Redcell

HANNIBAL LECTER IS COMING

2006-11-16T22:29:00.000-08:00

It's finally here. "Hannibal Rising", the first book in seven years from Thomas Harris that traces the evolution of the most admired villain in fiction, will be hitting the stores on December 5th.

Words you badly wanted to learn, but didn’t know who to ask

2006-11-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

Can you describe the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of a pillow when you hit the bed?

Haven’t you noticed how people stand when they examine someone else’s bookshelf? The-one-hand-tucked-in-pocket look that all of us are used to? Can you describe that posture?

And who hasn’t had trouble balancing hot and cold shower taps? Can you put a word to it?

Another universally acknowledged phenomenon. The sneeze that tickles, but never comes. Do you have a word to describe that irritating feeling?

Ladies and gentlemen, help is at hand.

Aptly titled ‘The Meaning of Liff’, it’s a project by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd (Yes, the legend behind the Hitchhiker series) to define and put words to people, situations, things and feelings that, unfortunately, have no names as of now.

Think about it.

How many times do we say ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ while meaning ‘no’?

Or how many times do we find a lost object immediately after we have bought a replacement?

Sure we know people who would suggest to everyone that they should split the restaurant bill equally and then order two packs of cigarettes for themselves?

Imagine if we could put a name to such things, occasions or people. That’s exactly what Adams and Lloyd have done.

Take a tour. Your vocabulary will never be the same again.

Diwali is here. So are the Dhamakas

2006-10-17T04:43:00.000-07:00

The festive season is here. It's that time of the year, when millions of Indians, rising beyond the differences of caste and creed, language and gender, reach out to each other to find meaning to the most fundamental of all questions: where can I find the best deals in washing machines and vacuum cleaners?

That's right. Diwali, in advertising and marketing circles, connotes just one thing. Shopping. From dishwashers to plasma televisions to water purifiers, this is the season that drives otherwise sane individuals to go on wild shopping sprees. Take a look around and you can see it for yourself. No, that's not true. When you look around, you can count yourself lucky if you can see anything beyond the immediate 50 feet.

That's because, on an average, every 10 feet is covered with 7 banners, 18 hoardings and 75 posters. And each one of them is inviting you to participate in some shopping festival where, for e.g., you buy a high end refrigerator, get a scratch card which is an endurance test for your fingernails and after scratching it - assuming your fingers are not bleeding and are still attached to your palm - you end up being the lucky winner of, guess what, an amazing bowl set, the kind that would be instantly returned by your maid if you were to gift her.

I know what you are thinking. I must have gone for such a shopping expedition. No sir. This column is like your average dentist reassuring you that it will not hurt. You know it will, he knows it will, your maternal aunt in your native village knows it will. But still he reassures you. Similarly, I am an expert in Diwali shopping not because I shop, because - and follow me carefully here - I happen to have branded such a shopping festival for a major brand for this festive season. And I'm not unique here. Every advertising agency worth its brief would be working on a hundred such shopping festivals as we speak.

But I need not be in advertising to tell you what's been happening to your newspapers of late. With the exception of the masthead, every other inch of space in all major dailies is filled with ads proclaiming essentially the same thing; Come, Buy, Scratch. In fact, don't be surprised if your newspaper guy throws the paper and it breaks down an entire wall. On a related subject, I think the Municipal Corporation of Delhi doesn't have to bother itself with this demolition drive of illegal buildings. (Most buildings, legal, illegal or partly legal, will be demolished if you throw both Hindustan Times and Times of India together at them.)

You think I am exaggerating. Just watch out for this Dhanteras and see if you can spot any news in the newspaper. Editorial content is being so tightly squeezed between Diwali ads that some headlines might read, "North Korea says it will explode another Diwali Dhamaka". Every newspaper prints so many additional pages to accommodate these ads that the average number of pages is somewhere around 275. And as you prepare for this coming weekend, in all likelihood, you might get your papers in two or three separate volumes; "Good morning sir, this is your Times of India, Volume I. Volume II will be shortly airlifted to your thirdfloor apartment. And regarding the supplements, the Indian weightlifting team is in charge of that, sir. Please talk to them."

Good luck people.

Media Nights at Turquoise Cottage

2006-05-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

Among the many questions that life throws up at advertising professionals in Delhi, there is one that’s paramount. The issue that most of us spend hours trying to fathom. We discuss it in great detail during office breaks (which is most of office hours), lunch hour (which stretches from one to somewhere between three thirty and four), and we analyse it threadbare during our drives to and from office. With multiple philosophical, psychological, sociological and financial layers to it, we come to office everyday trying to grapple with this fundamental question of our lives.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the number one question that every advertising professional asks himself or herself in Delhi is, "Why is Turquoise Cottage (TC) so overcrowded?"

