A Short Stint in Advertising

 by Ajay Sachdev

’Twas the winter of ’79.  Fresh out of college, armed with a post–graduate diploma in Marketing and Advertising Management, I scanned the want ads.Though I’d already been offered positions in Hubli at the then princely salary of Rs 2,800/-per month and in Warangal, in rural Andhra Pradesh, one of the hottest places in India, at Rs 3,500/- per month, I turned them both down, making up my mind that I’d take that first available job in Bangalore – my mother was then ailing, and I needed to be with her. Browsing through the Deccan Herald, Bangalore’s leading daily, I spotted a catchy ad calling for Advertising Executive Trainees. I bunged in my application and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thus began a fascinating odyssey. It was nothing like I’d ever experienced before in my life. So far used to system and order, where events followed a logical and orderly progression, things seemed to be chaotic at the agency, MAA. It was a bewildering kaleidoscope of people rushing to and fro, waving artworks or brandishing negatives. Of deadline pressed Account Executives alternately pleading with or yelling at unflappable Art Directors, frequently resulting in intervention by the Managing Director, the legendary Bunty Peerbhoy, whose very presence and assured tones were balm to frayed nerves.

As time passed, and my training period came to a close,  I began to discern a method in the madness. It was chaos admittedly, but an organized chaos. I learnt that the agency was neatly compartmentalized into different divisions. The Client Servicing. The Creative, which in turn was sub-divided into Copy and Art. Art in turn consisted of Creative and Finishing Art. The Studio department was where negatives and positives were processed in the darkest of dark rooms. The Media department was in charge of interacting with different media viz. TV, Radio, Print and reserving prime positions at often short notice. The Print and Production department waved its magic wand and presto! Leaflets, banners, posters, PoP’s, tinplates and hoardings of the finest quality flowed out. Last, but not least, the Accounts department had its finger firmly on the financial jugular of the Agency, being in charge of collections and payments. Not a cheque (check in American English) flowed or a financial transaction took place without its approval.

MAA was a place where I learnt of the power of advertising; where a good or bad ad campaign could make or mar the success of a product. Many an average product took root, thanks to brilliant advertising. On the other hand, we had great products, backed by great advertising fall by the wayside due to disparate reasons such as poor distribution,  inadequate ad budgets or even more unfortunately, poor marketing. Sometimes it was a capricious public which simply didn’t take kindly to a great product backed by superb advertising - perhaps some of these products were far ahead of their time.

The work in MAA, which was then in a phase of explosive growth, was high pressure, with people at all levels frequently having to handle several tasks at the same time (now called multi-tasking). To successfully hold down a post at the agency, one had to be an exceptionally talented multi-tasker.

The high–point of my career at MAA came when I won two awards at the annual awards function of the Ad Club of Bangalore, for the best tinplates and posters designed for my client Mysore Feeds, a leading animal feed producer of South India.

Now, enough of work. Advertising had its compensations. One of them was the annual MAA day celebrations held on the first of May every year, so inevitably it was called the May Day Gala. It was a day of pure fun for Maaites. It began with a grand treasure hunt all over Bangalore in the morning, with a cash prize for the winning team. It was followed by a sumptuous lunch at the office accompanied by beer and soft drinks. Then at night there was a gala party at a fun resort with dinner and dancing where booze and soft drinks flowed. One group of Maaites, determined to extract the maximum from the day, danced the night away, under the stars. Another group, the serious drinkers, hovered around the bar doing justice to the wide variety of spirits on offer, and becoming increasingly unsteady on their feet,  their speech becoming progressively slurred. The rest of us looked on them with tolerant good humour, while taking care not to be pinned down by any of them, intent on finding someone, anyone, who would listen to their views on life in general. The May Day parties often went on till the wee hours, with Maaites reluctant to break away and let slip the evening.

A May Day party represented the only occasion that I, a sworn teetotaler ever got drunk in my life. At that time and for quite some time afterwards, I just could not figure out how. It happened like this. The boss, the legendary Bunty Peerbhoy, said at one of the earliest May Day parties, which were then held at his house,(it was early days then and MAA was yet small)...

“Ajay!”

“Sir?”

“Have an er…drink,” he said with an inviting smile.

“No, thank you,” I said firmly.

“Tell me one thing, Ajay,” said Bunty.

I smiled a knowing smile anticipating what was coming next.

“You don’t drink……you don’t smoke…..you don’t I presume pursue the opposite sex….tell me man, how do you live?” asked Bunty , brandishing a Cuban cigar in one hand and a glass of imported scotch in the other.

I just grinned and Bunty left it at that. You see, in those days, I was just beginning to discover God, religion and the effects of karma, and so I’d firmly resolved, no smoking and drinking for me.

Just then, Srini from Accounts, approached me, and with a wicked smile on his face asked , “ Ajay, what can I get you?”

“How about an orange juice?” I asked innocently.

“Is that all?” asked Srini, with a pleading look, “Go on, have a snifter. Be a sport,”

“Absolutely not,” I said firmly. “Only an O.J. for me.”

A moment later, Srini was back, a brimming glass of O.J. in his hand.

It tasted unusually tangy for an O.J..  Mildly surprised, I reasoned that perhaps the glasses hadn’t been cleaned properly, after all it was a swinging party. And gulped the O.J. down. Then Srini came round with another tangy O.J. and another. No sooner did they arrive, than I downed them straight. I must ask Bunty for the brand name, I told myself; wiping my lips, no O.J. ever tasted this good. Then I asked Srini for a fourth. He shook his head, his eyes looking mildly alarmed, and patted me on the back commiseratingly, and said, “Don’t overdo it, Ajay – everything in moderation, what?”, and moved elsewhere.

