lynnisms

Power means responsibility

2011-08-10T11:51:00.003+05:30

Social media have placed so much power into our hands. We can bring down governments on the back of shared tweet. We can find an abandoned dog a home. We can make music history with one youtube performance.

With power comes great responsibility. Do we realise that?

Juxtaposing these two articles below makes me proud to be an Indian, and a Mumbai-ite.

While the London rioters used BBM to spread misery and chaos, Mumbai-ites instead used the power of the internet to bring help and calm in the aftermath of the 13/7 blasts, since the phone lines were jammed.

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/london-riots-fueled-bbm-134005

http://www.mediavataar.com/column.php?id=34

Testing Times

2011-08-01T12:20:00.012+05:30

My last post here was on March 11, 2010 - that's one year, four months and three weeks ago. I had promised to keep writing, and then fell prey to the simplicity and ease of the short and sweet 'share', 'like', and 'status update' buttons on facebook. Plus nothing really inspired me enough - perhaps I have been in an emotional limbo all this while.

Till last week when two big new things happened to me.

The first was a relatively simple learning experience. As part of LMG's Cyberquest month, every employee has to get Google certified, and go through rigorous social and mobile media immersion. We were given study material for two weeks, which I ignored, made to attend a three hour lecture, which I enjoyed, and then given our passwords for the Google Fundamentals two hour test, which I completed in ninety minutes, got 77% marks and failed. Passing score is 85%.

The test itself was so well crafted that you learned with each and every question and multiple choice answer. Most people take three attempts to pass it, learning more with each attempt. I was greatly impressed by the Google approach to business - a unique truly value enhancing model that all our media partners could learn from.

The second was a more complicated but equally useful learning experience. At the Annual General Meeting of an important trade association, where I embroiled myself self righteously in a proxy war, without having a single proxy of my own!

Without the benefit of study material, lecture or test, I have downloaded this definition from Wikipedia, to better understand exactly what it was that happened.

"A proxy war or proxy warfare is a war that results when opposing powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly.

Proxy wars have also been fought alongside full-scale conflicts. It is almost impossible to have a pure proxy war, as the groups fighting for a certain nation usually have their own interests, which can diverge from those of their patron.

Typically proxy wars function best during cold wars, as they become a necessity in conducting armed conflict between at least two belligerents while continuing cold warfare."

My opponent, a person I consider a close friend, had informed me about the general mood of the house against my continuance as Vice President. Despite the 'great job' I did in running Goafest 2011 with all its complications, my open dissent with the way affairs are conducted within the governing body did not find favour with, what I affectionately call, the Old Boys Club. That I am a woman, a christian woman, a single woman, and a woman with a mind of my own, could not have made it easy for them to understand me, much as I have tried to understand what motivates them, and to accept that power and ego are powerful drivers for men who are business leaders, even as women prefer to make a difference in more subtle and creative ways.

What I did not know was that he wanted the job for himself instead. Had he even once told me this himself, I would have gladly stepped aside for him. Instead I found myself 'accosted' by other friends and frenemies, each espousing his case, a few minutes before the meeting. Unwilling to given in to pressure, and genuinely believing that in standing down I would be doing my own good work and good intentions a disservice, I told the house that I would 'rather lose'. Whereupon an election was swiftly called for by some of the members of the Old Boys Club. Members who came armed with proxies, no less that 40 of them! Against one woman and her two colleagues and two friends in the house.

As the election committee went about putting the ballot process together, the frantic parlays began across the room. I finally understood what 'mastering the art of working the floor of the house' means. Doing good work, hard work - oh all that is passe, what counts in some governing bodies like this one (thankfully not others) is how well you work the floor. I didn't. I had no qualms about declaring openly to anyone who wanted to know, that I would not pressurise anyone, nor would I yield to pressure from anyone.

Before the voting began, I was called aside with my friend-turned-opponent, and two offers were made.

The first one was this - we both stand down, and a third person be appointed. I refused it, thinking if it wasn't in my fate to be Vice President for another term, at least it would be my friend-turned-opponent. But he agreed to it! That's when I realised that he was as much against my continuance as the rest of the OBC. Anyone but me, anyone (not even him) but me. Perhaps, as he said, he was under pressure too. Someone else - another Old Boy - had been 'requested' to withdraw his own candidature on the assurance that my friend would become the VP instead of me. How they must all dislike me, or feel threatened by me, who knows!

The second offer was unbelievable. The holder of the proxies would ensure that I got re-elected if I asked one of my colleagues, who was already elected into the governing body, to step aside and withdraw his valid candidature. Why? Because a few months earlier, this young man had the temerity to stand up to the Old Boys, calling out some of their unjust ways in no uncertain terms, and crossing the line of propriety along the way. Though he did subsequently apologise as abjectly as he could, the Old Boys are senior of age and status, but not necessarily of heart and stature, and here was the chance to find vindication. I rejected this offer, unequivocally.

I lost 50 votes to 5. The proxies weren't even needed. But they were used.

I thought I would feel defeated. I don't. I feel stronger than ever. I don't give up, and I don't give in. There is anther year to go, another year to see if I can pick up the skills to work the floor. Without betraying my friends, my values, my integrity. Maybe I will learn, maybe I won't - it would be good to find out. At least I know that I can push back my shoulders, lift up my chin and walk into the next meeting with a genuine smile on my face for all those in the Governing Body who I do love and respect, including those in the OBC!

Reading and writing

2010-03-11T17:19:00.005+05:30

Facebook and twitter have overtaken my digital life - I have nearly abandoned this blog, a place I once loved so much. And still do. I just don't seem to have the time or inclination required to write out full sentences and paragraphs.

A few weeks ago, I bought a kindle from amazon.com and reacquainted myself with the art of pure reading. An unusual realisation - that even holding up a book which has a right and left side can be a distraction - the binder in the middle, the other page, you can see them both from the corner of your eye - but with the kindle, it's just the words in front of you and nothing else. Words in carefully muted black over cream , easy on the eye. I believe the kindle is not doing well at all in India - well, I love it. I have downloaded newspapers and books to read on long journeys away from home, and preferred the experience to the ubiquitous inflight video.

So now that I am reading without the distractions of double spread boutique ads, diecuts on the front page, and rich media banners, I must also return to some proper writing instead of this 140 character texting nonsense. I hope to be back here more often, always assuming that I have something insightful to write about.

Till then, let me commit an unforgiveable crime and redirect you to a facebook page - of my travels last month in Africa. No, I couldn't find all the words to say it all, and have used many pictures instead. Here is the link, hope it opens up to my non-friends too.

"In love with elephants"

144/9 Torda

2010-01-20T14:50:00.004+05:30

Reproducing below a post I wrote on November 15, 2005 - No, it's not due to laziness, or lack of inspiration, just nostalgia and a sudden longing for the way things used to be before the builders descended on my village.....

"Ultimately, it’s all about witchcraft and wizadry. Hogwarts cannot have a monopoly on magic. I won’t allow it.

It starts with a nondescript, non-used but fully functioning brass bell, set inside a 4 by 4 hollow square in the front of the left compound wall that was meant to house the giant red dolphin.

(The dolphin being the then mascot of the Goa SPCA, much maligned by all our trustees.

- Benny – “of all the creatures you could have shown as a symbol, why on earth a dolphin, why not dogs and cats and horses and the common cow?”

- Lt Col Nageshkar –“ people think we are fish mongers – when our three wheeler animal carrier passes by with the red dolphin painted on it, they think we are transporting fish” (this one must make my priestly ancestors roll in their polished marble graves – having looked down for centuries at the ‘fisherfolk’ – if you’ve encountered the cacophonous quarrelsome locals of Calangute and Baga, you will sympathise)

- Bharat –“are you sure red is a good colour for a) a hospital, b) a dolphin?”

- Ashley – “it makes us look like a tourist hotel”)

The dolphin that was delivered hours before the inauguration was a flat uninspiring piece of badly cut and poorly painted red steel, so I sent Clem off to buy a bell – “We have to put something in that square – can’t leave it empty, might as well be a bell – it can stand for anything you like, I don’t care, just fill up the square.”

People sometimes clang on the bell for fun. Sometimes to call the vets down the hill. The bell is where the magic begins.

It moves on to Leopoldina. A badam tree sapling we planted on Foundation day, October 4, 2000. Named after a local twenty something senorita who looked longingly at Clem, the Man from the Big City – during the mass. Everyone says hello to everyone in a village that houses 900 people, if that. “Hello, I’m Lynn, this is Clem, what’s your name?” “Leopoldina”. Clem does a double take. Turns out that was Annabelle’s code name when she lived in America while they were dating. Our baby tree is officially named Leopoldina. A clutch of elves live inside her.

(When the construction papers finally got approved we realized that we had miscalculated the whole project by three metres, since that’s how much forward it would have to move up, to make way for potential ‘road widening’. No way I would let Leopoldina and the corner stone be moved, even though they were technically quite out of place. So everything had to make its way around her, the pathway, the vehicles going up and down, the cashew tree above her that now looks down at her with angry frowns since she has grown right up to his lower branches. We celebrate her temerity every year on her birthday, she continues to cast her cheeky spell.)

It moves further up to the office block, that houses the administration, the OPD, and the angels dressed up as vets, nurses and general dogsbodies. Everything is spic and span, including Tixi and Toxi, the two teak trees who rise up from the Torda earth, right through the administration rooms, into the front verandah of my own home above. From time to time, the insects dance around them, and the toadstools pop out at night. In autumn, I turn into a sweeper of falling blossoms and leaves as they shed their clothes faster than an American stripper.

The front wall of the administration building that faces the road was painted over in aquatic blue by two young Warli tribals shipped in by Clem on a bus the night before the inauguration. Animal rescue and treatment scenes depicted by them show a nurse chasing after a bird with a needle and syringe that’s taller than her, among other such expressions of their typical triangular art.

(The addition of over two hundred plants of varying lineage, taken from Mumbai in the Grand Rescue of all Things Living at Gym View for over Twenty Years, (the said Gym View now having been razed to the ground to make way for a dazzling display of diamond gotten wealth) have somewhat hidden the Warli contribution and added a semblance of civilization to the place’s jungle appeal. Palms, ferns and cordelias rub shoulders with jackfruit, cashew and goti, and all blend together beautifully. The only rule being that there are no rules – grow where you grow best and feel happy, darling, ain’t no posh garden manicurists here.)

Up a long laterite flight of steps hugging the right compound wall, past my impossibly sloping backyard, back of my house but front of the shelter. We are now at the fourth floor by city standards, but at the ground floor of my house. At Torda, logic has a magic of its own.

Here lives Noella, nestling among jackfruit, mango, papaya and lemon, all waiting to grow up and bear fruit – hopefully, not long now. I carried her from Mumbai to Goa on my lap in a plane, her graceful young branches tied closely together to keep her trademark spiky Christmas tree leaves from getting hurt. Every year, she sprouts a new row of hexagonally symmetrical branches. This Christmas, her third new row has just starting reaching out to the other trees around her, and the fairies will skip past each row as always when the clock strikes twelve on December 25th, so that a magical star can come down to settle on her forehead.

By now, you are breathless. When you look up, you think, “Oh my God, how much further?” If you have a scruffy little pup by your side, he’s having a party. Hop, skip and jump, here I come. Hey cat, wait till I get you. That’s right. You have just reached the gates to the shelter, where Gingy awaits you with a haughty little meow. Her sisters are sunning themselves on the surgery roof, flat on their backs, paws kneading the air dreamily – you can see them as you go past the roof. Yes you do go past the roof, this is 144/9, Torda, remember?

Before you turn left at the little nookish entrance to the kitchen block, you are greeted by pups of assorted weight and colour, and if she’s not feeling too sleepy, Shalu will step up to say a polite hello too, while Philu will shake her bum ecstatically.