For those of you not so privileged to be in the luxurious confines of South Delhi where water and power shortages have migrated to such a level that people are surprised to see running tap water, TC is one among the most popular pubs that plays mostly classical and modern hard rock and serves good liquor. And the crowd is very cool too. But that bit about music is very important because in Delhi, Jazzy B is considered to be alternative heavy metal.

With another branch in Gurgaon – which, to put it softly, is dead – TC is the most sought after place to party for the entire media crowd. For a very good reason too. Every Wednesday is a media night where there is a flat 50% off for those in the media.

So every Wednesday you’ll find TC brimming with both true media and the surrogate media crowd. Surrogate media crowd comprises of those fortunate human beings who do not happen to work for advertising agencies or media firms, but are unfortunate enough to have friends in media with clearly legible visiting cards. Put these two crowds together and you have the entire South, South West, South Central and South East Delhi in TC every Wednesday and even during the weekends.

I believe there is space for about 100-125 people in TC, which most of my friends who frequent the place like me, would claim is a gross exaggeration in itself. But on these special days, don’t be surprised if the actual figure is something like 12,000. It’s so crowded that I’m looking forward to a Lost & Found poster outside the pub very soon. I sincerely believe there are guys still wandering around TC, who have "lost" their girlfriends in the basement.

Last night I was in TC. And as usual, the crowd was cool, the music was rocking and everyone was jostling for enough space to bring their drinks to their mouths. That tiny movement might take anything between 5 to 15 minutes depending on who’s pushing you from where. In fact, after sometime, you forget the fact that you ever had hands. If your mobile is on vibrator and it’s in your trouser pockets, by the time your hand reaches that pocket, most of your genitalia would have been electrocuted.

OK, enough about elbow space and legroom. I am more interested in the fundamental natural act of breathing, or the lack of it. Because of an amazing system of ventilation done by a firm called "No Ventilation", the smokefilled basement makes you think you’re somewhere outside Pushkar trapped in a dust storm.

If you happen to be away from the bar, it might take an hour to get a drink which is roughly the time it takes to reach Manesar. And by the time you actually get to the bar you would have forgotten what you were drinking or more importantly, who you were with. There have also been documented cases of people forgetting who they were. To avoid all that, I was standing near the bar. So, every time someone wanted a drink, I would be pushed like an arch towards the bar with my face very close to the sink and would be in that position until that drink got served.

Even if you are not into headbanging, you’ll end up doing it at TC because that’s the only way you get to talk. "You need another drink?" my friend asks in a sign language. I violently bang my head to and fro to signal that I need one. And it’s is an amazing place to shake your legs. Just stand anywhere the designated dance floor, which is most of TC, and you’ll be pushed from all sides, and forget shaking your legs, your entire body will be swaying to Linkin Park. Which is exactly what I did last night. (And, last night there was an exceptionally hot girl in black with a nosering and a red dupatta to make the night all the more happening.)

All said and done, TC is definitely one among the best places to be seen at and to party in South Delhi.

We only kill each other

2006-05-02T05:08:00.000-07:00

"Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge."

The then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir didn’t exactly quote Gaguin after the gruesome massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. But the ethical dilemma of a nation constantly in war to protect its borders doesn’t prevent her from speaking her mind. It’s time to avenge the insanity. It’s time to be as resolute and as merciless as the enemy. After all "every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values."

Steven Spielberg’s Munich is an investigation of those compromises. An impartial narration of the Israeli retaliation through the hands of a not-so-elite team from the otherwise elitist Mossad. The team is headed by Avner (Eric Bana) and comprises Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciarin Hinds), Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), and Hans (Hanns Zischler). Their mission is to assassinate the leadership of Black September responsible for the Munich massacre. With the inimitable Geoffrey Rush as Ephraim, Avner’s case officer, the team sets out to seek out the terrorists from the shady alleys of a deeply unpredictable Cold War Europe. It’s an "officially unofficial" mission. They begin to pursue leads, build contacts, use moles and execute their targets one by one.

But this isn’t your typical Spy vs. Spy vintage Cold War story. This isn’t a terrorists-on-the-run Hollywood cliché either. It’s a dispassionate account of the reasons and the moral dilemmas involved in the transformation of people from individuals to instruments of an ever-escalating war. As the Black September leadership is eliminated in carefully planned individual attacks spreading from Athens to Beirut, the moral issues that got sidelined in the immediate aftermath of the Olympic Village Massacre begin to surface.

