Club sandwiches with the Tiger

Club sandwiches with the Tiger

By Indu Balachandran

Less than a month ago, I met Romi Chopra at a great reunion of old HTA-Delhi advertising buddies. Among the stories we recalled of our own desi Mad Men era of the early 80’s: an unforgettable tryst with Nawab of Pataudi.

I was then a mere sub-junior copywriter of sorts, thrilled to bits for being given a chance to write for the Wills Limited Overs series. As Romi’s circle of friends included Pataudi himself – (we would often hear Romi’s booming voice saying Hello Pat! into his phone)—he’d got our biggest cricketing hero to give us a quote or two about the thrill of the daring concept of One Day Cricket, to include in our ad campaign.

It fell upon my excited, nervous self to draft these ‘possible quotes’.

I must have written about a 100 variations, before my shortlist of 10. Romi must’ve flung them all away to make me write some more. Anyway, Romi was just setting off to meet the Tiger for lunch at the Gymkhana, and get approval on ‘the lines’. In a sudden act of bravado, I squeaked: Romi, may I come along too?

And so it was that I was sitting at a posh Delhi club, at a lunch table with Romi and Pataudi. I doubt if the Nawab was even remotely aware of my goggle-eyed presence throughout, as Romi and he chatted away over the audacious Kerry Packer. Some sandwiches came in. They ate. I don’t think I did, due to a lock-jaw condition brought on by utter awe.

Somewhere at the end, Romi pushed across my neat, Remington-typed sheet of one-liners, with ‘MAK Pataudi’ below each. His aristocratic eye glanced over them, as my heart stopped altogether. “Hmmm” he said, and asked Romi to choose what he thought appropriate. And soon we were back at the office. I became an insufferable person for the next few days, recounting my unexpected treat with cricketing royalty.

30 years later…Romi was sharing with me some fabulous pictures on his IPad, of Pataudi’s 70^th Birthday celebration that he’d attended earlier this year. How dashing the Tiger still looked, we said, as we laughed over that old story.

Today, I’m glad I gave into that reckless impulse, gate-crashing an unforgettable lunch. It connects me in a very special way to a true sports hero of my time. Not to mention, to be able to tell my Cricinfo -journalist son today: hey, I wrote some snappy cricket one-liners for the King of Indian Cricket himself…

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Interview- Laughs From The MAd World: An Interview with Indu Balachandran

Here is an interview I had done with dialabook.in..

Indu Balachandran is hot, happening and full of breeze! Author of a barely three month old book on the quirks and adversities of a mad life that is already a bestseller running into reprint, her quick prose dazzles with gentle humor and 29 year old wisdom from having worked her way up in one of India’s top ad agencies, as she elbows us with her crafty blueprint of “making it” in that luminous land of advertising. Smarter than a Dummy’s guide, and lighter than newsreel, Indu’s wild experiences at JWT (formerly HTA) inspire her debut book chronicling the best job in the world, not just because of the money but also because “work is synonymous with fun and people are never found in the (ad) agency way past 10:45 am because they were busy catching up with work, because they were too busy all day having fun, or rather it’s synonym work… so they took time off for some work…sorry fun, and that is why they were so late arriving for fun, in other words work.”

Peppered in frolic Indu cracks down on the yuppy hierarchy in ad agencies, effortlessly seizing every living ad caricature she has met, baring for us the poor vulnerable souls of Creative (bedraggled copywriters and art directors of both pre-Mac and post I-pad eras), the traumatized Client servicers and account executives, Planners and tiara flashing Media men and women (from Planet Hollywood) among several others. She breaks open and closes every straitjacket in the business of advertising, proving to us there are no superheroes, only super-teams on super-steroids. The Copywriter, however, does remain the consistent butt of all jokes and affection, who, through all his/her hard work, laziness, and good times and bad, chants feverishly “Give us this day our daily, multi-grain, nutria soft, ezee digest, super crust, vitamin enriched bread.“ The ensuing empathy and reality, “For every high flying Creative Director traipsing off to Brazil to judge entries for an award show, there are about 7328 humble copywriters trying to write a sales conference AV script for a rubber lined gasket or a fuel injection pump. Or… administering vitamin pills to the client’s depressed sales force.”