(Philu was named after the girl at the PFA shelter who sentenced her to death. Those were the days when other NGO’s sent us animals to work on since our own vehicle was on down time. Philu, the dog not the girl, had ‘untreatable’ mange. Dr Rathod set to work on his secret potion, made from exotic ingredients available at the local tinto. He calls it the Golden Lotion. Golden Lotion saved Philu from an untimely death, and sowed the seeds of an anti-euthanasia policy that I seft-righteously drew up. Mange is common in salty sandy Goa, and Golden Lotion has now become a household name in Torda – so what if there are only 300 houses?)

If it’s feeding time, they will all ignore you, pointedly. So will the staff. It’s not easy spooning rice and chicken broth into bowls, with cats hovering by the raw fish at your elbow, and pups scraping at your calves. Lucky will not budge however. She can barely stand. An emaciated Great Dane with a genetic hip disorder, she was left here by the Youth Congress General Secretary. Big man, in service of mankind, in abandonment of dogkind. She sits stretched fully across a strategically positioned step. You realise that the winding steps above were made only for the feeble, the rest of us must learn to take the slope of the hill in our stride and our rubber chappals.

The sloping roofed tubular maroon shelters now loom up before us. The inmates are quiet, dry-eyed, in obvious pain – some from the surgery, some from wounds, some from disease. They place their trust and hopes unflinchingly in the hands of the good Dr Rathod. He bows his head, and waves his wand, and they get up and walk.

(For those that don’t, further up the hill is a spot where magic touched my lips six years ago in a kiss that will stay unforgettable. Here lie the remains of Nixon, Jumbo, Bobby, Candy and many others who fought brave battles, played with the gypsies, and are still playing with them somewhere that is not 144/9 Torda, but as close to it as you can get. Ever.)"

Roadblocks everywhere

2009-11-25T12:32:00.003+05:30

It has been over two months since my last post. Two months of perhaps the busiest period in my life - both professionally and personally.

Yesterday when I settled down into my chair in office, I realised that I had clocked 16 flights in the previous 20 days, two of them international.

Have I achieved much in this time? I can't say for sure right now. There are too many roads, and too many road blocks, and I would much rather do what I do best - blaze my own new trail, instead of having to maneouvre myself around roads built and blocks created by other people.

Hopefully the solutions I am trying to engineer, and the decisions I am taking, will blaze a strange new trail of their own, even as they upset the influential, but favour the voiceless.

Here is an article of mine that appeared in the back page of the Economic Times Brand Equity on October 14th - hope you enjoy reading it - yes, the 'smart but stupid media planner' referred to in one of the earlier paras, was me.....

Meeting two ultra special people on 09.09.09

2009-09-11T13:57:00.004+05:30

September 9 is a date I dread. Those close to me professionally and personally would be aware of the horrific experience that I underwent along with three other colleagues on this date twelve years ago, which changed the course of my career for several years thereafter. Even worse was a health related encounter exactly three years later.

Though I am not superstitious at all, 9 is usually supposed to by my lucky number - my house in Torda is 144/9, for example. So perhaps the year 2009, when all the nines came together, was time to turn the tide. Maybe, maybe not, but for sure I met with two people who have been so close and yet so far, in surprising ways on 09.09.09.

The first re-meeting was in the afternoon. A friend sent out "old memories" photos on facebook, and I was tagged on a few of them. The first one opened up to a picture of a long nosed lean mean me with a thinned down casually dressed Ravi Gupta, clapping his hands, like the rest of us in the pitcure.

Tears rushed into my eyes when I saw his face reach out to me from my laptop screen, and it was like he was telling me not to be afraid of September 9 anymore. There is much that I am working on today which was exactly the same that I was working on then, but this time around I think I have him beside me to help.

Later that evening, I went to the Campaign A-lister's party, and met Josy Paul after a longish time. We did the usual rounds of leg pulling, set a date to catch up etc, but in a large gathering of five hundred people, making small talk about big things, you don't really "meet" anyone, do you?

So I opened up the A list book and looked up the entry on Josy. Sure felt good to meet him properly. Read it here and meet him too:-)

More on Cannes

2009-06-24T02:13:00.010+05:30

This is my article which appeared in exchange4media.com on June 24, 2009

On Cannes

2009-05-27T14:35:00.004+05:30

Brand Equity asked me to write about what I am expecting at Cannes - from the entries, other jury members, and the festival as a whole. Read and digest and if inclined, leave a comment!

Getting old, staying young

2009-04-13T16:50:00.003+05:30

My mother celebrated her 80th birthday yesterday, auspiciously on Easter. Here is the poem written for her by my father's 85 year old sister, who has always had a nice way with words:

You tell me I am getting old -
I tell you that's not so!
The 'house' I live in is worn out
And that, ofcourse, I know.
It's been in use a long, long time;
It's weathered many a gale;
I'm really not surprised you think
It's getting somewhat frail.
The colour's changing on the roof,
The windows getting dim;
The walls a bit transparent
And looking rather thin.
The foundation's not so steady
As once it used to be,
My 'house' is getting shaky
But my 'house' isn't me!
A few short years can't make me old,
I feel I'm in my youth,
Eternity lies just ahead -
A life of joy and truth.
I'm going to live forever there -
Life will go on, it's grand!
You tell me I am getting old?
You just don't understand.
The dweller in my little 'house'
Feels like a child at play:
Just starting on a life to last
Throughout eternal day.
You're only seeing the outside
Which is all that most folks see;
You tell me I am getting old?
You mixed my 'house' with me!

No words required

2009-04-10T15:54:00.002+05:30

Adam Lambert's version on American Idol got a standing ovation from the judges but has been removed from Youtube by the content owners, since the program overshot by 5 minutes and most of the East Coast missed out on this performance - it will probably be replayed tonight. He based his performance on the Gary Jules version from the film Donnie Darko - Mad World, perfect for Good Friday this year.

Salaam Mumbai

2009-03-12T12:40:00.005+05:30

Salaam Bombay was released in 1988, one of Mira Nair's first films. The kind that left an indelible impact on you, especially if you were on the right side of thirty.

Every Mumbaikar liked it, believed it, was moved by it. The film was nominated for an Oscar, and many others, but eventually won only at Cannes. That was twenty years ago when the West was still Best, and India hadn't yet become the flavour of the year.

Soon after the 1993 bomb blasts, Ravi Gupta got us together at Trikaya, and overnight we drew up a campaign on print, film and outdoor, saluting the spirit of Mumbai with the now famous "Salaam Mumbai" slogan, inspired by the film. (By then the name of city had been changed). We shot two minute films featuring unsung heroes who rushed to help the blast victims, and got all the media to run the entire campaign free. The experience of being attacked was a first, the city's instinctively magnanimous response also a first, and now Salaam Mumbai has become a formula, to be expected each time we are struck and struck again.

Watching this spirit reduced to an impossibly unbelievable fairy tale applauded by a voyeuristic western world, when a far superior equivalent went practically unnoticed, feels like a betrayal of sorts.

Shafik Syed, who played the spunky protagonist, Krishna, in Salaam Bombay, is now driving an auto rickshaw in the streets of Bangalore. Speaking to a news channel, he said no one remembered him or the film, and was thrilled when Mira Nair called him the other day to invite him to the re-release of Salaam Bombay that she is now planning.

And the slums in which one of the Slumdog boys lives, is being razed to the ground by the BMC this week.

So characteristic of this hyped up entertainment business - to create one week wonders, and then discard them. Fear not fellows, the real Mumbai is still here for you all, and will always be.

My needs

2009-02-20T11:31:00.004+05:30

My cousin, Michelle, just introduced her facebook friends to an interesting 'feature' on google. If you need a break from meetings, phone calls, emails and powerpoints, this is as good a time-pass as any. Just type in your first name followed by the word 'needs' in the google search bar and discover your deep unexpressed desires finally out in the open!

Here are mine, some true and some pretty much unlikely, but then you never know just what is kept neatly concealed behind our well crafted public personae.

1. Lynn needs some hugs from you. (well, it can get lonely at the top)

2. Lynn needs to develop a larger repertoire of reading vocabulary. (I do??)

3. Lynn needs help's stats. (If I can figure out what that means, maybe I will discover that I do need it).

4. Lynn needs to go to Dodge City to attend a suffrage conference. (I don't know about the suffrage bit, but Dodge City sounds like fun).

5. Lynn needs to move her desk. (People have warned me that my office desk is not in a favourable feng shui position, but given that we have just been ranked the best performing agency in the country in the R3 study that met 240 advertisers, I will leave it where it is. At home, my great great grandfather's 250 year old rosewood writing desk has been hijacked by my toy fox terriers, so I guess that will need to stay where it is too).

6. Lynn needs help naming her unborn daughter. (Enough said).

7. Lynn needs backing for Olympic dream. (Yes, I have always always wanted to hold that torch in my hand ever since we all helped Suresh Mullick with that famous Freedom Film that ran on Doordarshan during Independence Day in the 80's, and Josy gave me one of the torches used in the film as a goodbye present the day I left Ogilvy).

8. Lynn needs help with her baby. (Once again, enough said.)

9. Lynn needs a kidney. (And a liver, and a heart, and a brain, and by the way, God, if your returned my thryoid too, I would be most grateful)

10. Lynn needs money. (Now that is the one thing I definitely don't need!)

Go play.

Adopt a dog

2009-02-03T13:55:00.008+05:30

My friend, Meenakshi Madhvani, adopted a couple of street dog pups a few months ago, after an sms I sent her. Tino and Cleo have enriched her life in so many ways, she feels richer than a billionaire.

Now that the Supreme Court has placed a stay on the Bombay High Court order to exterminate ownerless 'nuisance' dogs, there will plenty of pups and dogs who need homes in societies and apartments.

Here are some hoardings that Aaren Initiative will be putting up in Mumbai and Delhi over the next few days, concept courtesy Maneka Gandhi.

And for good measure, a great Pedigree film that ran with the Superbowl final this year!

In case you feel inspired to adopt a dog, here are some waiting for homes:

Humane Capitalism Conclave

2009-01-22T15:45:00.004+05:30

This is the text of the keynote address I delivered at the first Humane Capitalism Conclave today - the other speakers on this panel were Anu Aga of Thermax, and Rob Dhoble of Omnicom. Will try to get hold of their deliveries too and paste them here.

"Most of you must have watched President Barack Obama deliver his rhetorical inaugural address two nights ago. Among the many things he said, I was struck several times by his reference to responsibility – that of the citizens of today to the future citizens of this planet, that of his country to the world, that of a government to its people, and that of leaders to the led.

In a much less dramatic but equally sincere speech, our own Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh called out, in no uncertain terms, to the corporate leaders of our country last Saturday at the Economic Times Business Leader Awards – to conduct their businesses with integrity, and not to betray the trust imposed on them by all the stake holders of the corporate world, employees, shareholders and customers. Yet another call to take heart, be good and act responsibly.

Doing good while doing well was the original theme of this conclave. Today when everyone is not doing nearly as well as they would have liked, doing good, playing fair, and being kind, have taken on a real and felt importance across the corporate world. Adversity can bring out either the best or the worst in people, and it’s heartening to note that so far we are seeing a great deal of the best.

This is a welcome trend especially for the civil society movement, since paying lip service to CSR has long been a characteristic of Indian industry. There are genuine practitioners ofcourse but these are few and far between. For most companies and individuals, the easiest response to a request for help is to loosen one’s purse strings with a quick tax deductible cheque.

However social causes need time, effort, attitude and commitment much more than they need funds. (I work for the cause of animals which is the single most unpopular cause of all in India. It requires a great deal of courage and commitment to fight for the plight of creatures who cannot communicate with us). All causes need people to feel the pain and the deprivation, to really empathise with the beneficiaries of their ‘handouts’, and not just sympathise with them.