I inexplicably developed a mild headache, and to clear my head, went and sat down in the balcony, with my friend, Minoo, a pivot of the Copy department along with a few others who were gathered there for some fresh air. The headache didn’t go away, and Srini was nowhere to be seen, so I went to the bar and got myself another O.J., but this one tasted different, with no tang in it – must be another brand, I reasoned.

That night, while driving home at 2:30 a.m. on my Lambretta, the scooter refused to go in a straight line, but persisted in moving in a zigzag fashion. I was perplexed; the bike came to the party in a perfectly straight line. After a few valiant attempts to hold the bike straight, I gave it up and made my winding way home through the then fortunately deserted roads. It only struck me much later, while reminiscing, that that rascal Srini had spiked my O.J.

The May Day celebrations were often preceded by cricket matches, in the lush green environs of Bangalore’s famed Chinnaswamy stadium. These were fun occasions, with matches between teams formed from within the MAA ranks – we played idyllic matches from morning till the afternoon after which, we feasted on lunch at the club house along with free flowing beer and soft drinks. On other occasions, we played friendly matches with some client teams, which were fun too.

Then there was another interesting episode, which concluded in an immensely satisfying manner. It was like this. We had a dynamo of a Business Development Manager in V Prabhakaran Nair. After the Khalistan problem erupted, he had a gala time ribbing me, since I was the only Punjabi in MAA. He would accost me in the corridors, barge into my cabin or pin me down in the Conference Room and would say, “What is this Khalistan ….. Khalistan. You Sardars should be @@#$&**!! (unprintable)." My several attempts to explain to him that a) I was not a Sikh, but a Punjabi Hindu; b) I was in no way connected to the Khalistan movement, being an innocuous ad executive in Bangalore and  c) not all Sardars were terrorists fell on deaf ears. He became increasingly voluble and more persistent in cornering me , expressing himself rather vehemently how the Sardars should be dealt with. Being mild mannered, I took his jibes sportingly. Like the inscrutable Confucius, I bided my time telling myself that “Everything comes to he who waits”. Sure enough, revenge, sweet revenge was right around the corner.

It was then that the LTTE problem hit the nation and the Sri Lankans right between the eyes; and guess who their leader was? – a V Prabhakaran ! Of course, I went to town. Brandishing a copy of that morning’s newspaper, and waving it in V. Prabhakaran Nair’s face, I asked him “ Aha ….gotcha ! So it was all a front, eh? You are the master terrorist, Mr V Prabhakaran, aren’t you? Confess !!!”

“What on earth are you talking about?” he asked.

I thrust the headlines at him “Read that you LTTE terrorist, you menace to society ……hiding out here in MAA for cover!”

“Heh ! Heh!” he said defensively, “I am Nair……no connection with him…”

“Don’t act so innocent, I said firmly, “Is or isn’t you name V Prabhakaran? What cheek, accusing me an innocent Punjabi of being a Khalistani when you are the biggest master terrorist of all time, you head of the Liberation Tigers,you…….”

“Ok…ok………,” he said, and vanished out of my sight, his coat tails disappearing behind the door.

After that, he gave me a wide berth. Whereas earlier, he seemed to be everywhere, now suddenly, I couldn’t seem to find him anywhere! Of course, I pinned the newspaper on the office notice board, with Nair’s photo stuck in place of the real V Prabhakaran’s, and there were quite a few sniggers after that every time he entered a room. Of "Khalistanis and you Sikhs who should be **#&@@!!!", of course there was no further mention. Confucius was right – revenge is a dish best served cold!

This episode had one interesting sequel. You see, V Prabhakaran Nair’s job was business development and where he failed to get appointments with CEO’s of leading companies earlier, doors magically opened. All he did actually was drop the Nair from his name – a typical telecon hypothetically went like this :

“Hello, hello ! I am V Prabhakaran calling from MAA. Am I addressing the PA to Mr Kumar, CEO of XYZ Motors? I would like an appointment with him.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Kumar is unavailable for the next one month,” would be the PA’s stock reply. Then  “Er…….what did you say your name was?”

“V Prabhakaran,” Nair would growl in reply. “ ‘V’as in Velupillai, ‘P’ as in Pottu, ‘R’ as in ……..”

“Ok….ok……. ssssir,” would come the quavering reply, “I’m……I’m…… sure he can fit you in. When would you like to come over, Mr….. er…..”

“Prabhakaran……” Nair would snarl in reply.

Of course, this didn’t really translate into increased business acquisition, though the gambit did open quite a few doors for him.

I spent another couple of good years at MAA, the last eighteen months of them at Corporate Voice, the specialized division of MAA connected with advertising of public offerings, before moving on to my own business as a stock and share broker, where I continue to this day.

My time at MAA was truly was one of the most memorable times of my life. MAA, to a large extent, has shaped my professional outlook and imparted to me business values that are principally responsible for the successful stock-brokerage business that I run today.

P.S from Minoo, the blog's publisher:  Confession – after reading this post, and posts by guest bloggers Anita, John, Cindy and Don, I feel compelled to publish a post called Move Over, Minoo Jha and hand over my blog to one of them.  But of course I am too selfish and having too much of a blast to do that.

Here's my question for Ajay.  Whatever were you doing as an Account Executive in MAA?  You should have been in Copy.  Pity Sadiqa didn't spot your writing talents back then. Had she, you could have joined the merry band of Nitya, Patty, Meera, Ranjan and myself. And we could have had ring side seats to the showdown between you and Velupillai Pottu.