This book is a fond reminiscence, but mostly a hail funny look at the goggle eyed workforce of eccentrics, jokers, nerds, sleazepots, and above all dreamers. “Advertising is the only non-criminal human activity that allows you to make a living off your character defects, which usually include pride, anger, gluttony, lust, sloth, greed and envy”! Alight these pages guilt-free, vacuous, and help yourself to anecdotes and delectable potshots at the people we love to hate. Indu has given us, what every aspiring, current or former young ad professional wants to know: What does it take to succeed (or survive?) in the Attention Deficit world of Advertising. This slim digest of 100% Tao is both intimate and objective at once, with energy so textually manicured and yes, meticulous! Read on, to identify your stereotype better than any Facebook quiz on what’s your ad personality. Be it acronyms, acrimony, or jargon, the death is in the detail, as CANNES (CERTIFIED AWARD NABBERS, a category of defensive, award obsessed Creative Directors) assume tall tones like “Conceptually the copy is turgid, but consciously so, because the undulating greens in the visual need a holistic counterpoint.”

A verbal cartoonist with crackling insights on every aspect of the industry, Indu leaves you rolling on the floor laughing your pants off while still inside your head, dizzy even with the unbearable lightness of being an agency outsider, or worse, insider, a has been or a will be, as you scour these pages of her MAd ex love.

This week we sneaked up on former advertising professional and eco travel writer Indu Balachandran, who hands us a boisterous script of the ad world in her first book Don’t Go Away We’ll be Right back: The Oops and Downs of Advertising.

What a Title!!!
The words “Don’t Go Away, We’ll Be Right Back,” uttered every single day, just before a commercial break all over the world, is actually a cunning way to remind people about this Book! Which means glamorous talk show hosts like Oprah and Simi, funny men like Jay Leno, even respected news presenters like Pronnoy Roy, all say this phrase for me— completely free of cost. How’s that for some clever, un-paid-for advertising…

From copy trainee to executive creative director… all in 29 years. Are all these years encapsulated in your book? Is this the bible to surviving faux pas in the advertising world?

There are some characters and observations in the Book that I remember from my first year as a trainee in HTA Delhi (now JWT). So yes, it is a happy recall of many years of being in a charged, idea-rich environment, where a remarkable set of talents come together. Besides, I am also a compulsive scribbler of ‘wit as it happens’ aka the ridiculous (oxymoronic) things people say at meetings. For example: The client who says, “I’d like to see some fresh, innovative ideas that have been tried and tested many times…” Or this angry reaction when a great campaign is rejected: “The client changed his mind again!” “Yeah, but the new one doesn’t work any better…” Priceless stuff!
When I first started writing about some of the loony ways we advertising guys work and talk, I found lots of readers from other agencies say, this is EXACTly what happens in my agency too. And even though it wasn’t really the intention, some said it made them stop and think about their work quite a bit: the inordinate amounts of time we waste on pointless stuff at meetings, the play-safe clichés we keep on using for ads, and all the eccentric nutcases we have to put up with, just because they are ‘creative people’… So if there’s any such thing as “Laugh Your Way to The Top” then my Book has a dubious, higher purpose as an advertising manual!
It’s purpose is also to make those in advertising ‘see themselves’ and make those who left the profession recall an enjoyable time of their lives, and for the newbies—give a realistic picture of the madness, mayhem and excitement, without scaring them away.

Was advertising a conscious choice for you as a youngster when people had more conventional career options?

I think I’ve always wanted do writing… thanks to a Dad who was pretty amazing with wordplay. He got us Mad Magazine from abroad years before anyone in India had even heard of them. He got us “The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nash-ery” filled with brilliant nonsense rhymes. Even though we never knew there was such a thing as an Ad Agency, I did dream about writing the world’s shortest short stories: birthday cards which start with an intriguing line on the cover… and end with a twist on the inside. I used to write these all the time for friends through school and college. All sound practice for writing pithy stories for 30 second ads, I guess!

Tell us any personal favorite dreaded or bizarre “Oops” and “Downs” of the ad world?