At times like this when people at all levels have begun to feel the pinch themselves, it’s getting difficult to loosen the purse strings for charity. The good news therefore is that people have instead begun to open their heart strings, and this could lead to real social change. More people ran for Mumbai in the recent marathon than ever before.

This leads me to the role of communication in furthering the practice of humane capitalism. We live in the age of communication. The modes of relaying messages from one to many have never been so quick, so easy and so cheap. More than one lakh people gathered outside the Gateway of India on 26/12 without any kind of paid advertising – just word of mouth and word of mouse through all the social networking sites. As Herod sang in Superstar telling Christ that if he’d come today he would have reached a whole nation – that was still thirty years ago, today he would have reached the whole world. Early estimates suggest that Obama’s address was watched live by more than 300 million people around the world (the opening games of the Olympics by 90 million).

To all the NGO’s therefore who struggle to find funds for awareness generation, you don’t need to. Use the power of citizen driven, community driven, messages instead – they are more powerful, and they are free.

The marketing head of the Taj addressed a digital roundtable organized by us last week along with IAMAI, in which she described the impact of the groundswell of citizen driven communication on the Taj brand. Always seen as a hospitable and efficient brand, in the aftermath of the attacks, people writing in blogs and facebook etc ignored the inadequate security at the hotel (a negative) and dwelt instead on the heroism of its employees (a major positive). I dare say employees of any hotel would have acted similarly in a similar situation – it was the good fortune (for want of a better word) amid the misfortune of the Taj that the event happened there thus generating heaps of free and quick goodwill for the Taj brand that years of pr and advertising put out by the company itself would not have been able to.

What is the point that I am getting at? Two points really. One is that you don’t need money from grudging and motivated corporates to communicate a social message.

The other and more important one is that it's finally all about selflessness. Really humane capitalism is selfless and sincere. It is not wired by the need to sell more goods and services by appealing to the good side of customers, the way most cause marketing intiatives of companies are structured. ‘One rupee of every packet sold goes to xyz ngo’. It doesn’t measure what it gets back by way of sales, but by way of goodwill. It looks at CSR as a way of giving back to society, not getting back in 80G.

Between 2006 and 2008, there was an 80% increase in the amount of television time given to social advertising – most of it probono – 1.2 million seconds worth. All these ads were for NGO’s or government agencies. The comparative growth figure for print was however 253% - almost all of it on account of the universally acclaimed and awarded Lead India and Teach India campaigns of the Times of India that all of you are familiar with. Sales generation and fund raising were not the primary objectives of these campaigns, getting people to feel and act and give, was.

I would now like to share with you examples of work done by our agency Lintas that reflect this thought. You will not see an overt association with any specific cause or NGO in any of these commercials. No budget has been laid aside for ‘CSR’. No tax deductible cheques written. Real social change is sought to be achieved by the very nature of the communication itself. All of them have used the power of the advertiser’s entire spend to strive for real social change. These are examples of work conceived and driven by people in companies who know that they have the strongest power in their hands – not the power of money though they have that too, but the power to ideate and to communicate life changing messsages. And are willing to use this for the overall betterment of society as much as for the betterment of their brands."

(Play Jaago Re, all What an idea, Sirji films, Surf Excel do bucket, and Lifebuoy puppy)

Renewing a contract

2009-01-06T09:52:00.007+05:30

Anyone who knows me well knows it's very difficult, almost impossible, to get me to sign on the dotted line for anything that involves me personally. If I make a commitment, and if I trust someone, it's all in the heart and nowhere else. I have built a veterinary hospital without a single legal word. There are very few who understand this, but those that do, understand it better than words could ever say.

However, I did rush to respond to this unusual contract of friendship sent by my best friend (who has been an older sister to me for more than half of my life). If you ever want to get me to sign on a dotted line.....something like this might just work!!

2009 Contract
After serious & cautious consideration . . .
Your contract of friendship has been renewed for the New Year 2009!
It was a very hard decision to make. So try not to screw it up!!!
My Wish for You in 2009
May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for Rs1000 bills.
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.
May the problems you had forget your home address! In simple words . . . may 2009 be the best year of your life!!!
God bless you as always

Peace on Earth

2008-12-19T10:46:00.008+05:30

While preparing to compose a christmas wish for all my family and friends, I stopped at the reading for today in a book Sathya had gifted me (which I don't read as often as he would like me too, but when I do, there's usually something strangely wise in it).

"Let's avoid the temptation to make our Christmas worship a withdrawal from the stress and sorrow of life into a realm of unreal beauty. It was into the real world that Christ came, into a city where there was no room for Him, and into a country where Herod, the murderer of innocents, was king.

He comes to us, not to shield us from the harshness of the world but to give us the courage and strength to bear it; not to snatch us away by some miracle from the conflict of life, but to give us peace – His peace – in our hearts, by which we may be calmly steadfast while the conflict rages, and be able to bring to the torn world the healing that is peace.

Christmas is not a retreat from reality but an advance into it along with the Prince of Peace."

War is still an option on the table, unfortunately. Despite the unrest and unease all around, may we all still find the peace within, whichever route takes us there.

Perhaps this beautiful interplay between David Bowie and Bing Crosby, entitled Peace on Earth, could help. And that "my child and your child will see the day when men of goodwill live in peace again".

The terrorist

2008-12-02T13:47:00.004+05:30

Amid all the bloodied battered images in the media these past few days, one stands out in my brain and in my heart - that of a scared and exhausted young man turning over a somersault as he fell out of a window, his body a broken burnt bulleted corpse that dropped to a mangled heap outside the Taj, signalling the end of the seige.

Terrorist, terrified. As death stared him full in the face, he reached for his AK 56 in one last desperate act to shoot aimlessly out of that window. A sacrificial pawn in the diabolical plans of mad men who stay safe in their hideouts, even as they train and despatch these men to kill and be killed, talented intelligent brave young men who could have done so much good for humanity instead.

Terrorist, despised. He is a mother's son too. Someday years ago, he must have been like the little Moshe, crying for water and his mama, playing with his nanny. Till the diabolical mad men went in search of him and found him. He is a father's son too. Like the father of Major Unnikrishnan who kicked the CM out of his home. He is a man who will be buried in disgrace in a strange land, while others are given a hero's farewell.

Terrorist, forgiven. If he asked God for forgiveness in his dying moment, there is no doubt that God would have done so. No doubt at all. If he believed he didn't need to, because he was doing God's will anyway, don't question him now. He is dead, let his soul rest in peace. Question the diabolical mad men who are still alive and more dangerous than before, hound them down, flush them out and question them.

Terrorist, avenged. Sadder for humanity than the deaths of the innocent, is the destruction of the souls of the living. Can we even bring ourselves to avenge such evil? Perhaps we can, but not by bashing countries and politicians. The protest marches, candles, white clothes, banners and emails, will all help to release the anger and assuage the grief, catharses all. With no effect whatsoever on the mad men, the root of the problem. Bashing the government is an act of supreme shortsightedness. Now more than ever the people in power need our help. Let's extend it instead.

Touching history

2008-11-10T14:02:00.004+05:30

The flight from London to New York enjoyed strong tailwinds. So we landed an hour ahead of schedule. This meant that we got the news of the new President while watching CNN in the immigration hall of JFK.

People everywhere were walking around with huge grins on their faces. The black staff at the place I stayed were dancing up and down the hallways. I switched on the telly just in time to watch Barack Obama deliver his memorable inaugural address, the goosepimples standing out on my skin. Lying on an American couch, sipping hot American coffee, drinking in the moment that the media believes will take its place in history while breathing in American air......wow!

The next morning the city of New York seemed exactly the same as before. Brisk, preoccupied in the streets, highly engaged in the offices, cool dry weather, petfriendly streets and shops (my favorite aspect of this magnificent city). Unfazed by the recent past or the present future. Just like Mumbai.

I read a rather unusual but apt desription of the city in Highlife, the British Airways inflight magazine, by the Sex and the City author, Candace Bushnell. You can find it here. "Everyone lives life in the public sphere. Apartments are small so life is led in the office, on the streets, in the restaurants, clubs and bars." Just like Mumbai, indeed.

Maybe I could live there.......and touch history again.......except that I like to live at home, wherever home may be.

San Francisco, heaven on earth

2008-10-27T11:29:00.014+05:30

San Francisco is small, quaint, lovable, unusual, friendly, happy, hilly, sunny (well, I missed the famous fog!).

I lost myself in the trams and cable cars, the cruise around the Alcratraz and Capt Nemo's introduction to the prisoners, the huge Petco petshop, the ride up and down the Golden Gate bridge, the undersea aquarium where I stroked a leopard shark behind his dorsal fin and similarly touched a couple of bat rays, and the wharf, the wharf, the wharf, where the seals barked and the gulls cried, and the clam chowder said to Oliver's granddaughter, "of course you can have some more".

I found myself in the Muir Woods, where the tallest and oldest living creatures in the world (the magnificient 2000 year old redwoood sequioas) wrap you up in a woody leafy herbal scent as the words of David Wagoner's "Lost" bring you back up to earth while the markets plummet further.

Lost!
Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.
Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.
Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

The purpose of my trip was professional. Hosting a client to meet the Chairman/CEO of IPG for breakfast, followed by a meeting and dinner with 25 agency heads from around the world, was a privilege in itself. However, the outcome of the trip is thankfully personal. I had been talking to the lady in the mirror for the past few months, telling her that I was not happy with the distance growing between her, and the image peeping out of the business pages much too often. She told me that I was being sent to San Francisco for a reason......

Within thirty minutes of landing at the airport, I found myself standing before the relics of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, after whom the city was named in 1857 - a year after Italian and Spanish settlers in search of gold set up the chapel there, now the National Shrine on Columbus Ave.

A solemn simple church, not quite as beautiful or imposing as the 12th century basilica in Assisi, but enough to give me some much needed moments of peace and enlightenment. For those who don't know, St Francis of Assisi was a rich merchant's son who gave up a life of wealth and fun to live au naturel in the forests. Besides founding the Franciscan order, he was well known for his ability to communicate with animals and his love for all God's creations. On the left is a mural of the saint with the Gubbio wolf, whom he convinced to give up his ferocious ways and live in peace among the villagers of Assisi. Our Torda hospital was founded on October 4, his feast day, and is dedicated to him. I bought a parchment of his famed Canticle of the Creatures, where he tells the Sun, moon, water, fire, earth how much he appreciates them.

His sermon to the birds is depicted in the mural on the right.
My little sisters, the birds, much indebted are you unto God, your creator, and always in every place you ought to praise him, that he has given you liberty to fly about everywhere, and has also given you double and triple raiment; moreover he preserved your seed in the ark of Noah, that your race might not perish out of the world; still more are you beholden to him for the element of the air which he has appointed for you; beyond all this, you sow not, neither do you reap; and God feeds you, and gives you the streams and fountains for your drink; the mountains and valleys for your refuge and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because you know not how to spin or sow, God clothes you, you and your children; wherefore your creator loves you much, seeing that he has bestowed on you so many benefits; and therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God.

Let me now leave you with his famous prayer sung by Sinead O'Connor in this version.

A morning to remember

2008-10-08T15:05:00.006+05:30

Driving past the Bandra Talab this morning, I encountered a sight that stirred my soul as much as it chilled my stomach. A bespectacled young gentleman, dressed in a checked blue shirt and navy slacks was striding along the footpath, the blue water and green palms offering a picturesque backdrop to his confident yuppie stride. He looked like any young executive on his way to work, minus a briefcase.

His left arm was severed a few inches above the wrist.