In a world where nobody’s trust can be safely secured, even after the payment of millions of dollars, team members begin to doubt the efficacy of their mission. National sentiment begins to be balanced by religious righteousness. And it’s the same spirit of vengeance Avner finds in a faction of PLO they are forced to share a room with. It’s the same questions about the search and denial of a homeland. As Munich unfolds into a human drama, you realise that the combatants can easily switch places and it would be hard to recognise them.

It’s also a crude reminder that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. There’s little of black and white here. Munich is more about the innumerable shades of grey that all of us possess. And precisely because of which, the most interesting moments in the movie are not the exceptionally well shot action scenes. The most captivating moments are when the characters from both sides express their moral dilemmas and limited choices. As a committed, and soon to be murdered Ali from PLO explains to Avner, "you don’t understand the struggle for a homeland because you have a home. The home is everything".

Yet, even after the end of the mission and from the confines of his apartment in New York, it’s his feelings about home and his past deeds that keep Avner awake. He believes he is being hunted and he blames everyone from KGB to Mossad for that. And Avner discovers a particular feeling that some of his erstwhile colleagues had begun to nurture – guilt. In one of the most poignant conversations towards the end of the movie, Avner confronts the hardened Ephraim to question him about the choices he was forced to make. Ephraim gives the reply that could have come from any of the characters on either side of the movie: "We kill for our future. We kill for peace".

Steven Spielberg needs to be lauded for his objectivity and impartiality in bringing to screen one of the most controversial events from the most tragic geographical struggle in human history. It’s an in-your-face account of what happened in that Olympic Village and more importantly, what happened next. More than the possibility of peace, what haunts you is the prospect of a never ending conflict. As one of the characters says in a reflective mood, "all of this blood comes back to us". Yes, Munich is proof that no matter which side you sympathise with, it always does.

Certainly, a ten point something

2006-04-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

In 1995, Chetan Bhagat, left IIT and like thousands before and after him, simply failed to log out. He carried the years with him; the never ending tests, late night paranthas, movies in Priya. Years later, from the secluded confines of an investment bank in Hong Kong, he decided to revisit his alma mater. His nostalgia takes him on a rendezous along the corridors and friendships that once defined his life. And if it was an engineering degree from undoubtedly India's best scientific institution the first time around, on his second visit, Chetan Bhagat comes out with what is a significant achievement in Indian fiction. We'll never know how much of "Five Point Someone" is autobiographical. We'll never know how much of it is unreal. What we do know is that he has achieved something truly unparalleled in Indian writing in English. He has made the familiar the popular, defied the stereotypes and in the process touched the hearts of thousands.

To know the significance of "Five Point Someone", one only has to remember that this is a nation where Khushwant Singh remains the bestselling novelist. In one sweet stroke, Bhagat has upped the ante. And he has done it in a style that's as intimate as it's casual. Through some skilfully sculpted characters - Hari, Ryan, Alok, Neha, Cherian - he has produced a narrative that's both honest and humane. Hari Kumar is the narrator of who we don't know much about. Only towards the end of the book do we get to know that his father is an imposing disciplinarian. Alok is the only hope of a semi-paralysed father and a struggling mother. He needs his ten points because he needs his sister's dowry. Ryan doesn't accept his parents' love but is glad to accept his pocket money from their pottery business. Cherian is the cold hearted Head of Department with the beautiful and level headed daughter Neha carrying family secrets too scary to be let out. Bhagat brings out their passions and fears in a seemingly effortless manner. Ryan's rebellion, rooted against his parents, but aimed at the system that refuses to budge, Alok's fears of losing out on a steady income, and Hari's intimacy with Neha that both of them find hard to define; these are the threads that make Bhagat's debut novel a candid account of teenage crises in an elitist institution. He doesn't imitate, he doesn't patronise. He just shares.

And what he shares is not something that you find regularly in Indian fiction. There are no lengthy descriptions, no tiring passages. (Bhagat doesn't spend more than 30 words at a stretch describing the IIT scenery). The prose is not lyrical either, and thank heavens for that. There are no cliched examinations into the pasts of the main characters. The protagonists are too interesting to require any background check on their past. And it's this honesty that makes reading Bhagat so interesting. An honesty that makes you easily identify with at least one of the main characters. The crises that he throws up are the crises every teenager faces. The choices he presents are the choices we all would have faced at one point in our lives. "Five Point Someone" is the diary Chetan Bhagat must have mentally updated in his years at IIT and he chose to click the refresh button at a time when there was a clear dearth of original talent. He has thrilled us, he has touched us. And he has done a much needed "Trainspotting" in Indian fiction.

