MUMBAI: French philosopher Gaston Bachelard had rightly said, “Like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.” We often find ourselves looking out for little instances that take us back to our childhood. Understanding this sentiment, HDFC Home Loans has hooked in their online patrons with a digital Children’s Day campaign that calls on everyone to go #backtobachpan.

Through an online contest carried out on their Twitter page, the brand gave opportunity to everyone to relive their childhood by posting pictures, instances and messages that give a glimpse of what childhood means to them. No sooner did the post go live, then people poured in with tweets with #backtobachpan.

From pictures of their younger self doing goofy things, rubber eraser names old black and whites, twitterati were seen enthusiastically sharing their #backtobachpan moments, making the hashtag trend throughout the day in India.

Some of the responses are both funny as well as moving.

“Take me #BackToBachpan where i used to write my name on bench to mark it as my bench,” tweets batman_baklol, while Kanchan Negi (coool_kashish) recalls how her childhood was checkered by memories of visit to her grandmother’s place during vacations.

Not only were the replies engaging, the brand went a step ahead in engaging with those who posted for the contest by creating animated caricature pictures of the twitteratti, taking cue from their posts.

This isn’t the first time a brand has played on our heart strings with an innovative campaign on Children’s Day. In fact, Shopperstop ran a similar contest titled #BringBackTheKid last year, while Paper Boat’s inspiring TVC ‘When I grow up..”by EmotionalFulls, still remains fresh in our memory.

On that note, here’s hoping that we keep our inner child alive. Happy Children’s Day!