As he swung his arms unaffectedly back and forth, a crisp white bandage at the end of the left stump (just above where a hand should have been) stood out in stark contrast to the rest of his dark blue draped persona. I looked down at my own two hands. This Sunday was celebrated as thanksgiving Sunday, and the sermon at mass was about counting one's blessings instead of sheep, as a good cure for insomnia. I do not suffer from insomnia, and I have hands that can write, play, chop, stir, massage, sew, and sometimes heal. Thank you God.

Later this morning, I went over to the Aaren Initiative office in Worli to participate in the traditional Dussera puja and blessing of all the equipment. An office full of bright young people, dressed in traditional dark blue, shared in the chanting and clapping while the arti was performed in a room filled with the sweet scent of camphor and incense, and warmed with the gentle glow of the burning oil. As I silently offered up prayers of my own for this resilient team who have displayed so much maturity and strength of character during turbulent times, just like the Pandava princes, I realised that despite the stock market crashing and the rupee getting thrashed, I really do have much to thank God for.

Lunch was with an old friend and a plate full of tisrios. We talked about his Mudhol hounds. After which I bought a skirt, a pair of trousers, a t-shirt and a blouse at Marks and Spencer. JLT.

I came back to office and sanctioned a midterm increment for 73 people, something that's never been done in the Lintas group for the past ten years at least. When you are grateful, you should show it. And share it.

Happy Dussera, readers, here's wishing you reclaim your kingdom as joyously as I did mine.

Images

2008-09-25T16:44:00.005+05:30

It's been a month since I last posted, a hectic month with a lot of travel thrown in, but all within India. With some free time today, but not much by way of inspiration, perhaps a brief description of some of the images I can resurrect in my mind from events in the past thirty days may interest you.

1. A young labrador walking around my CRV at the Four Seasons, sniffing out for bombs on a drizzly day. What was wrong with the long handled mirror all these hotels normally shove under the boot, that they needed to replace them with this voiceless dog?

2. A six foot deep half acre wide crater where a building used to be - the building where an old Jain lady fed hundreds of pigeons and crows every morning on her terrace. Now we have to do that.

3. My dad's face when I told him that I was required to spend the night on a bench outside the ICU at Holy Family Hospital after his angioplasty, by the uncommonly rude staff. He had wanted to go home soon after it was done and grumbled all thru his short stay.

4. Bessy's surly expression after taking away my slippers and protectively guarding them so that Kasey can't chew them to bits with her newly grown molars.

5. Shashi's tight purple striped shirt at the last BARC meeting, and his expression when we teased him about it. It suited him though.

6. Charles turning a bright pink with embarrassment when his cellphone rang out the Pink Panther theme in full volume at the Board meeting. And turning pinker and pinker as we all figured out his secret alter ego.

7. The long line of red painted intercity coaches at the new Bengaluru airport.

8. The shiny russet jacquard tablecloth that was laid out for us at the lunch hosted by Aroon Purie at the magazine congress. The food and wine and conversation flowed over this incongruity like clear ocean water over a bed of slimy seaweed.

9. Hormusji's pistachio green 1945 Ford something with leather seats and more leg room than Kingfisher First.

10. Large wedges of warm brown walnut cake from City Cafe, courtesy Mahesh Bhojne's birthday, with walnut halves on the top.

And yes, there's a sound that I remember too - that of a reassuring deep long distance voice just when I needed it most.

Catching 'em young

2008-08-26T13:40:00.004+05:30

Recently two of my friends send me links to blogs started by their kids, with a request to 'encourage' them. So guys and girls, please do go here (happydogdayz.blogspot.com) to meet nine year old Aalia who loves dogs but not cats, and is such a compassionate little girl! She had the dubious honour of lighting the lamp at the inauguration of our hospital in 2002 when she was only three.

After that, go here (callmesuryan.blogspot.com) to meet seven year old Suryan who seems to have a motley of friends and likes snakes and betting and seeing that no one cheats. Reflecting on these two sweet blogs and the other adult ones I read regularly, here are some stray thoughts :

1. The cut and dried matter of fact quality of a child's writing - so refreshingly honest. Why do we lose that quality when we grow up?

2. I daresay today's kids are more tech savvy but less literary than us ancients were. I pulled out some old poems and "letters to the editor" written by my eight year old brother during the 1964 Indo-Pak war when we had to take shelter in Porbandar (yes the place where Gandhiji was born), and found the ideas and thoughts, formation of sentences, grammar, spellings etc, quite superior. I'd love to reproduce some of those here after he approves of it!

3. I wish Amanda would start up her own blog, but she loves to draw and paint, and hates the computer!

4. I like dogs and snakes too, but am too shy to say grrrr to a cat or drrrr to a viper.......oh to be a child again:-)

So long and thanks for all the fish

2008-08-01T12:18:00.003+05:30

No I am not closing down this blog. Just posting a video that Youtube recommended I should watch when I logged in there today. Coincidentally, this blog got its name originally from the associations with the Hitchhiker series, and as I paste in the URL, it brings back fond and persistent memories of a special time in my life that was innocent, happy and a great deal of fun. Just like the dolphins playing around in this film and having a good laugh at silly humankind.

Impact and Hatari

2008-07-22T12:20:00.004+05:30

Another lazy post.
First there's some gyan from the fourth anniversary special issue of Impact, published today.

And then, there is this baby elephant rescue that someone I don't even know sent to me on youtube. I bet you will rewind and play it over several times, each time wanting to reach your own hands into the water to help the mother and aunt elephants fish the little one out of the watering hole.

Blogging about blogging

2008-07-04T17:41:00.003+05:30

This is a lazy post. Am simply reproducing some stuff from the latest issue of Campaign India in which Suman Srivastava and I have given gyan on blogging. Read and digest. And comment if you dare.....

Living water

2008-06-23T13:04:00.005+05:30

Last week I went to Cannes, for the first time ever in my overlong career, which would come as a surprise to many. It was most impressive, the event of events. Sponsor money drooling out of every pore in every orange carpet and tourquoise wall. Creativity shouting out from rooftops, pavements and beachfronts. Chic presenters. Happy recipients. Tired judges. Eager networkers.

I moved on to Lourdes within two days of experiencing Cannes, to fulfil an old vow. It's a picturesque village at the foothills of the snow peaked Pyrenees, where a young girl called Bernadette encountered the mother of Christ in a series of 15 apparitions between February and July, 150 years ago. In one of those apparitions, Our Lady asked her to drink from the dirt and grass on the ground beneath her feet, which she did, and a spring magically appeared from which millions of pilgrims now drink and bathe in and carry bottles of water back home with them (as I did), known as it is for its miraculous healing properties.

This is a picture of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes taken at the entrance to the Sanctuaries of St Bernadette - as you can tell I had good sunny weather!

And this is a picture of the Grotto. Surprisingly, the statue of Our Lady is small and made in the exact size and place where she appeared, dressed in white and blue with roses on her feet, unlike the oversized statues in all the usual grottos we see.

I did take a dip in one of the baths, after a four hour wait, in which all the decades of all the mysteries of the Rosary were recited in five different languages, by the end of which I didn't really want to hear another Ave Maria.

Truth be told, I would go back to the 12 th century shrine of St Francis of Assisi in Italy, the patron saint of animals, again and again and again. Lourdes, where a candle costs 2 euros and a mass costs 18 euros, has become a place for the tourists and the rich pilgrims. Perhaps I should sponsor some needy person to go there, because I'm not sure I myself would go there again.

This one's for M and P....

2008-05-26T10:29:00.009+05:30

Last Friday, I had lunch with two adorable little people I met through this blog. Untainted by the passage of time, they are about to embark on a journey of love and discovery to the land where Sita met Ravana, and was subsequently rescued by the monkey God.

This one is for them - as a reminder that magic often happens when the classes meet the masses. U2's version of Hallelujah is like fine red wine to the grapes of Leonard Cohen's lyrics, but it took a middle-of-the-road midling-talented dreadlocked Jason Castro to deliver a bit of its rich bouquet to the 32 million people who watched the finals of American Idol last week.

Dear M and P, may the Lord of Song be by your side always.....

Tree gazing in China

2008-04-28T17:36:00.017+05:30

Everyone warned me about China - 'they eat anything that moves', 'they won't understand a word you say and vice versa', 'they don't care about human or animal rights', 'they are big cheats, check everything you buy, and bargain down by 10 times the quote'.

All of it was true and all of it was false. I loved China, Chinese people, Chinese food, and most of all, Chinese flora. From the breathtaking beautiful peach blossoms and magnolia to the four hundred year old cypress and pine trees in the Forbidden City, my lasting unforgettable impression of China won't be that of the glass and concrete jungles in Shanghai or of the expanse of Beijing, but rather of these images below:

Two ancient cypress trees entwined into one - celebrating the union of everlasting love.

A sheep dog herding his family in a pine forest within the suburbs of Beijing....a strange mixture of rural living in urban confines.

Patchi line up against a backdrop of forests grown by man around the artificial Kuoming lake built three hundred years ago in the Q'ing dynasty's Summer Palace.

Magnolia (?) in our apartment building foyer.

Pine and peach in the Forbidden City, where someone told us there were "no trees".

Ancient leafless trees in the rock garden in the Forbidden City.

At last......a bird's nest, yes they do live here, they haven't all been culled off.

And the most beautiful one among them all ....a cypress in the gardens around the excavated Ming tombs. A place to leave one's soul behind.

Someday soon, San Francisco.........my patron saint must surely be waiting there for me.

Things that make this dolphin smile.....

2008-03-13T10:35:00.003+05:30

This true story I read in today's Mumbai Mirror......renews my faith and implicit belief in the generosity of nature.

Wellington: A dolphin swam up to two distressed whales that appeared headed for death in a beach stranding in New Zealand and guided them to safety, witnesses said on Wednesday.

The actions of the bottlenose dolphin — named Moko by residents who said it spends much of its time swimming playfully with humans at the beach — amazed would-be rescuers and an expert who said they were evidence of the species’ friendly nature.

The two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, were found stranded on Mahia Beach, northeast Wellington, on Monday morning, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith. Rescuers worked for more than one hour to get the whales back into the water, only to see them strand themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea. It looked likely the whales would have to be euthanised to prevent them suffering a prolonged death, Smith said.

Then along came Moko, who approached the whales and led them 200 meters along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea.

“Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales,” Juanita Symes, another rescuer, told The Associated Press. “She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life.”

Friends and family

2008-02-11T15:21:00.001+05:30

I spent an interesting weekend at home in Torda, warding off langur subadults who made free with the trees and leaves in my balcony. I tried unsuccessfully to get some pictures of them but the dogs and cats kept hounding them from branch to branch so it became quite impossible to get them still even for ten seconds. I have therefore made good with some of these.

This is PD, blind as a bat after maggots ate away his eyes more than once. He now gets around with the help of his nose and young Beauty, his personal guide dog.

Shadow was with us for four months with a large gaping maggot wound on his head. After full healing we sent him home to Moira, a week later he was back. We sent him home again, he left his owners and found his way back one more time. Last week, once again for the third time. Persistent chap. Here he is lurking away from my camera in my backyard, and later giving Stick a lecture in geography.

Kim was left with us by his owners at the ripe old age of twelve. Two years on, here is sunning himself at the top of the hill on a chilly Friday morning.

Boo has a sad story behind him. After treating him for repeated skin infection, his owners abandoned him at Betim after he was discharged. For three days he wandered around hungry and chased by the street dogs, till a lady spotted him and called us. We took him back, and have refused to let his owner have him again. Five months later he is fully cured and being adopted soon.

And finally this is Rita, daschund cocker spaniel cross who was brought in for sterilisation and discovered to have jaundice. She is less than a year old, fully recovered, had all her shots and is up for adoption. A real real darling, very tiny and playful. If any of you are interested please call us at +91 832 2416180, and speak to Dr Dinella (in the picture) or Dr Deby.