Boredrooms And Other Forms Of Torture

2006-04-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

Of all the systemic and institutionalised forms of torture known to mankind, the boardroom is the most agonizing. Here you have a captive audience that can be called at a short notice and forced to endure excruciatingly long hours of sheer torture. Unless you have a valid excuse – reasons of health or more often than not, another boardroom meeting – you cannot escape this persecution. I have one such agonizing agenda later this afternoon.

I have been attending boardrooms for a little over four years now. And I’ve noticed certain inalienable truths about meetings in general.

1. No office meeting has ever ended within the stipulated time. Once in the advertising frame of mind, you can discuss all evils surrounding humanity. For as long as you want.

2. No meeting ever limits itself to the agenda. Meetings that begin with the latest market findings can effortlessly digress to closely associated subjects like Ganguly opening the innings.

3. No meeting has ever begun on time. If everyone is unusually punctual, the first 10 minutes will be devoted to just that. How come everyone is on time today?

4. Whenever someone says “I’m viewing this with an open frame of mind”, you can certainly conclude that he or she has already decided what the issue is and what ought to be done.

5. “I think we have a consensus here” is a beautiful rendition of “I don’t give a damn what you guys think, I’ve made up my mind and you’ll follow it”.

6. It’s not important how good or bad an idea or suggestion is; what matters is who is stating that. As you move up the value chain, you have to confront the inescapable truth. You don’t judge an idea. You judge the person.

7. You can go into a meeting without preparing for even 5 minutes. To be the star of the show, all you have to do is keep reacting to every trivial thing discussed there.

8. When you find nothing else to criticise an idea or an individual, you can “count on your experience”. “Two years back we had a similar problem and..” or “In my previous job, we tried this track”. Nobody can ever dispute your non-existent, totally irrelevant experience. Of course, unless someone else is clever enough to do the same to you.

9. In front of others, subordinates generally laugh with their boss at the slightest hint even if they have heard that recycled joke a million times.

10. The time tested ploy to answer someone when you are asked whether something’ll work or not, or whether an idea is the right one, you can always fall back on this gem. “Maybe, maybe not”.

A Weekly Hoax Called Job Meeting

2006-03-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

On a predetermined day towards the beginning of every week we gather together in our conference room. The agenda is to understand the current status of almost every job, projects that are likely to come up during the week and to schedule meetings both internal and external. Theoretically, there’s nothing wrong with such a lofty idea. But in practice, well, it’s another story.

Your interest in any particular job in an agency is inversely proportional to your involvement in it. People come up with blindingly obvious insights about things they have nothing to do with in the first place.

In case you’ve spent the weekend in office (the higher you go, the rarer it happens), you want the whole world to appreciate it. People will give extremely focused hints about it, “Heard Crash is a nice movie, then again, I was tied up last Saturday…”

If even a single senior manager comes on or before time, however unusual that may be, you can safely expect a 15-minute lecture on the merits of punctuality. That will be closely followed by another 15-minute sermon on professionalism or the lack thereof.

The most crucial aspects of a job are left out of the meeting since it would take some time in explaining to others who have virtually no interest in it. So, the job meeting becomes a weekly update of the most mundane chores including mailing of an excel sheet.

This is an unparalleled occasion to demonstrate to the rest of the world how diligently committed you are to the organisation. Which means you are eternally tied up in the greater cause of serving the agency. So, you could be “flying to the HO” or “busy preparing for an annual review”.

If you happen to be one of those professionally challenged, stuck up managers with nothing else to do in life, in response to your colleagues’ busy schedules, you can always get away with, “I have something critical coming up towards the end of the week, slightly confidential you see”.

If your group has done something commendable, it’s simply because of you. If your group has messed up something, ladies and gentlemen, take this opportunity to admonish your subordinates in front of everyone to prove your soaring leadership skills.

The most unbearable, yet universally accepted law of job meetings. At any point during the meeting, you will give your right hand to find faults with others’ projects.

Trance America

2006-03-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

Cowboys in love, crash victims of racism, an upmarket intellectual search of a cold-blooded killer, the journalist who voiced American fears and hopes during the McCarthy era, the behind-the-scenes weaknesses of an American legend, and destabilising effects, courtesy a transsexual crisis. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needs to be lauded for capturing an America in suspended animation; a nation coming to terms with its inherent and ever evolving crises at both private and public spaces. This is the year of the uncomfortable. This is the year when the marginalized became the mainstream. This is America in Trance.

