About a boy

A few months after I returned to media in 2003, we had a conference for all employees at then-still-new Northpoint. I remember Sujaya had set up a series of value search workshops for various levels, and I was required to drop in on each session and say an intelligent thing or two ('intelligence inside' being the theme that I had come up with for our journey going forward, disillusioned as I was then with the state of affairs I saw it - all hype and no substance).

In one of the juniormost groups, participants were required to briefly present to me their individual takeouts. One by one, they trotted up to the centre of the room, said their piece, took my feedback and so on. It was going rather well, till ...the boy. Tall, gangly, very young and extremely nervous, he froze on his words. Like a mute puppy he stared down at the floor then looked up at me and down again and kept this up for about three minutes while the whole room of thirty odd managers watched in silence. Finally, he blurted out that he just couldn't remember what he had prepared and asked to be excused. A mixture of sympathy and scorn circled the room, while the boy walked back to his seat dejected but not defeated.

Over the years, I have watched him grow. Physically he is now a strapping young man. Emotionally he is strong, confident and incredibly tenacious. Most of all he remains humble and cheerful especially under pressure. From number crunching beginnings, he has begun to appreciate the value of creative thinking and, along with his seniors, he has worked on some of our more innovative projects.

The most recent being the Bol Bindaas Bol campaign to promote asking for condoms unselfconsciously. His team created half hour programs for news channels which got the man on the street to speak up about his shyness on this issue. This won us two silver medals at the Goafest Media awards - for best use of tv, and for cause marketing.

Before a gathering of thousands of ad revellers, the boy and I walked up to the imposing stage set up on the silver sands of Goa to collect the award for cause marketing. As he proudly held it aloft and waved to the crowds, I stood by his side with a deep sense of gratitude. Once silent before an audience of 30, now smiling before an audience of 3000, the boy is now a man.

Can you tell who he is from this picture?