Ash Wednesday

2008-02-06T12:14:00.000+05:30

Today is Ash Wednesday. We had piping hot pancakes for breakfast yesterday, as is traditionally done on the feast of the Mardi Gras. For years as a child, Ash Wednesday meant queuing up to be anointed with ash on the forehead by a priest who recited, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return". Then begun the 40 days of Lent, fast, abstinence and reflection.

I have long since stopped going to church on Ash Wednesday for the ritual annointment. On a working week day with all the travel I do, it just stopped working out. However, for the past decade, I have tried to use the season of Lent to reflect, repent, and hopefully recover from past wrongdoings.

One is supposed to abstain from the pleasures of the flesh - eating meat, drinking alcohol, etc - during these forty days. Since I don't do either anyway, my symbolic sacrifice is to give up on anything I really love and enjoy doing, whatever that might be that year. This year the sacrifice is going to be particularly hard on me....but what the hell, it could never ever match up to a crucifixion, so why not?

Let me leave you with this poem called Ash Wednesday, written by T S Eliot in 1927, the year my father was born. It's a long read, but if you have 5 minutes to spare, try it out. The words are haunting, some of them will stay with you forever.

Right and wrong

2008-01-18T16:39:00.000+05:30

Last week we innocently released the 2008 Lintas Media Guide, in a pretty little pen drive in a pretty little case - all red and gold and christmasy.

While many media featured its contents simply and rather boringly, DNA took the opinions of several of our competitors and did this proactive story below, besides the usual report.

We responded with this in today's DNA.

I understand from a reliable resource that Vikram wants to do a rejoinder. I am not sure why. But it will be a good one to read. Bottom line, TAM now captures only part of all that is spent in relation to tv, and it's high time we looked for ways to measure the rest of the spend too. Ah, maybe I should start sharpening my pencils.....

Busy Bee

2008-01-04T10:14:00.000+05:30

This is the 2008 me.

Cute
Fat
Loads of attitude
Busy busy

(Multiple choice answers allowed here, but only one answer is the right one, the rest are false.)

I didn't get to write that last post, and after Ravi Kiran's stunningly written wake-up call, I don't even want to. A delayed Mumbai bound flight gave us five hours together in Delhi last week - with much much catching up. One more unusual gift to add to my 2007 list.

Back to my hive now.

Last but one

2007-12-26T14:44:00.000+05:30

As I try to write up my annual year ender column for indiantelevision.com, I am a bit stumped. What was so special about this year that Sonali Krishnan and her tribe have not already done to death? New channels, new stations, new magazines, new movies...the same old blah blah.

Maybe I should write about all the unusual gifts I received instead. Like the imagine pad Bamboo (pen tablet) from NDTV Imagine "capture an idea before it runs away". The wooden toys fridge magnets from Dilli Haat. The DVD of "an inconvenient truth" sent to me twelve months before it became a fad, and four months before it won an Oscar. The bucket of colostrum enriched puppy formula from Australia. The 3D holographic sculpture of the Laughing Buddha sent by Peter whose grin welcomes me home every Mumbai evening. The in-room golf set from Sony. Mary's blue fleece and Marie's brown cape to warm me up in a cold Chicago. A three bedroom apartment in a plush Khar lane. Two three-wheeler animal ambulances. A graphic designer's first attempt with oils on canvas featuring three gauti pups lounging inside a splash of deep ocean blue. The magical heat sensitive colour changing coffee mug from Bindaas. Our first pineapple.

This is not my last post this year. I still have to write that year ender, and publish that here before it goes up on their site. Meanwhile, let me leave you with this ad for HP, featuring my most favorite TV star, without his face - but with a sqeaky screechy world's most recognisable voice like that, who needs a face?

Views from windows

2007-12-18T10:14:00.000+05:30

December 5th, Chicago. There were snow showers all night long. In the morning, I woke up to this sight - my first encounter with fresh snow on the streets, made even more beautiful by a cheerful smiling sun and glistening pine trees.

December 15th, Dandeli. A river flowed right in front of our tents, set in a jungle lodge in the teak and bamboo forests of South West India. I woke up to a darkish twilight, the clear waters barely visible through the overhanging branches.

Black and white views that spoke volumes and still do. I have learnt much in 2007. Thank you, nature.

Lost!

2007-12-13T18:20:00.001+05:30

My template, and all my XML files. While our systems department attempts to recover the lot, I've used a temporary template, only because I was eager to post this incredibly sweet video I just received, and wouldn't be able to do that for the next four days - yes travelling again.

This describes the reunion between a lady and a lion she rescued and nursed back to health. She placed him in a zoo and when she visited him, he gave her what is known as the 'hug of the millennium'. Watch it to know what a real real hug is :-)

Old Turkey Buzzard

2007-11-23T11:41:00.000+05:30

Eyes of all kinds fascinate me. I tend to judge a person by his/her eyes and I connect with animals most through their eyes. Birds' eyes specially are riveting, disproportionately large and heavy lidded when blinking. The opening shots in Mackenna's Gold featuring Old Turkey Buzzard's eyes, do you remember them? If not, here is a reminder.

I was a very little girl when my brother took me to see the movie and for weeks after that we sang about gold and gold, men will do anything for gold. As I grew older, the bird itself and what he stood for became more understandable. He inspired the opening frames of our first GSPCA film, posted here. Today, I am humming these lines and find the truth in them uncanny.

Old Buzzard knows that he can wait
For every mother's son has got a date
A date with fate, with fate.......

Note in my diary - 2008, got to visit the Grand Canyon.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T12:21:00.000+05:30

Today, Americans all over the world celebrate their National Thanksgiving Day. Here is the text of their President's sealed proclamation for the day :

Thanksgiving Day, 2007
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Americans are a grateful people, ever mindful of the many ways we have been blessed. On Thanksgiving Day, we lift our hearts in gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy, the people we love, and the gifts of our prosperous land.

Our country was founded by men and women who realized their dependence on God and were humbled by His providence and grace. The early explorers and settlers who arrived in this land gave thanks for God's protection and for the extraordinary natural abundance they found. Since the first National Day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed by President George Washington, Americans have come together to offer thanks for our many blessings. We recall the great privilege it is to live in a land where freedom is the right of every person and where all can pursue their dreams. We express our deep appreciation for the sacrifices of the honorable men and women in uniform who defend liberty. As they work to advance the cause of freedom, our Nation keeps these brave individuals and their families in our thoughts, and we pray for their safe return.

While Thanksgiving is a time to gather in a spirit of gratitude with family, friends, and neighbors, it is also an opportunity to serve others and to share our blessings with those in need. By answering the universal call to love a neighbor as we want to be loved ourselves, we make our Nation a more hopeful and caring place.

This Thanksgiving, may we reflect upon the past year with gratefulness and look toward the future with hope. Let us give thanks for all we have been given and ask God to continue to bless our families and our Nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 22, 2007, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather together in their homes and places of worship with family, friends, and loved ones to reinforce the ties that bind us and give thanks for the freedoms and many blessings we enjoy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-second.

GEORGE W. BUSH

The proclamation thanks God for freedoms, friends and prosperity. If India had a thanksgiving day, what would we be thankful for? Poverty, corruption, inequality? Don't mock me for thinking this.

Because as I look back on my own life, I find more often than not that I am grateful for adversity rather than fortune. Fortune comes and goes, and brings indulgence and corruption in its wake. Adversity however teaches one to be strong, composed and resourceful, and helps one discover true friends. One always comes out better after adversity. Not so after fortune.

America should learn to be thankful for the lessons learnt from 9/11 and Katrina, just as much as it rejoices in its prosperity - otherwise, at a totally other yet fully related level, its dollar will continue to depreciate...

Meanwhile, 92% of American households will eat turkey tonight. If you want to know what happens to the birds that get the presidential pardon or are otherwise rescued and adopted, read this front page story in the New York Times today - "In some households, every day is turkey day"

Big Apple bytes

2007-11-13T16:41:00.001+05:30

Backwards from Scotland, the setting was New York's classy Park Avenue, where all the buildings are dressed in brown, and the people are dressed in black. A few pretend trees line the street, and the lamp posts look better than they do. At one end is the Grand Central Station, a masterpiece of architecture, borrowed from several countries, as all things American are. People walk their dogs at all hours of the day, so yes all said and done, I think I still like New York.

A cosy terrace outside our meeting rooms offered a grand day and night view of the Empire State Building, and we had dinner with the Board of Directors of Interpublic at the Lincoln Center, following a special jazz recital by an impromptu ensemble that was both enthralling and educational. I had the good fortune to sit next to Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of IPG, a warm genuine and humble person, who has taken great pains to turn around a once 'beleaguered' company (as he unabashedly puts it) and now he can look back with a sense of quiet achievement though of course the journey is only beginning, and he recognises that.

I especially felt glad to discover that social and civil work is so much a part of their lives. A newly inducted director has given up a senior marketing career to run schools for the underprivileged. And it was truly heartening to learn that one of the senior most directors, Reg Beck, kept asking to meet me! A former Chairman of Time Inc, he and his wife are active supporters of the Help in Suffering animal charity at Udaipur (run by the Brahms), and his wife Barbara sits on the Board of the Humane Society of the US.

Obviously I cannot divulge the proceedings of the actual meetings, but suffice it to say that there was plenty of food, and food for thought, and I have put on several pounds - some around the middle and some inside my brain.

Hope you spot my tiny smiling colourful persona in the picture above:-)

From the Dorothy in me

2007-11-12T15:28:00.000+05:30

"Somewhere over the rainbow,
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of,
Once, in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow,
Skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true."

Last week, I learnt three things.

1. Nature gets more and more beautiful each day. The grasslands of the Serengiti, the woodlands of Corbett, the cashew and mango orchards of Torda, the eucalyptus covered Queensland bush, the pine walled Alps and the chinar lined foothills of the Himalayas, I had found them all breathtaking. Till I met the Birks of Aberfeldy, Loch Tay, Glen Lyon and Ben Lawers. In autumn. White, yellow, orange, russet, red, green, purple, brown. Nothing can be more beautiful than nature.

2. Preparation of any kind happens quite fast. Mixing, mashing, churning, just a couple of hours. Fermenting it however, now that takes a little longer. And then, distilling out the essence of whatever it is you want to say or do - that takes quite a few days. How strange that we tend to spend more time preparing and much less distilling, when we should be doing the opposite. And then finally of course, the maturing - slow and gentle, requiring just the right environment, and time, plenty of time. Sometimes even 30 years, standing still in one place, mellowing down to an ageless spirit.

3. History is always written in stone. Always.

I hope you like my little rainbow - he appeared outside the windows of our wooden log cabin in Aberfeldy last Wednesday, bringing with him dreams that I now must dare to make true.

The comma

2007-10-24T15:36:00.000+05:30

A dear friend once described himself to me as a comma. The strategic pause before the next important phase in the lives of all his key relationships. The mark that makes sense out of disconnected phrases, that glues together connected thoughts, that allows for that most important of all needs - time to stop and ponder.

It's comma time for me, folks. Time to leave a phrase behind while I go in search of the next one. Time to answer some internal questions, erase some full stops and add a few exclamation marks to my already oh-so-interesting life. But not before taking full advantage of the comma.

I will be back here someday soon. Till then, may the good Lord bless you with love, joy, peace, security, and success. Boa Sorte.

'Beautiful Inside'

2007-10-15T17:31:00.000+05:30

I came back to office on Friday after several stressful meetings (no guesses why!), to discover this crown on my chair with a bouquet of red carnations and white gladioli, a Rs 5000 voucher from some exotic Mumbai spa, and a letter from Femina telling me that I had been voted the most beautiful woman in my office.
Apparently I will feature in Femina along with four others from here (Deepam and Priya btw are genuinely pretty and petite unlike moi). I have often appeared in Femina over the years, as author, media planner, tennis player, animal person, whatever, never never as beautiful. So ofcourse I did a double take, but then the letter went on to talk about being beautiful inside and making other people happy and all that jazz and then I got the drift.

