Murphy Boy

Friends of my generation, who had come of age in seventies and eighties, may recollect Murphy Boy, the iconic picture of a tiny cherubic baby adorning the print media with full page ads , when around Diwali, the company would display models of radio sets and Transistor Radio sets for prospective buyers to choose from. Rumours were afloat that the baby had actually died and the ad carrying his picture was also a commemorative one in this sense.The baby with all that childlike charm was cynosure of all eyes rather than the product being advertised . I felt sorry for the child as I had felt in my school days for Lucy Gray the subject of Wordsworth’s famous poem. It is stated to be true that the baby girl who was used as a model for Murphy products in the beginning had died. More than two decades passed with me carrying the sad episode in my subconscious mind. It was a great relief some three years back in 2012 when there were news appearing in the media that the Murphy Boy who had modeled in the seventies and eighties is none other than Dr. Kagyur Tulku Rinpoche, who happens to be the husband of Mandakini , heroine of the Raj Kapur directed film ‘ Ram Teri Ganga Maili‘. The picture that we saw in ads was taken at Manali when Dr. Kagyur Tulku Rinpoche was just three year old and his appearance then bore striking resemblance to the original baby girl who had modeled for Murphy.