So what if the peripheral didn’t become the popular in commercial terms (As of last week, the documentary “March of the Penguins”, another winner this year had grossed more than Brokeback Mountain in ticket sales). And let’s also forget that the ultimate winner, Crash, hasn’t been universally adored by critics. Because this year, the exception became the norm. Critically acclaimed but commercially misplaced independent efforts normally become an apologetic assurance from the Academy that they do have such parallel struggles in their minds. But this year, they took centre stage. From Good Night Good Luck to Brokeback Mountain to Crash to Transamerica to Capote to Walk the Line, it was the march of the frequently forgotten. Heck, they even apologised to Robert Altman!

And it was America all the way. The fevers and phobias that obsess the land of the free. Other than Munich and Memoirs of a Geisha, the other nominees were predominantly born out of themes turbulently set in the American psyche. And unlike American Beauty – an English man’s satire of manicured minds in American suburbia – this time around, the players were primarily American.

So, let’s celebrate this moment of the cerebral. For all you know, next year they might return to the usual suspects of resurrected dinosaurs and overblown apes.

Sex and Philosophy

2006-03-07T03:10:00.000-08:00

He is turning forty today. With lit candles in his car, he is cruising around the city, looking for street musicians to join him in the celebration. But the big event is slated for the afternoon. He’s been calling up four of his former lovers for a rendezvous in his dance class. This afternoon they’ll discover that they were sharing his love simultaneously. This afternoon, the narrator in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Sex and Philosophy will share and discover the anatomy of love. This afternoon, the secrets he shares will get counterbalanced by the intimacies he discovers, in a breathtaking account of inclusion and isolation.

In an age, where Iran is in the news for all the wrong reasons, this remarkably original filmmaker, tutored on the streets of Teheran, circumvents the stereotype to deliver an inventive reportage of human desires. And, thank you Zee Studio for an indulging us to an Oscar feast that goes beyond the clichés of Hollywood.

The narrative takes us through the beginning and end of each of his affairs, with the protagonists defining it in their own ways. When Maryam, the airhostess he meets and falls in love during one of cinema’s greatest solo flight fantasies probes him, he narrates his central dilemma: “Four girlfriends at the same time? Is this love?” “It’s a search, Maryam. I found a piece of my heart with each one of you”.

Love is just a euphemism for enduring happiness in Sex and Philosophy. Beyond the narrowing confines of intimacy, what he seeks is individual bliss, something that’s finite and where demand is currently outrunning supply. He knows exactly how long he’s been happy in these 40 years. His constant companion of a chronometer tells him it’s been roughly 2 hours. Weighing his existence vis-à-vis butterflies that live their entire life in a single day, he knows the search will never get over. Because in the last 40 years, he hasn’t lived a single butterfly day. And no one is surprised. Least of all, the narrator.

And in a mystical twist to his odyssey, he realizes that one of his intimate girl friends has been doing the same. That she too has been seeking love from many sources at the same time. Chaotic, yet content, left to his own chiselled fantasies, he can only mourn, “I sought love all my life/but found loneliness/So let everyone light their own candle of loneliness”. Using ballet as a visual accompaniment to the dancing narration of personal fantasies and shared passion, Makhmalbaf sculpts a cinematic odyssey that delves deep into the desires and obsessions in the lives of urbanised and lonesome adults. “In the cold streets of the city there’s no echo except farewell, farewell”.

I know the feeling

2006-02-20T03:45:00.000-08:00

This is for SG.

Reasons for hating your new job:

1. You suddenly discover your boss has two personalities. One that you saw during the interview and the one that’s sitting 10 feet away from you.

2. The value added responsibilities that your boss talked about during the second round of interview come down to just that. Adding more files and artworks to your existing workload.

3. Since it’s a new organisation, the level of enthusiasm on everyone’s face is directly proportional to the propensity to backstab.

4. The situation is slightly worse than the usual office politics. The reason being since it’s a new firm, nobody knows who belongs to which party.

5. You realise there’s an inverse relation between your salary (that has seen a substantial rise) and your KRAs.

6. Everyone’s so bent upon impressing the boss so much that you think there’ll be an annual award with a gold plaque that has “Blue eyed boy/girl” written all over it.

7. The boss loves it so much that you think he constantly carries such a plaque in his briefcase.

8. You have to get the nod from your boss before and after doing everything. You begin to wonder whether some day soon you’ll have to get a nod before and after doing nothing.

9. You shout at yourself. “What was I thinking when I said yes”.

10. You finally fall in love with Dilbert.

Reasons for not hating it enough to leave:

1. It’s wrong to suggest that your boss has two faces. The truth lies somewhere between 18 and 26. And you’ve always known that.

