Things that make this dolphin smile.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

"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

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'

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

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

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

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?

(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

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

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.