottleopenerwalla…you wanna come.

Beta, I am not comfortable with you going with your friends to this new place. I mean, what kind of a place provides you people to open soda bottles and insists that you open and pour your other beverages yourself. Unless they have departments like Darupilanewalla or something.

Or think of conversations in Uber or Ola Cabs. Sodabottleopenerwalla please. Sure, but we have to stop at tyrepuncturerepairwalla first.

Creativity has manifested itself in many brand names. 13 Dhaba is my recent favorite. Tera Dhaba…Your Dhaba…is also ‘Tera’ which signifies the supreme being (sub kuch tera hai).

Obviously humor is behind the choice of this brand name. Let us see how Hyderabad takes it. Will we laugh? Will we chuckle? Or will the city smirk?