2. Even while chasing mindnumbing artworks and dealer panels, you have to realise the truth. In advertising the only thing that matters is the brand. Some of your current colleagues are shining examples of that.

3. Everyone’s equally indulging in one-upmanship. That’s because everyone is equally scared. The only thing that competes with your salary as you move up is your fear of losing it.

4. You are not an overpaid 35 year old with multiple EMIs. You are an overpaid 25 year old with a single, manageable EMI. So, chill.

5. Once some of your campaigns manage to gain some visibility, inadvertently, you’ll also get some. And with it will come better opportunities.

6. Even if it’s chasing illmannered dealers, it’s much better than just sitting around and chasing your cursor the entire day. Believe me, it’s no fun.

7. The only good thing about being micromanaged is that you learn how to micromanage your future subordinates in case you feel like.

8. You were absolutely right when you took this decision to join. Had you taken the other option, you would have been shouting at yourself and the entire world. The other experience would have been way too predictable.

9. You’re not married to this place. The opportunities that were there sometime back will present themselves again. This time, with better remuneration.

10. It’s great to fall in love with Dilbert.

Strategic Rape Part II

2006-02-20T01:12:00.001-08:00

Strategically speaking, the only reason we’re in this business is to impress others. We write briefs, conduct market surveys, spout case studies and create commercials with the sole aim of making an impact on our defenceless victims. And we’re damn good at that. Our list of victims include our existing clients, potential clients, research agencies, focus groups and of course, the general public. But it becomes extremely funny when we target our arsenal at each other. Words like strategy, then, play a significant role in career enhancement in advertising. You are nothing but the sum total of all the heavy-duty phrases you can throw around at ease. And to help you in that endeavour, here’s a list of phrases everyone must learn to survive in the corporate world.

Any idiotic thing you say can look very significant if you add the phrase, “Strategically speaking”.

You don’t “agree” with someone. You realise both are on the “same page”.

Only those devoid of any ambition would need “something that stands out”. The more worldly wise would always prefer “something that’s clutter breaking”.

Always “agree to disagree”.

Never miss out on the “key deliverables”.

If you haven’t been able to discover “effective differentiation” in your “key result areas”, you’ll never earn your “progressive performance incentives”.

If you’re not kept “in the loop”, you’re in the wrong circle.

“Filtering” is in. Every other variation beginning with “selection” is out.

“Synergy quotient”. In other words, how well two or more things fit together.

To be continued.

Inzamam ul Haq and Islam

2006-02-20T01:12:00.000-08:00

You have just lost the one-day series. And you have lost the last one dayer by a monstrous margin. Your team has been smothered in all aspects of the game. You are called to the presentation podium as the losing captain. You are asked to comment on the loss. How do you begin your reply, simultaneously telecast to millions of television sets worldwide? You begin by saying, “Bismilla-e-rehman….”

Inzamam ul Haq knows the power of religion in a country based on just that. He knows the influence of Islam in routing public anger. And he knows it’s not nice being at the receiving end in an Islamised Pakistan. The captain on a sticky wicket has just proved he knows how to quieten the critics. He knows Islam will rescue him. He knows the potential of a televised prayer.

To understand the irony, try remembering how many Indian players have invoked religion under such circumstances. Tendulkar chanting Jai Ram? Azhar crying out “Allahu Akbar”? For all our internal squabbles, we are miles ahead of our disintegrating neighbour on that count.

Even erudite cricket commentators can’t escape being the clichéd mouthpiece. Before the series began, Rashid Latif had this to say about the current Pakistani team. “Since most of the players in the team are Muslims, there’s little chance of anything sinister like match fixing happening”. Totally forgetting the fact that it was precisely those Muslim players who were the dubious pioneers of match fixing.

But this is Pakistan where religion is the unifying theme, cricket included. Where individual preferences are always subordinated to the collective will. Where the incompetent can always seek refuge in religion. Where religion is the crux of the us-versus-them conflict. Where Irfan Pathan is singled out, just like Azharuddin and Syed Kirmani before him, not for his talent, but for his religion.

Paris Hilton as Mother Teresa, Kitsch as Art

2006-02-15T22:38:00.000-08:00

Forget automobiles & breweries, the finest German contribution to world culture comes in the form of certain unique words with probably no parallels in any other language. One such irreplaceable phrase is kitsch. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “art, objects, or design considered to be excessively garish or sentimental, but appreciated in an ironic or knowing way”. Extravagantly loud and excessively gaudy, kitsch is what determines our popular culture from movies to fashion, sports to literature. And guess what, we can’t have enough of it.