In Oops, a Client –ex-JWT Delhi people will know who I’m talking about—who said at the end of his annual briefing in our conference room: “That’s it. Now my balls are in your court…”
Another was a hoarding design “The restaurant has a bra attached…” Yet, another at a college’s annual day brochure, where the faculty was not amused reading: “4.00pm. Address by Faulty Members.”
But here’s JWT Chennai’s favorite story: Our senior accountant, a conventional south Indian gent, was perhaps influenced by the hep lingo used by young people. He once said: “The Manager is quite upset…today she took out my pant”. Only later we figured he was using a highly common phrase in ad agencies: “We had our pants taken by the client today”!!
And some horrific downs … We used to do ‘8-projector audio visuals’ in the 80’s, with a million tiny slides filling several Kodak carousels. Once in the middle of a crucial presentation, slides suddenly started popping out and flying away out of the over-heated projector, and we were jumping about bizarrely catching them, like we were in cricket practice!

What has been one life-defining commercial for you, as in an ad that changed the way you saw art, advertising or even the great Indian middle class?

One amazing campaign that makes me proud of what advertising can do—and it truly affected the great Indian middle class—is the Tata Tea ‘Jago Re’ body of work. It told us to ‘wake up’ to corruption, to the way we use small time bribes to get past traffic offences, get admission to schools, get tickets etc. right down to yanking us out of our apathy towards voting. That was really big! At the same time, it was firmly locked into the basic brand promise: the tea that woke you up. It worked both ways; it affected our thinking, and it affected their sales. Fantastic!

A more light-hearted example is the sparkling brand work on Pepsi. Remember ‘Nothing Official About It?’ What a brilliant way to appear more cool, un-boring and youthful, while hijacking attention from the competition who had won costly ‘official’ sponsoring rights to a major sports event! I also think Pepsi’s “Mera number kab ayega?” was so bang on: reflecting a terrific insight into a typical Indian anguish, as we endlessly wait, wait, wait for something to happen. Pepsi’s advertising catch lines invariably went right into our everyday conversations, even newspaper headlines.

Tell us about creative hierarchy in an organization as flat as an ad agency.

Hierarchy in ad agencies is something that happens through the professional respect you earn –no matter how old or young you are. Do some truly outstanding work: and you are the one on top; on top of everyone’s mind. That’s what really matters! Ad agencies are not only great at generating brand names for products, they are also proficient in generating fancy ‘nearly-there’ titles to denote hierarchy. So these are handed out sometimes to retain talent within the agency; to individuals who produce good work, yet have no leadership skills to actually become a ‘head’ of any sort.

You’ve won several awards in advertising. What drove you?

Honestly speaking, there’s an unbeatable high that comes from hearing “Sales are suddenly up since our campaign broke…here’s a superb letter from the Client…” This feeling far outlasts the other kind of high from doing something that upped the bar and drew a ‘wow!’ from the ad community. And while I have no Cannes Gold to boast of, I became the envy of millions when I won another kind of gold: the 22 carat one—a whole kilo of real gold for writing in 15 words or less why I liked shopping at Vivek’s Department Store. The cheesy, winning rhyme I wrote was entirely due to my training as a copywriter!

How cathartic was writing this book?

I think most humorists doing spoofs are invariably writing the real truth, even if in an absurd or comic style… and so too with this Book: it’s written on behalf of all those who have to suffer weird colleagues, boring clients, eccentric divas, moronic bosses, needless time wasters… So yes, it was cathartic! The thing is it could have easily got very cynical—that’s one thing I’m not, and hopefully it’s more of a laugh-along than a ouch-that-hurts!

What made you quit advertising?

Well, one trigger was this: my leave record was in shambles, and the second biggest passion of my life, travelling—was being compromised. An unbelievable opportunity came along: would I like to review eco-friendly hotels all over India, which means free travel, free stay, free food and unlimited adventures? YES! So I did the unbelievable: quit JWT—for 29 years my home, my life… But the last month was the toughest: I was at a 3-day Pepsi shoot with Shah Rukh Khan (incidentally the first-biggest passion of my life, if you wondered about it a few seconds ago!), and I thought, am I mad to give up this amazing advertising life?? Plus there was also this half-written Book on advertising that my two sisters were after me to finish…

Real Time Working professionals, and not just those in the news, are braving it, every second, everyday. How are you coping with the present?

I keep in constant touch with what’s going on and also do the occasional creative workshop, teach at management institutes. But there’s NOTHING to beat the joys of a travel writer! So far I have been to over 60 hotels: magnificent palaces, humble beach shacks, cozy Himalayan hideouts… met many inspiring eco-conscious owners. I have enough notes on the funny side of travel for another upcoming Book!