The folks in Parel voted for me for one reason and one reason alone - I call it the "Fear Factor"! They got too scared not to! But thanks anyway, guys and gals, I love you lots, but sorry, am not sharing the massage or the crown with any of you.

Rainbow, Red, Mirchi, Meow

2007-10-12T16:38:00.000+05:30

My perspective on the radio measurement debate which has appeared in Campaign India dated October 12, out today. I am shocked by the number of printer's devils in a publication with international antecedents. Read it anyway, please.

World Animals Day

2007-10-04T15:38:00.001+05:30

Today is World Animals Day. Also the GSPCA Foundation Day, when we planted Leopoldina, now a tall and slender badam tree. This year we dispensed with the traditional mass in honour of St Francis of Assisi, who is the patron saint of animals and nature, and the blessing of all the plants and animals. Instead, I just prayed and blessed all of them myself before rushing to the airport to meet a torrential downpour before heading back to Mumbai.

Terribly sad therefore to come back to an email from Chinny, that the CBI had raided the homes of erstwhile office bearers of the Animal Welfare Board of India - and his Blue Cross office too in the bargain. War is like that - the good and the bad both get hurt. St Francis always believed in the power of nature - when push comes to shove the universe finds a way to come to your side, like the wolves and the birds came to his in his last hour. Maybe all the thousands of animals that the Blue Cross has rescued and rehabilitated in the last thirty years will do the same for Chinny and his staff.

Above is a picture of Pravin, veterinary assistant with us since inception, with one of his friends at Ashwim beach last Independence Day.

Vodafone does NOT get my vote

2007-09-21T13:53:00.000+05:30

Such a perfectly wonderful media opportunity killed by lousy lousy creative.

Star discussed the day branding opportunity with us a couple of months ago and we rallied hard around one particular launch to make it happen, but just couldn't muscle up the required money. Plus I was very keen to get the creative people from the agency and the channel involved too - when you have thousands of seconds to use, you've got to use them right - and was therefore willing to trade time for immediacy, and still am. (In those far distant "Real Value on Sholay" days, we came up with nine TV commercials for that one day!)

Alas, all Vodafone could come up with were three uneventful capers by H and I, and poor Chico heaving and huffing his way in the hot sun on an open field to find a silly red kennel that he is too plump to get into or out of. Even his protesting whimpers didn't seem to catch the attention of the guys at Hutch.

The original Chico lived in Porvorim (the original boy-and-dog Orange film was shot in Goa), and has been treated by three or four vets in the area, including my hospital. None of them enjoyed doing it. A few months ago, Dr Deby, who runs my hospital, inspected a breeder at Margao, who keeps pug parents in miserable cages. So that unsuspecting little pug pups can find their way into metropolitan homes for Rs 35000 each. We went there after a complaint of a parvo viral outbreak among pups sold by that breeder.

Since Hutch, now Vodafone, refuses to accept its responsibility in the 'production' of thousands of ill-bred pugs in India who will be doomed to short suffering lives, I have decided to release an ad with a picture of the pugs we found in dirty cages and a byline that says "Change is good. Will someone please come forward to change the lives of these poor creatures?"

My family uses BPL, Airtel and Dolphin. Hutch never did get our vote. And with this new cruel, irresponsible and unimaginative avatar, Vodafone certainly won't.

Where have all the ads gone?

2007-09-10T13:15:00.000+05:30

(published on agencyfaqs.com, and the Brand Reporter in September 2007)

We presented a television plan for a new product launch to a leading client last week. Across the 5000 odd exposures scheduled, I observed that over two thirds consisted of stings, and sponsorship tags, and vignettes, and break bumpers, and screen shots of logo and sell line, and in program product placements, and scrolls, and several other elements of the telecast that showcased the brand and what it stands for without actually featuring the entire ad.

We presented another media plan for a new theme campaign to another leading client today. With more of the same across all media. RJ mentions, specialized print units, search engine optimization, virals and games. Where on earth was the ad?

Then I observed that close to 80% of the money was indeed being spent on exposing the 60 second TV commercials created by the two best creative agencies in this country, and breathed a sigh of relief. (After all, one of them pays my salary!). But the media planner in me couldn’t help but notice that 20% of the money bought over 60% of the exposures. That these exposures were embedded into content, or interwoven into the telecast in a manner in which advertising avoidance was suppressed to the bare minimum. That these exposures may not pass the test of a creative planner’s powerpoint or a creative director’s viewpoint, but they will be seen by the consumer, understood by the consumer, perhaps even acted upon by the consumer (some of them had short message response codes inbuilt). These exposures would undoubtedly contribute to ad awareness and recall scores, even if their individual impact may not be singly measured up in these tests.

These exposures were entirely conceived by the media management team on the account – planners and buyers – in consultation with the programming and marketing teams at the channel end.

Switch on your tv set to any channel on any genre, turn on your radio, run thru the morning newspaper, flip thru the pages of your favorite magazine, browse thru your regular websites, and you will see this for yourself. You see ads, yes. But you are also being insidiously bombarded at by brand messages where you really don’t expect them. If you think Lead India is a Times Group initiative to find the next Indian leader, think again. It’s just an incredibly smart way to get you exposed to the brand values of the paper and the group in an associative form that makes you go hmm! instead of ugh! Ditto with Airtel’s sponsorship of the national anthem rendition by classical musicians.

The Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week has very little ad support. However, besides lending itself automatically to great editorial coverage, the event allows for full length tv shows that subtly promote the brand and its attributes, news clips, a WLS “look of the day” in newspapers, some of which are paid for, some not, but all at a cost that is far below advertising rates. A cost that more than makes up for the cost of the event. If you asked the client, where would you rather put your money – behind sponsoring this event, or behind producing and airing 30 second commercials that show one girl, two guys, half a celebrity, and lots of clothes on a boat in Europe, I guess you know what he would say.

This may sound rather rude of me, but quite honestly, I do feel that over the past few years the baton of good creative talent and work has been handed over by the ad agencies to the media owners. Content and marketing guys in the channels and radio stations seem to find the pulse of their consumer quicker, know how to engage them, and are able to achieve much faster turnaround times. I daresay they also tend to be more result oriented.

As I watch my planners and buyers toss ideas and compare notes over pizza and coffee with their friends in the media, I am reminded of the days when I did the same. Except that I would be with Chris Rozario and the venue would be Trishna. The passion for good work, for new ideas, for the brand and its health, hasn’t changed, but the players have. I still look forward to the day when creative directors and media planners once again break bread together. But I am not sure that it will ever come. The rules of the game have changed, maybe forever. No single player has control over content, whether advertising or editorial. Perhaps the only real control is now with the consumer, the viewer, the listener, the surfer and the reader, and that’s how it should be.

I rather like it actually.

Comments welcome.

Whirling dervish

2007-09-04T13:38:00.000+05:30

That's what I've been for the past ten days. Dashing from city to city, client to client, pitch to pitch, one annual strategy presentation after another, high level media negotiations, and a conference thrown in.

In the middle of all this, I spent last Thursday morning at Corbett. Sounds like a strange thing to say. Nine hours of serenity and sanity, needing twenty hours of travel to get there and back, to spend just thirty minutes with my Initiative friends from around the country. That's me in the Corbett hat.

We reached Corbett at 3.30 am, woke up at 6 am, took a Gypsy ride into the forest, where we met monkeys, spotted deer, kingfisher, woodpecker, school kids, mules, an olde english bridge, sal and teak, and a museum with the usual taxidermist handiwork. No tiger, because we didn't have time to get to the only open gate 25 kms away, but having once sat on the chest of a 250 kg tigress to stitch up tear wounds in her armpits, her eyes and jaws wide open beneath my face in a ketamine induced stupor, spotting tiger now holds no particular fascination for me.

Back at the lodge after a few short but splendid hours, after which I spent another hour with Laxmi the elephant whose wide hazel eyes had me smitten. I suggested a homemade lep to her mahout for her inflamed right flank, he promptly sent out for the ingredients (glycerine and maxsulf), and I hear she was back on her safari rounds the next day.

The Initiative gang arrived at 11.30 am after a gruelling 12 hour coach ride from Delhi including five hours of being stuck in a traffic jam. Since Sudha and I had to leave by 12.30, we all just stood around under the trees by the banks of the river Kosi for my opening address, a gentle mist all around, the melodious gush of freshly flowing water in the background, with birdsong for accompaniment.

There's nothing like a river in a forest to bring you back to earth after spinning around like a whirling dervish out of whirl. I later lost the multicolored riverbed pebbles I had collected at Delhi airport, my flight back hovered over Mumbai for two full hours, and at 1.30 am I found myself tending to an ill family member before falling into a deep sleep. But I am wide awake and ready to take on the next four weeks in which, sigh, there will be more of the same mad rush. This time around I hope there will be a refuelling stop at the Salvador-do-Mundo forests, my very own personal Corbett.

Two to Tango

2007-08-22T15:21:00.000+05:30

I still haven't figured out whether I find the Indian Cricket League a good or bad idea. Meetings are being held, data is being crunched, information is being gathered, journalists and clients are calling. I am reminded of what Subhashji said at the 2006 Goafest in reference to the two TRP systems then being debated (yours truly having fuelled the fires in a 'historic' Business Standard interview). He said, 'Competition is always good. The incumbent wakes up and gets better. Monopoly breeds complacency'.

The Zee group sure believes in this dictum. I stumbled upon it when I tried naively to bring the NRS and IRS together - Pradeep and his ilk offered the indisputable but heart sinking logic that if the two would merge, a third would emerge anyway. Ditto for the TAM-aMap story. And now there's BCCI-ICL.

Subhashji has a point of course. Overnight the BCCI have upped player salaries and prize money by over 50%. Star Cricket, ESPN and Ten Sports will need to relook at their rate cards as Zee Sports begins to serve up prime time 20-20 fours and sixes. A new breed of brand ambassadors will step out of the pavilion and wave to the crowds. It could all well be a marketer's dream.

Has Zee really done this for cricket, for the country? The ICL format will encourage a more aggressive energetic game for sure. But I can't help thinking - oh no, it's not about a patriotic zeal to create Indian winners, any more than the Times is really looking for the next Indian leader. It's simply about the money, honey, always about the money, and that's what has murked the muddy waters of the BCCI to begin with.

And many other waters too, alas.

Amazing India

2007-08-13T17:41:00.000+05:30

These are two of the posters sent out by our HR department to mark our I-Day celebrations tomorrow, this year's theme being the Magic of India. The office is already looking so festive, it leaves very little room for each department to dress up their areas even more to win the theme prizes.

Parel and its inhabitants are special people indeed, insulated as we are from all the hot air in the ivory express towers. Take a look at the server room floor flower rangoli.
And also to all my angels in Gurgaon, MG Road, Ballygunge and Mount Road, a happy independence day to you too. God bless us all and our motherland forever.

'If I were a rich man'

2007-08-07T16:33:00.000+05:30

Zee Studio aired Fiddler on the Roof last weekend. I can see this film a thousand times and then a thousand times again. I like Tevye's conversations with God best of all. Like a best friend, he questions Him, humours Him, makes fun of Him, loves Him, hates Him, but always always defers to Him. With so much talk of money circling the hallways these days, his mocking frustration-airing appeal before launching into one of the world's most famous songs, takes on a meaning of its own. (I can almost see another bearded gentleman take Tevye's place, in my cheeky mind's eye! Can you?).

Well, I'm not really complaining.
After all, with your help,
I'm starving to death.
Oh, dear Lord!
You made many, many poor people.
I realise, of course,
it's no shame to be poor.
But it's no great honour either.
So what would have been so terrible
if I had a small fortune?