At a basic level, kitsch, for those in urban India, operates in its most vulgar form in front of our eyes on a daily basis through Page 3. Nondescript photographs of irrelevant get-togethers, made-for-print smooches, flea market designers, socialites with too much money and too little taste, all of them cloud our mornings, vying for our attention. And, you and I, along with a new class of wannabe paparazzi with an unending appetite, feed their fantasies. C’mon, we all love the daily display of who’s revealing how much. And at a global level, nobody better fits the description of kitsch than the heiress of the hotel empire, the wooer par excellence, Madame Paris Hilton.

The darling of US tabloids and the diva of late night television, she even had her own reality show, along with her off and on best mate Nicole Richie. With only her surname as her resume, Ms. Hilton continues to court attention wherever she goes and whatever she wears. And you could’ve never guessed the nationality of her latest admirer. T. Rajeevnath. But Rajeevnath who?

National award winning Malayalam director T. Rajeevnath, wants her to play the title role in his next movie on Nobel Peace laureate Mother Teresa. That’s right people, you read it right. According to news reports, “the director was impressed when he read a report sometime ago in which the hotel heiress said she had refused to pose nude in Playboy magazine and decided then to shortlist her.” Ms. Hilton refuses to reveal her tangible assets for some ready cash and she merits the role of one of the most selfless individuals in human history. Not a word about her acting abilities, if any. Not a word about her resemblance to the Mother, if any. Not a word about her selfless services, if any.

But then again, that’s kitsch. “Excessively garish… but appreciated in an ironic… way.” We know she’s tasteless, we know she’s crass. But we want her there, just like her numerous co-stars. Because at the end of the day, her vulgarity can be matched only by our voyeurism.

Boredrooms & other forms of torture

2006-02-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

On Valentine's

2006-02-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

“Random thoughts for Valentine's day. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.”

That was Jim Carrey as Joel Barish grieving about his loneliness in Charlie Kaufman’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, probably the most ingenuous and innovative movie to come out of Hollywood in the last two years. The title itself is taken from Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard":

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

Anyone who has ever fallen in love must watch this movie at least a couple of times (You will understand it only if you watch it a couple of times). It’s the most poignant commentary on love, loss and isolation of the times we live in. The basic premise is intriguing enough: What if we could erase a select segment of our memory regarding an individual or event? What if you could replace your memory? What if the procedure fails? And, more importantly, what if you still cannot get that individual or event out of your mind. As the movie’s tagline suggests, “You can erase someone from your mind. Getting them out of your heart is another story.”

And today, ably assisted by the corporate world, we pay tribute to that truth. That, there is no getting away from that someone, if your heart has decided (to your utter surprise) that, that someone indeed is the one. That, even with all the imperfections on both sides, together what you have is something that you could have never had individually. That, given a chance, you’d still want to fall in love with the same someone.

And as the fate-struck lovers try to negotiate through their cluttered memories (Kate Winslet as an unforgettable Clementine), the truth comes out.

Clementine: I wish you had stayed.
Joel: I wish I had stayed too. I swear to god I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish... I wish I had stayed.
Clementine: Joel? What if you stayed this time?
Joel: I walked out the door. There's no memory left.
Clementine: Come back and make up a good-bye at least. Pretend we had one.

Strategic Rape, Part I

2006-02-13T19:55:00.001-08:00

How do you recognise someone from the advertising industry? Long hair, torn jeans, the-permanently-lost-in-thought look? Sorry. That’s dated. There’s a more accurate method. You don’t even have to look out for this particular trait. It’ll come out on its own. If you don’t miss this sign, you can say with conviction that the object in front of you, or over the phone, or in the chatroom belongs to the genus Advertisia illuminia.

Ladies and gentlemen, you identify this species through its recurrent usage of the word ‘strategy’.

Never in the history of humanity has one word been so disgustingly gang raped by so few people. It’s official now. The Award for the Most Abused in History (AMBUSH, anyone?) goes to strategy. It was selected from a privileged cluster that included some of its close cousins – strategic, strategically and stratagem. If there were a shelter of abused words somewhere on the planet, ‘strategy’ would have a permanent citizenship there. In fact, don’t be surprised if the shelter itself is named with ‘Strategy’ in it. If the job is given to any Indian advertising agency, chances are, it will be called ‘Strategically Abused Words’.