Did you ever read any soul stirring books about advertising?

As a trainee in HTA Delhi, I read From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbour by a famous copywriter named Jerry Della Femina. The most soul stirring books on Advertising have been The Copy Book filled with essays of advertising greats that makes you think the copywriter has the BEST job in an agency, and A Smile In the Mind where every single page of this wittily written and illustrated manual can make you a better creative person. “Cutting Edge Advertising” by Jim Aithchison is also fabulous. But my favourite one that actually led to writing this Book… is The Joy of Work, by Scott Adams. I keep on re-reading it and laughing. It set me thinking: what if Dilbert was in an ad agency? That’s why I roped in (Don’t go Away… cartoonist) Paul Fernandes—we simply had to have those quirky illustrations! I dream of the day when I give Scott Adams a copy of my Book. Till then, I’m wondering how to reach one to SRK…:).

This interview was featured on http://dialabook.in/blog/laughs-from-the-mad-world-an-interview-with-indu-balachandran/

(For Women's Day) Nari Nari Quite Contrary...

Nari Nari, quite contrary…

Indu Balachandran sheds some light around that eternal question: What do women really want?

So it's Women's Day again, and magazines are going into overdrive celebrating the wonder of womanhood. But there's something we women have to admit about our glossy women's magazines: They're pretty schizophrenic.

If you look at the enticing covers of these magazines, there'll be an insightful article telling you what low-ranking beasts some men are. Followed immediately by another that tells you how to attract men. Now this can be pretty foxing to gender experts, who have made an extensive study of women's writings… trying to solve the eternal question: What do women want?

Ha ha! Keep figuring that one out, men!

Take my feisty friend Lily, who is anything but silly. While she was being wooed, she made things quite clear to her boyfriend Shanks. I always want to hear the truth about myself, Shanks, she said. No matter how unflattering it is. So he simply can't understand why she is still so mad at him…All because he put down her true age in their Club's notice board, when they asked for names and ages of those joining a trip to Ladakh.

So perplexed men try to cope by endlessly making up jokes about us multifaceted, multilayered beings called women (which are wonderful words that mean: We've got you stumped with our contradictions! Haven't we, guys?!).

One reason why there is so much ribbing going on about the woman of the species is probably because she was created out of Adam's rib. And men can't help making wisecracks even when called to address a bunch of women on serious and prestigious occasions like Women's Day. Here's what happened when a very respected personality, a man, was invited to be a key-note speaker at a women's organisation's celebration of March 8th. The revered gentleman had promised to make it a short opening speech. So he went right up to the podium, cleared his throat, and started: “Women are, generally speaking…” And then sat down.

(Okay okay, we do speak a lot, Mr. Man, but what about you all, when you are in the 278 {+t} {+h} cricket pre-World Cup special on TV this year, discussing whether India will repeat its 1983 World Cup win or not? You never ever stop speaking either…and all at the same time too). Meanwhile men, (secret readers of women's magazines — perhaps even more than women themselves) continue to find insights into our real wants — so that they can figure out life's most perplexing dilemma: Marry ‘em or stay single? And no matter how much, like Mary, we are quite contrary, a recent survey I conducted reveals that men need us, more than we need them. Take my good friend Jojo. He is of the firm belief that every man should have a wife. Preferably his own.

My other pal Rana is even better. Every man actually needs two women, says he. A secretary to take things down. And a wife to pick things up.

Indu Balachandran is a travel and humour columnist. Email: indubee8@yahoo.co.in

Whine and Dine : in The Sunday Hindu

Whine and dine

INDU BALACHANDRAN

The ecstasy and the agony of eating out.

Illustration: Surendra

BEFORE marriage, the three best words a couple loves to hear from each other are "I Love You". Later, the three best words are probably "Let's Eat Out".

With new speciality restaurants popping up like mushrooms — in fact, I heard one opened last week called Mushroom Mania — there are so many new exciting ways to eat, without having a pile of dishes to wash up later. And eating out can be enjoyed in such fine combinations of activity these days — buy books and eat, watch a play and eat, enjoy a movie and eat, go bowling and eat...

