Lizard in food items is the stuff urban legends thrive on!
Nobody really believes them. Yet every college mess would have at least one professedly true story about finding a lizard, dead or alive, in a curry which was definitely meant for human consumption as per the mess owners (in most instances, the human consumption part is highly disputed with most of the patrons of the mess insisting otherwise most days…but that is a story for another day).
But imagine if the legend comes alive in your very cola bottle!
It is almost like staring into Bloody Mary’s eyes in your bathroom mirror. But the good thing is, you can’t really claim compensation from..err..Mary but you can definitely do so from the soft drink manufacturers.
An unsuspecting consumer from Kanpur found a dead lizard in his bottle of Mountain Dew right when he was about to break open the seal. Despite the horror, the consumer sensibly sought to return the bottle to the retailer who refused saying it was Pepsico’s mistake as manufacturer.
The matter landed in a consumer forum and mirroring every soft drink lover’s indignation, the forum ordered Pepsico India Holding Private Ltd, Jainpur, Kanpur Dehat to pay Rs 25,000 as damages to complainant Syed Sikandar Alam within 30 days, holding them guilty of supplying adulterated soft drink.