Why do people use, abuse and misuse them every frigging minute? The answer is quite simple. It’s the best bet to make sure that all your actions and thoughts carry unimaginable significance. Everyday functions of negligible consequence assume great significance when strategy is somehow squeezed into it. And nowhere does it apply more than advertising, since the whole business is subjective. So, instead of saying, “We should have more print ads so that more people can see us”, we generously tell our clients, “It makes sound strategic sense to leverage the long term, effective and in-built advantages of print vis-à-vis television as it fits in well with our long term strategy of counter fragmentation”. Or instead of saying, “I have a plan, Let’s switch off the lights when we leave”, we mouth “Strategically, all our resources should be used in such a way that the synergy is not lost and wastage, if any, should be…”

We use the word so frequently because we look important and imaginative when we utter it. Strategically sound, don’t you agree?

48 Hours

2006-02-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

Started off this morning with a meeting for a client who had signed up with us quite recently. To say that the meeting was disastrous would be an understatement. The client has given his laundry list to which my colleagues have eagerly added their own dirty linen. Bottom line; I’m working on a client about who I’ve little idea, on a campaign I’m not at all convinced, on a deadline that would even make the seasoned engineers in NASA envious.

Not that I wanted any of this to happen. I gave my well-rehearsed set of excuses this morning.

I know as much about the client as I know about interplanetary communication.
All the art directors in our agency are tied up in various projects till the next century.
I have an unavoidable appointment with my Vaastu consultant this Saturday.
That meeting might take the whole of Sunday too.
The Monday morning deadline looks as realistic as India winning the next soccer world cup.

So the considerate set of managers present in the room, after taking into consideration all the pros and cons, took a well thought out, strategically sound decision. I have to do it. I have to find an art director, “Anything can be done in 48 hours” and “I have to make the deadline work”. Even to my seasoned ears, that last bit was shocking. So, here I’m on a Friday evening trying to figure what on earth our client wants to achieve with this campaign. Oh, I did manage to find my art partner. And together we’re trying to make the deadline work for us. If only someone would explain the damn job to begin with.

Private & Public

2006-02-13T19:54:00.000-08:00

Why do people blog? Why do millions around the world spend hours keying in their views, dissents, feelings, protests, cries, observations, beliefs to an unknown audience? Why not share your thoughts with your girlfriend, best friend, spouse or peers? What drives that desire to share your inner self with those you might never see? Is it because it’s convenient? I don’t think so.

The leitmotif of the past decade has been the internet. No, I’m not here to lecture anyone on how it has changed the world or how it has brought lonely hearts the world over a platform to open their – what else – lonely hearts. Or how the net democratised pornography. No, I’ve something else in my mind. The internet and the accompanying revolution in mobile communications has seen a surge in the number of must have gadgets. From cell phones to ipods to laptops. So, now it’s easier to communicate with those around you. You can send text from the confines of your CEO’s room on how archaic his ideas are. So, if you now have all the gadgets you never even dreamt of, to communicate with your girl friend and your best friends, why do you share yourself with an unknown audience?

Because people, the net has allowed you and I to display all our personality traits. Including the very fact that you and I may have more than one personality to begin with. A mysterious side that we can’t share with anyone around us. A rebellious side they may not take seriously. A lonely side that they can never understand. The net, with its freedom of anonymity, allows us to express that voice. A voice not many of us have. But a voice that some of us are struggling to stifle. So, instead of sending your girl an sms about how your day has been, or calling her up late at nite to share a quirky thought, you share it with those masked faces on the worldwide web.
A mobile phone is about being in touch. E-mail is about being together. An ipod is about being in vogue. And a blog is about being lonely. Good nite.

10 to 7

2006-02-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

It’s 10 to 7 in the evening. And I happen to be in one of those industries where you can never say with confidence if your day is about to end or begin. Whether you’ll go home in your usual state of desperation or whether things will get worse. Advertising, for all its shortcomings, is pretty good on that count. It’s full of surprises. So ladies and gentlemen, in a world where every wannabe toilet graffiti artist migrates to the net under the fine façade of blogging, here’s one more. An unadulterated assortment of attitudes, pretences and feelings. Some genuine, some make-believe. Not in the distant hope of getting rejoinders. (I get more than my share of those on a daily basis!).

It’s 7 now. I can hear faint murmurs from the adjoining room where my boss is having his seventh discussion of the day on one of our latest clients. He has just finished writing his campaign. That’s his idea of rescuing the world from all its calamities. And something tells me the client is beginning to be impressed. Watch out guys, a televised disaster is coming your way. And if I stick around, I’ll be his next victim. He’ll quietly motion me to his room and explain his outdated, recycled-to-the-zillionth-time idea. And I’ll be forced to give him my well thought out, earth-shattering suggestion. “I think we can change the background colour from pale blue to lilac”. “Or mauve”. Before such a tragedy occurs, lemme make the smartest move that I’ll be making today. Leave.