But, I must say one combination seemed a bit suspicious to me. This was a petrol station with a restaurant attached. A board outside announced, "You can eat here, and get gas".

Decisions, decisions...

The eating-out industry depends largely on people like us who stare at the refrigerator every day, fraught with indecision wondering what to cook, and then decide it is far simpler to decide to eat out instead.

Indecisions

Ha! Now is when the real indecision starts... Which place? Asks the one behind the steering wheel after getting into the car. Oh, any place is absolutely cool with me, choruses everyone. Okay, then how about that new Chettinad restaurant that everyone is talking about? Oh NO, chorus the voices again. ANYthing but Chettinad." And so the indecision goes on: Anything but Chinese; anything but Punjabi...

When rising hunger pangs force a "where" finally, there comes another decision to be made at the venue: which table? (At home you have only one, but here you have such a choice.)

After a consensus on the most suitable table, you settle down, and the waiter arrives to force one more decision out of you. Mineral water or restaurant water? Now is when you have to decide how you want to come through to the waiter: as a stylish diner who'll pay a fat premium for bottled water, or appear cheap and say, ordinary water will do.

And then staring at the menu, back we come to the same dilemma of where it all started: What to eat?

Good things

Despite knowing the rule that the longer the description of the dish, the bigger the bill, we will, from time to time, land up in utterly posh places, open a huge designer menu card, and nonchalantly tap at, say, "Risotto Supreme: cooked with freshly flown-in mountain-dew from the Swiss Alps, and served with our chef's repertoire of Milanese sauces gently simmered with Moroccan wild thyme" and turn to the waiter and ask "Is it good?"

Well. What did we expect the waiter to say? "Well, the rice is totally undercooked, there's a funny dark coloured sauce quite alien to our Indian tastes, two sprigs of broccoli, unsalted, and the portion is so tiny you may have to go home and eat curd rice or die of hunger in your bed tonight... "

Instead of which the waiter says, "Excellent choice! You picked the best dish of all; in fact it was Bill Clinton's favourite when he visited India."

Exotic names

I remember once ordering "A Mediterranean blend of farm-fresh, sun-kissed legumes sautéed and combined with herbs de Provence and grilled to perfection in a gentle dip of bakery-fresh crumbled bread" ... whose common name was a vegetable cutlet, of course, but who knew that? After a 45-minute wait (which made me think, I am the waiter, waiting and waiting, not that snooty waiter there who is trained never to catch your eye once your order is placed... ), two cutlets, the size of one-rupee coins arrived in a huge square designer plate, decorated very artistically with a zigzag line of sauce, an elegant piece of coriander and a tomato skilfully cut and shaped to look like the Sydney Opera House.

After a while, the specially flown-in French chef personally dropped by our table to ask, "So how did you find the meal?" "With a magnifying glass," I wanted to say. Instead of course, I gushed "C'est magnifique!"

And at the other extreme are honest restaurant managers who like to say it like it is. Down my road is Varalakshmi Tiffin Home, an international restaurant serving Indian, North Indian and Chinese "Cueesines" where omelette is spelt armlet and peas pilaf is spelt peace pullow, and where the two most popular dishes are Chow Mean and Sholay Bhature. But one item written on the menu board in chalk outside Velmurugan Meals (specialising in North Indian food) had me mystified, as I drove past it every day to work.

Right on top of the list was Malai Gupta. Perhaps an authentic UP dish named after the chef? I used to wonder. Then the penny dropped one day. It was Malai Kofta of course.

Well, God forbid any Chinese traveller (now that the borders between our countries are open) from actually entering any of our South Indian Chinese speciality dining halls, and find out what Gopi Manjurian is all about. And so what if some sambar powder was added to make it really tasty for the auto rickshaw drivers who regularly drop by.

Reddy meals

Meanwhile, People Like Us will continue to eat out at the most exotic restaurants, where the tip alone could feed the average Indian family of six a totally satisfying thali each at any "Meals Reddy" place.

However, recently while dining at a new, classy European bistro, I found my "Bean Goulash with Courgette Dumplings" bland and boring beyond belief — and so I decided to protest. "I'd like to see the Chef please," I said in a dignified but firm, threatening voice.

"Sorry M'am," said the waiter. "He's gone out for lunch".