Here is a video of the song, complete with the impromptu jigs, the screeches, the pony whistle, animal sounds at just the right moments blending perfectly with the musical instruments, the staircase going nowhere just for show, the peacock strut, the double chin, the 'ifs'.

The 'ifs'. Without the 'ifs' in our lives we'd have nothing to strive for. Enjoy.

Friendly Foe

2007-07-30T15:00:00.000+05:30

Here's my take on Vikram Sakhuja, COO of Group M, who made it to DNA's top 50 most influential people in Mumbai, published today. He emailed me his thanks, truly touched!

Pilgrim's Progress

2007-07-25T14:32:00.000+05:30

I travel too much.

This last round has been different though. North, South, East, West, all in one monsoon week. Before I post random observations from my travels, here are the lyrics of an Enya song I once liked a lot, which suit the mood of these days :

Pilgrim, how you journey
On the road you chose
To find out why the winds die
And where the stories go.

All days come from one day
That much you must know,
You cannot change what's over
But only where you go.

One way leads to diamonds,
One way leads to gold,
Another leads you only
To everything you're told.

In your heart you wonder
Which of these is true;
The road that leads to nowhere,
The road that leads to you.

Will you find the answer
In all you say and do?
Will you find the answer
In you?

Each heart is a pilgrim,
Each one wants to know
The reason why the winds die
And where the stories go.

Pilgrim, in your journey
You may travel far,
For pilgrim it's a long way
To find out who you are...

1) I often meet the rural folk. In Maharashtra, I find them simple but smart. In UP, just plain stupid. On the four hour journey to Fort Unchagaon driving past verdant fields, palpable unemployment, drab uninspiring brick and mortar houses, children swimming in canals when they should have been at school, and body breaking non-roads, I also spotted several jugaards, which coincidentally I read about in yesterday's Business Standard. Indian ingenuity at its peak, that too in UP. Here's the article.

2) I love Kolkatta. I am always happy in Kolkatta, even when I'm sad. Kolkatta is a friend for life. I think that's because a good Coastal Indian only feels at home wherever there are palm trees. North India is bereft without palms. Driving past both the bypasses yesterday, I feasted my eyes on the light green grassy swamps fringed by dark green brush and majestic swaying palms. Sweet.

3) Bangalore. Once I looked forward to going there, now the traffic and the power cuts frighten me off. Something's just not right in Bangalore. From a bubbling adolescent, the city has turned into a scheming adult. An unnatural darkness is creeping into its soul. Bangalore needs saving.

4) Pune, and the expressway, past Northpoint on the right after the Khandala junction. Smooth, fast, efficient, great looking, that's just like us. How come there are no expressways in the NCR?

5) Money. It's a gas. Wish the journalists would stop bugging me. I hear Edel's voice calling out my name several times on the phone in sheer wonder, it's far away in the middle of UP, but I can feel her joy, I read Premjeet's shy words in his email, I watch the tears welling up in Santosh's eyes, I laugh at Mani's description of DDG's expression when Partha tells him the figure ('have you added a zero?') before he takes out a glass of whisky and counts the amount on each of the checques sip by sip, I lecture my PGPAMMer's - save some of it, don't pour it all down the pub, I hug and am hugged by old people, young people, people who are the wind beneath our wings and need a windfall of their own, people who need some Cheeni in their lives and got it. Balki my dear, don't be such a killjoy.

6) Horror. This is just one of the many pictures framed up at the Fort Unchagaon haveli. A cub, for God's sake, a cub?!

It's a long way indeed.

Speaking up for the voiceless

2007-07-10T16:01:00.000+05:30

Despite having three important presentations around the corner, I am overcome by a strange ennui, and just can't seem to get cracking on them. Inspiration, where art thou? I have been unnaturally silent this year. No scathing columns about TAM or ABC in the business press, no interviews to the websites. Indeed, for almost four months this is the only place I have put down any thoughts, and most of them borrowed. I was asked to do a piece on radio, which I ignored, but I did send a short number on Vikram Sakhuja for DNA last week, he is coming up in the 50 most influential people in Mumbai list. Noor says I must talk, I say ok ok, next week maybe.

Perhaps it's due to the covert guilt I feel about a completely separate issue - that I have not yet spoken up about the stray dogs issue this year. No ads, no columns, no interviews, no letters to the editor. The news channels footage of the dogs being dragged off in trucks in Bangalore, carcasses piled up and tossed around, the sms campaigns, the WSD calendar, the high court judgement, and the madman Phatak's pronouncement - they all leave me with a sense of 'let it be'. Sound and fury signifying nothing. Bad men will be bad, dogs will be dogs, good people will be good.

My darlings in Torda vaccinated 157 dogs against rabies free of cost this Sunday in a camp conducted for the Merces panchayat. Next Sunday, we will do the same number at Mapusa, sponsored by the local MLA. While protesters shout from the rooftops, we go about quietly doing real work.

Red FM's Malishka did a good show this morning featuring the issue, promoting the adoption of stray pups by societies etc. Sort of similar to the one Radio City did for me last August, which actually went on for a week. While Maneka has sent me this little film, which Pedigree has kindly produced for PFA, to get telecast on all the networks. Am posting it here, in case the film inspires you to do something too.

Ace men

2007-07-09T11:13:00.000+05:30

When you serve 25 clean aces, how can you not win?

Still there were some tense moments there, especially in the fourth set when I shut off the TV not wanting to watch Federer lose. But of course he bounced back in the fifth set, how could he not? What a wonderful evening of some really great tennis amid good weather and Borg himself watching.

I found this clip on Youtube today, the song isn't good but the maker has edited together some fine moments indeed.

As a kid, when I played tennis for the state and was nationally ranked (all 35 frailweight kilos of me!) I once played a bet match with an American pro and won. The winnings were a Donnay that Borg himself had used and given him. I treasure the racquet and don't have a picture of it with me here in Mumbai, so I hope this one (taken off the net to show you what it looks like) will do instead.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

2007-07-04T12:42:00.000+05:30

Everyone has a favorite cinema moment. Interestingly enough, a really touching personal cinema moment may not be one that was cinematographically pathbreaking, or one that has been written about, copied, referred to, praised or criticised. It would probably just be something that stirs up a sweet memory, or fuels a new dream. There are many cinema moments that still bring out the goose pimples or catch my breath every time I watch the scene.

Appropriate to the weather then, here is a clip of an all time favourite - the cycling song from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - BJ Thomas's "Raindrops keep falling on my head".

As a child, I was 'rained on' several times by older relatives who found creative ways to pour water over my head every time I warbled out the song. Once I was sitting on the potty when my cousin ingeniously emptied a lota of water on me through the grills separating the toilet area from the main bathroom. He himself had to stand on a high stool to reach the grills. Another time, the shower came down from a bucket emptied by my aunt sitting atop a ledge overhanging the balcony I was standing on. That didn't stop me, I still sang the song, loving its rhythm and its lyrics. Even to a child, the message carries a strong meaning. As an adult, even more so. "I just did me some talking to the sun, and I said I didn't like the way he got things done, sleeping on the job.... coz I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining...."

As for the cinema moment, I'm sure you know which one it is - that cheeky exchange between Paul Newman and the bull of course! Enjoy the goosebumps as you approach the end of the song and remember that no matter what, you're free...

A historic day

2007-06-29T17:54:00.000+05:30

Later this evening, people all over the United States will queue up to the i-phone, one of the most highly promoted and publicised launches this century. We have to wait for a few months before it hits our shows leagally, and even then we aren't sure who the service provider will be now that AT&T is no longer a part owner of our client Idea Cellular.

Later this evening, the media planning and buying fraternity in Mumbai will be gathered at the Emvies, an awards show we have developed serious doubts about. Still, the Idea ringtone innovation just might win, who knows! It surely deserves to.

And lastly today is the day when Lintas India has finally become a 100% Interpublic Group owned agency. Welcome to a whole new world. "Turn it on".

An ode to the rains, in Khar and Torda

2007-06-26T14:41:00.000+05:30

Funny flies around gaily. She has grown into a pretty petite little crow, and by the end of this week I think she will be able to get her own food. Here is a picture of her settled on a leaf in one of the palms outside my bedroom window in Khar, the little black spot somewhere on the right, taken just before the rains hit Mumbai on Friday evening.

The TANUVAS vets came over to Goa this weekend to inspect all the AWO's at the behest of the AWBI, and were overawed by the weather. We however have learned to take the rains, the beauty and the destruction they bring with them in our stride. Things grow in the rains, and that's all we really want to care about.

Here are my weekend phone pictures of the Torda forest, here is the jungle outside my bedroom window purpling in the settling dusk.

This one is an early morning shot of the forest on the right of our shelter, the left is just as dense!

This is the view from my backyard, where you can just about sight the rust and blue of the surgery past Noella, the canna and the lime and mango trees.

This is a little calf we are looking after, he got hit by a truck on the NH17, and was brought in laterally recumbent, now he can stand and walk around and also run a little.

And here's leaving you with a final glimpse of Torda from my verandah, the hills beyond and yellow traces of the ancestral home below. Next time images of some of my darlings in Torda, walking on two and four legs.

Watching baby birds fly

2007-06-22T15:07:00.001+05:30

In an earlier post I asked you to spot the crow's nest in one of my tree shots. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. The nest will soon be history as Funny has finally learned how to fly! Her parents, Specky and Fluffy, with us for the past year and a half, raised two nestlings to adulthood last summer, while their neighbours were less fortunate and ended up raising only one survivor - a cuckoo! Fortunately Funny is doing well, she took her first flight a couple of days ago, just a tentative hop from branch to branch. This morning she soared up to the top of the chinars and reappeared only after a few minutes. I hope she learns to fetch food for herself before the rains really hit us with full force.

Every attempt I make to capture her on film has been thwarted by Fluffy, who comes swooping down on me if he sights me pointing at her with anything metallic. So instead, I leave you with this darling film to mull over on the weekend. Enjoy!

Magic from Bindass and a new tarot

2007-06-20T12:06:00.000+05:30

Yesterday a large team from UTV made a two hour presentation to us on their new channel offering for young people called Bindass. Great insights, great showmanship during the presentation led by Zarina Mehta at her effervescent best, and a real live magician who passed on an electric current through his fingers on to our guys, and played some really good card tricks. The icing on the cake was a leave behind. Not the usual channel mug at all. This one is a nondescript black one that magically turns white after you pour something hot into it, and the words and logo then leap out at you!

Here is the before and after. I am having lots of cuppas today!

While on the subject of magic, I'm wondering how my tarot card has changed so much. Have posted what it looks like now on the right above the links, it's a far cry from my tarot posted two months ago, but definitely more credible this time. Go check out yours too again, and enjoy the change.

Sound of Music

2007-06-07T15:09:00.000+05:30

Consider this. The things we remember most vividly are usually those we didn't see, that used a non visual sense - like one's first kiss (tactile), a fine wine (taste), unusually bad or good smells, unforgettable songs and speeches.

A sound that first opened my mind to nature's limitless possibilities, a sound I will never ever forget, is the whale song. While studying at Brisbane, I had volunteered with injured dolphins at Sea World and then hand fed wild dolphins at Tangalooma before moving on to a whalewatching trip at Harvey Bay. The first sight of a breaching whale and her calf was memorable no doubt, but it was the hydrophone that really got to me. Web 2.0 hadn't arrived back in 1998, and I have long since lost whatever I captured on camera. Till I found something on YouTube today.

Enjoy the sounds. If you know the significance of the song of the humpback whale and the fact that she never repeats a tune the following year, you will love this even more. In this video, her song has been set to native American flute music.