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

My First Book! DONT GO AWAY. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK

Today's Paper » FEATURES » SUNDAY MAGAZINE
Published: April 17, 2011 00:00 IST | Updated: April 17, 2011 04:07 IST
Book bond

INDU BALACHANDRAN
On the occasion of World Book Day (April 23) INDU BALACHANDRAN takes a tongue-in-cheek look at reading habits.



I plan to write a book called “How I conquered the British Vampire”. I have no clue what it's about, but am sure that with a title like that, millions of crazed teens will rush out to buy it, as vampire fiction is still a worldwide rage…

Ok, ok… you must excuse us writers the occasional trick to get you to read more, because there's an entire publishing industry that's dependant on us to keep them off the streets, begging for food and sleeping on, what else? Newspapers. Using unsold books as pillows.

And if you are among those rare ones that read at least four books a month, then several publishing houses would like to garland you, and perhaps even name a bookstore after you…(hope you're name isn't Higginbotham, as that one's taken already.)

I know a lot of people blame the drawing room deity, the TV set, for keeping us away from books and newspapers. But that's not always true. I once read that Groucho Marx thanked television for encouraging him to read. Every time someone switched on the TV, he rushed out to another room and read a book.

Or perhaps the movies are to blame. Nowadays they seem to be making movies out of books even before the author has finished writing his book.

However there is no need for the few committed readers like you and me to turn our noses up at those who prefer to wait for the movie version rather than go through 400 pages of a book. Because even the movies encourage the reading habit in their own way. I know pals who don't leave the hall till they've read every name on the rolling credits, down to Nora Philips who was the Fat Lady in the Airplane , and Timmy Anderson who handled the Key Grip.

Books improve looks

There's no denying that books can improve your looks instantly. Look what happened to me recently when I decided to appear ridiculously well-read at a swish society party. Sipping my drink I said breezily, “Isn't it fascinating how Goethe has made Faust an erudite hybrid between a play and Hellenic poetry? I find Faustian allegories apply even to the questionable lifestyle of Salman Khan…” Oh what a high I experienced as several people gazed at my face in deep admiration. It sure beat using Fair & Lovely.

And in this day of multi-tasking, it is great to see people combine reading with whatever else they are doing. Like my former colleague Jojo. He spends at least three hours a day reading, combining it with Looking Busy Doing Work. He reads around 237 status updates daily on facebook ; he reads 10 reasons why raising shrimp is better than marriage (forwarded to him by an ex-fiancée), and is up to date on what the Harley Davidson Club in Utah is planning this summer. We must thank www for doing its bit for the reading habit.

But am not quite sure about the younger generation…There's this incident I read about the man who recently gave his nephew a Book to read as a Christmas present. The seven-year old spent hours trying to find out where to fit in the batteries…

And I doubt if even his parents were great readers in their childhood. Because a Classic is a book that everybody is assumed to have read, and often think they have.

So we must thank Reader's Digest for giving us bite-sized bits to chew and swallow and still appear smart at interviews and parties. Though I think this writer of abridged classics went too far when he gave us this book that reads: “Boy and Girl from warring families meet. She is compared to a rose. She pretends to be dead. He thinks she's really dead. He kills himself. She finds he's dead and kills herself.” I think Romeo and Juliet deserved a bit more than that.

Keep exercising

And if Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body, then my cousin Raju's mental treadmill has remained broken down for a long time…

I saw him the other day in a green park, blissfully staring out, doing nothing, under a tree. “Hey what's up, “I asked. “Don't disturb me, I'm celebrating World Book Day by reading…” he said. “How? I don't see any Book,” I said, puzzled.

“Can't you see? I'm enjoying a Book while it is still a tree…”

Hey publishers! A lot of environmentalists may love Raju. But don't worry; I am still there for you.

Indu Balachandran is a travel and humour columnist for leading magazines. Email: indubee8@yahoo.co.in.

How to start a beginning...

The thing is to begin at the beginning, and then keep going till you reach the end.

So some wise man told us.

But then, I can never start something unless I have a good ending.

So.

I shall begin with the ending.

And the ending is: what my English teacher (my hero) told me at school, the last time

I met her...(I remember thinking, hey! what a great title for a book I may write one day...)

And this is what she said to me, as I waved goodbye...

"And don't forget to write".