Creative copycat

2007-06-04T11:57:00.000+05:30

I attended an unusual business creativity workshop on Friday which featured Carnatic music. I intended to blog about it on the weekend, and then discovered this writeup from a fellow blogger that has done excellent justice to the learnings, pictures et al, so let me be lazy and just give you the link.

http://indiadrant.blogspot.com/2007/06/carnatic-music-business-creativity.html

Meanwhile, here are two images of the trees outside my fifth floor windows in Mumbai, wet with the first raindrops of the season.

Try and spot the crow's nest. And more pix from the Goa monsoon later.

A flower for Pixie

2007-05-25T16:55:00.000+05:30

"Kishmish is back.

It's one of those Biblical moments. Kishmish is our dog and she came to us nine months ago, from a local shelter called Friendicoes. As is the case with most relationships, the reaction to her went from ecstatic cooing to slight smiles to 'will you STOP peeing on the carpet.' All except in the case of my daughter Aalia, who has, on several occasions, clearly stated that she loves Kishmish (Hindi for 'raisin' - her colouring) more than her parents.

Almost a week ago, she disappeared. And since then, we have all been stumbling into or walking awkwardly around the big hole in the house.

Everyone, especially our maid, had their own conspiracy theory - attacked by the big kids down the lane, kidnapped, silenced, experimented upon - dark alleys I did not want to dwell on.

This morning, she came back. Apparently, as I thought, she had been hanging around the neighbourhood and seems none the worse for 6 days on the mean streets.

I'm off to get a new collar."

I have borrowed this little story from a blog posted by a friend nearly two years ago. I understand about stumbling into and walking around a big hole in the house. But my little one is never coming back. So starting tomorrow, I will place a new flower into a vase in my room every week, in memory of her.

In my heart and in my soul I know that she hasn't really gone away.

Experimenting

2007-05-22T13:06:00.000+05:30

This is my first attempt at uploading a video onto my blog. Hope it works out. This 45 second film was made by young Kajal Srinivasan five years ago, using only computer graphics. We ran it foc on several channels during World Animal Week. Kajal also created our website www.goaspca.org which is now badly in need of updation. If you know of any young web designer, Goa or Mumbai based, who would like to do so for love and not money, tell me!

Shiva and the star tortoises

2007-05-18T13:42:00.001+05:30

I spent this morning at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park at Borivli. A batch of over 2000 star tortoises confiscated by the customs department are being looked after there waiting for transport back to Tamil Nadu. I had gone to help arrange for this and inspect their condition. The staff were cleaning and feeding them well, all little babies poor things. They were laid out in plastic trays, about fifteen to a tray and two rooms were filled with these trays while two boys sat chopping vegetables into tiny bits for them, and another two were cleaning them one by one.

I didn't take a picture of them, since that wouldn't be right. But here's one of Shiva the tiger, majestically wandering about in the safari enclosure. Some years ago, he was a drab bored circus tiger rescued from Kankavali with all over skin infection. Now he is more handsome than John Abraham.

Time

2007-05-12T16:37:00.000+05:30

I've been going over the events of the past week as they unfolded in my life.

And I think that there are some situations for which the time can never be right.

Or then again, it can never be wrong.

For these things, time....just comes.

I wonder what the next week has in store. Will He come quietly unannounced, or blazing in with the sound of trumpets and flashes of neon?

Or will He just...not come?

A diabetes pandemic

2007-05-08T11:07:00.000+05:30

Here is a link to an interesting post I read recently. It's scary but I think it's true.

http://shajikrishnan.blogspot.com/2006/04/south-asians-eat-less.html

About a boy

2007-05-04T13:19:00.000+05:30

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?

Trillion dollars vs lead poisoning

2007-04-27T09:52:00.000+05:30

With the rupee having broken the 41 mark to the dollar, my exporter cousin is biting his nails while the rest of us rejoice at India becoming the 12th nation in the world to be a trillion dollar economy. Even as the Govt has lowered its estimate of annualised GDP growth down to 8.5%, there is a strong sense of 'future' everywhere - especially in the media and entertainment, telecom, money and travel spaces. We remain a country of contrasts, with more corruption and less discipline than we ought to have. Healthcare and education are still floundering even as copious money flows into infrastructure which shouldn't be a bad thing except for that fact that less than half of that actually makes its way into projects - the rest is quickly gobbled up by graft.

I am not a fan of the SEZ, and hope good sense prevails. Why is there this constant need to compare ourselves or try to copy China? State directed capitalism may work in the short run, but do we really want to poison off the next generation in doing so? 34% of Chinese children are reported to have higher than normal levels of lead in their blood. Lead is a cheap ingredient into most of the Chinese manufacturing units, its effluent resulting in alarmingly high levels of pollution. There are villages where all the kids have black and blue fingers, being slowly poisoned to death.

I met a British gentleman yesterday whose chose to come here to work rather than China, because he believed that we had more humanity. That was a nice thing to hear. Trillion dollars worth of money goes well with a billion minds that never say die, and a billion hearts that still seem to care. Mera Bharat Mahan!

Tarot says

2007-04-26T16:39:00.000+05:30

I found this interesting widget on Meenakshi's blog. Her tarot card says she is the World. Here's mine. Go check out yours. While I wait for that unexpected help, water and guiding light....(didn't even know I was thirsty!) Though I think it's true I'm not the only dreamer, having just crossed paths with someone who sounds like he might dream along with me!

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

To everything there is a season...

2007-04-24T15:44:00.000+05:30

..and a time for every purpose under heaven...
a time to plant, a time to reap...a time to rend, a time to sew.

I guess you all the know the full lyrics of this song.

This year we decided to plant a little, to take awards more seriously even though our big sister frowns upon this. So far we have won five: Two golds for branded entertainment - for Idea and ITC; two silvers for Bindaas Bol - best use of TV and cause marketing; and agency of the year at the Indy's.

Here is a picture:

Kunal and Himanka are missing from it, they weren't here when we clicked, but are here anyway. Seems like it's time to reap.

And then I hear about a friend gone astray - a kind soul who couldn't say no when he needed to, not to others and more important not even to himself. So for his organisation, it became a time to rend. But I hope that wherever he goes he will learn to sew up the tears in his moral fibre.

Media agencies didn't win enough media awards

2007-04-22T10:24:00.001+05:30

I didn’t keep an actual tally – but it sure felt like the creative agencies – JWT, Contract, Rediff Y&R, etc walked away with most of the media awards. Among the media agencies, Mindshare got four and the rest of us – Madison, Lintas, Lodestar and Starcom got two each. I think Maxus and OMS got an award each.

But it was good fun. The sands were hot and the weather was hotter, but drinks flowed freely, and the under 30’s had a whale of a time. Akanksha and Hardik went parasailing, Sharad and Deepa went jetskiing, Venky and his gang of girls caught up with old friends from other agencies, and we all agreed that next year we should send in a larger contingent. With a hooter.

Goafest is a good idea. It goes beyond awards, and in doing so, sends out a subtle message. I hope it lives.

Divine discontent

2007-04-22T10:23:00.001+05:30

When I was growing up at Ogilvy Benson and Mather in the eighties, the agency mantra coined by David Ogilvy himself was ‘divine discontent’.

The second half of the Goafest Advertising Conclave yesterday morning expressed a great deal of that. Rifts between business partners were exposed. Pent up pressures found unlikely outlets. Media agencies got pelted at by both creative agencies and media houses, and its leaders (us) came away rather bemused. Speaker after speaker expressed negativity and angst against the advertising industry, eventually concluding that it didn’t even act like an industry in the first place. Harish Bijoor, the suave and intelligent moderator, tried to draw up a way forward action plan nevertheless.

In other words, there was a lot of discontent, but much of it wasn’t divine, so I am a little worried. I hope that the ‘builders’ among us will prevail over the ‘scavengers’ and raiders’. What is needed is ‘discontinuous social value addition’ as succinctly described by Uday Kumar, CEO of Star News, and the ability to act as ‘change agents’ and not just commission agents, as Meenakshi Madhvani so aptly put it.

As Shanta Kumar of Saatchi and Saatchi said, some years ago holidays were about going home to grandma in native place. Now it means taking grandma away for a holiday. That’s the kind of paradigm shift we are all looking for, and whether it lies in re-integration of services or not, we sure have to find new ways to operate because we seem to be seriously pissing off our business partners in the media houses and the creative agencies.

Horseshit, and how to clean it up

2007-04-19T22:33:00.000+05:30

It was a fairly lacklustre start to the Goafest Advertising Conclave. I got the impression that there were more journalists than senior media and advertising people in the room. If it weren't for Pratham Raj Sinha (CEO of the Anand Bazar Patrika Group) and his enlightening speech, we would all have come away thinking that the even the tip of the iceberg wasn't touched.

Taking the advertising industry from Rs 15000 crores to Rs 50000 crores may be no mean feat. But as Dr Sinha opined, our industry seems bent on playing a 'zero sum' game, with egos and factions taking precedence over a common agenda of progress and growth. Unless drastic steps are taken by its associations, and clear thought leadership emerges, we may not make it. I liked his analogy of the 17th century London city council fearing that they had such a problem of horses defecating in the streets, that within a short time the streets of London would be steeped in horse manure.

But how do we clean up the horseshit? Hopefully the panelists tomorrow will shed some light. In the meantime, I am going to bed pondering over the more encouraging words of Martin Sorell delivered by videotape - that Indian advertising has been growing at twice the rate of our GDP growth, and that we should not doubt our abilities so much. So true. Four hundred years later, the streets of London are still pretty clean, aren't they? Lesson : replace the horses, the horseshit will go.

Writing for the Goafest

2007-04-13T10:47:00.000+05:30

I will be blogging for the Business Standard at the Goafest on the media side of the business. So watch out for my posts here and at businessstandard.com from 19th to 21st.

Meanwhile here is an article written for the festival concept which appeared in Financial Express last week.

Patriotism

2007-04-12T13:41:00.000+05:30

Yesterday we did jury duty for the Goafest Media Awards. The Cannes rule of discarding patriotic votes was introduced - ie a juror cannot vote for work submitted by his unit or group company unit. So we had a good time all through the day while deciding on what was patriotic and what wasn't as we journeyed through over 100 entries. It was great fun. Ten media heads from competing agencies finding a common voice in praising or despairing of the country's best media work.

One of the entries featured the national anthem. CD stood up first, I quickly followed, and then the whole group. To me, it was the most impactful moment of the entire day. Ten vociferous jocular judges found three minutes to stand silently at attention in unison and respect for their national song. We didn't approve the entry, but no guesses for who won the patriotic vote at that moment.

I love being an Indian in India, I truly do.

My visual DNA

2007-04-10T16:36:00.000+05:30

Svety, this one is for you.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

By public demand

2007-04-09T10:28:00.000+05:30

Here is the link to my personal DNA, Svety and Shaswati. Don't say you weren't warned.

My Personal Dna Report

Being cruel to be kind

2007-04-05T14:51:00.000+05:30

A doctor knows this well. Vets know it better. Bosses and parents know it best.

It isn't easy being cruel in order to be kind, to mete out a bitter medicine today in order to enable a better mind or body or value system tomorrow.

But....it's got to be done. As I look back on my own life, the people who made me what I am often did the most unpleasant things to me, things I appreciated and got a chance to thank them for only much later. Some of them died before I could show them how much healthier their medicine made me, but they know - every day they show me that they know. Sometimes, they still send down a bitter pill or two. Which I swallow most gratefully.

Rashmi, this post is for you. Read it again in 20 year's time.

Hello again!

2007-04-01T19:17:00.000+05:30

Starting today, I have decided to use this address for my blog, and will no longer be posting at blogsource. Eighteen months and 106 posts later, I find that I need a site that is better connected, and can provide me with statistics, something blogsource has stopped for over a month. Lynnisms.in, my blog URL, will now point here. All my earlier posts are still at lynnisms.blogsource.com for posterity.

And this is not an April Fool joke.

Drop in here occasionally and leave a comment if you like.