Politics and an old fart

True story. JWT in the 1960s.

He (I won't disclose his name) was always well turned out; freshly laundered shirts every day, red necktie (striped or checked but always red) and pin-striped trousers. He said he would have liked to wear a pin-striped suit to work every day, but that would be overdoing it, he thought.

Being well-dressed was not a vanity, he said; it was necessitated by his particular health condition. Flatulence. Vayu, he called it; of the most stubborn and aggressive kind. It was as if he was given bellows for bowels, he told us with head lowered as if to be modest about a rare personal gift. His ‘bellows’ worked continuously, at all times; something he could not control. Fortunately, he was blessed with a robust sphincter as well, which was able to regulate the velocity and decibel level of the ejected vayu. At home, when showing off to his wife or entertaining his two little ones, he could play it like a slide trombone, producing an impressive glissando from a resonant G on the bass clef to a nice thin C# two octaves higher. This was as told him by his musician neighbour.

He was most proud, however, of his ability to apply the sphincteral mute, if we can call it that, whenever he needed to, particularly in company. It was this talent he found useful every day in the first class compartment of the local train that took him to his office. From Vile Parle, where he had his one-bedroom apartment, he would take the Andheri Local, which would then return to Churchgate station. He needed to do this, because it guaranteed him a seat on an otherwise crowded train. He had to make sure that his carefully ironed shirt retained its creases the whole day.

The well-groomed look was important, because of his rare condition. He had to look like a sahib to handle his gift with respectability. At home, he read a Gujerati newspaper, but in the train, he would hold an English Times of India in front of him, generally looking at the classified columns and the art work of the local advertisements. The Times, he figured, lent him more respectability than his Gujerati newspaper.

The vayu would come unbidden, unstoppable, but our man with his sphincteral expertise, would mute it to silence. The problem, however was that while the vayu did not disturb the ear, it certainly did offend the nostrils. In fact, according to our gentleman sahib, the reduction of the vayu’s decibel level was in inverse proportion to its mischievous olfactory effects. But our man had learned how to handle the situation with aplomb.

Every time he ‘let go’, silently of course, he would lower his Times of India, turn his head towards the person sitting next to him and curl up an accusatory nose at him in disgust. Then he would go back to his newspaper. The rest of the compartment would quite naturally direct their glares towards the accused, who try as he may, with all his expressions of “I didn’t do it” would never be able to plead innocence. Nobody would pin something so vulgar on to a respectable looking gentleman as our man.

Brilliant. It worked always.

…..

This scatological reminiscence was triggered by a Times of India headline two days ago, which said that our man in Delhi was going on a fast with his party to atone for the ‘divisive politics’ of the Congress party!

Demonitization as spiritual exercise

Sacrifice. Mortification. Penance. Pain. All of that is good, we are told. Good for body. Good for soul. Good for you. Spritual exercise is cleansing; is salvific.

But then, who amid the urgent demands of duty and pleasure; of opportunity and insecurity, the slings and arrows and delights of life today can give time or even thought to the earning of this kind of salvation? Sure, there are those who will painfully contort muscle and limb in yogic poses and exercises for that desirable figure. Then there is that pious Catholic who will rise from the confessional with a prescribed ‘penance’ which he performs on his knees for absolution of his sins.

No. There is no time for all this.

But Heaven has its ways. Today we are witnessing that rarest of rare times in history when a nation and its honourable leaders are prescribing a formula for salvation. Penance for a collective sin. It is a wonderful opportunity for spiritual advancement.

Listen to this.

Two days ago, after attending the Litfest in Mumbai, we were getting into a taxi, when a man selling balloons on a bicycle approached us, and with his eyes sweeping the floor for shame, told us that he hadn’t sold a single balloon the whole day and that he had to take food home for his family. At most times I would have ignored him as just one of those street hoaxes. But then I remembered the demonitization. I felt the pain of this man (like our honourable leader often does as he ‘breaks down’ on the podium) and gave him a 100-rupee note. As we were entering the taxi, the taxi driver, switched of the ignition, reached into his shirt pocket, took out a 50-rupee note and gave it to the balloon man. His thoughtfulness was an expensive one. Cash was precious to him, particularly at this time, but he was ready to make that sacrifice..

At home, after briefing the carpenter on a job, we gave him his advance in the form of a cheque, saying that we had no cash. He took the cheque, and thought for a minute. He slowly took out his wallet and counted the cash he had. “I have 1500 rupees in 100-rupee notes,” he told us. “I can give you a thousand. You may need it for something.”

Demonitization was making people thoughtful. Unselfish. Charitable.

I have been hearing from friends how they have been doing without things: “The bank gave me this Rs.2000 note, which nobody would accept if they had to give me cash back,” said one. “So it was a useless piece of paper. I could buy nothing with it. I have spent nothing for so many days. And I am OK. Doing without!”

Mortification and sacrifice as a result of demonitization. This is a spiritual awakening!

Our foreign friends and relations tell us that we are unique. What is happening here would never happen anywhere else in the world: standing in line from dawn to dusk to be able get your own money; going through hunger, thirst, dehydration and fatigue; being witness to people fainting and some even dying... And then to go back at the end of the day empty-handed because there was no more cash in ATM or bank.

We are a special people. The favourite of the gods, surely. We are blessed with that fortitude, that resilience, that spiritual strain that few other people possess. We do these things because we have to, without asking why and for whose sin we are doing this penance (not ours personally, we know, but someone else’s) or to ask if this penance will in truth absolve the nation of that big collective sin they call Corruption, which is the real sin, of which the dark colour of cash is only a manifestation. We will not ask what is being done to exorcise this demon called Corruption instead of demonizing my hard-earned money. And please do not give us talk of all those many lakh crores that have been spent in order to mop up much less lakh crores of the coloured money. No price is too great for the rewards of this spiritual exercise. Please do not ask us to ask questions. The nation has made its collective confession and we will perform our penance because it is good for our spirit. It is salvific.

Let’s make the best of this spiritual exercise, the demonitization. We may not get this opportunity again.

Or will we?

The Good You Can Do With One Foot in the Grave.

SORRY, MIKE

 The day I fought with Mike Khanna


 1976. Mike was back from Delhi, trailing a fragrant path of success. He had done his thing there. Just four years ago that office was teetering on the edge. But now there was no looking back. He was here now in the Bombay office,
the largest, most visible HTA office, slovenly in the way it moved and not knowing where it was going, while Madras and Calcutta looked at least washed and ironed. Three of the four offices were doing fine. Bombay, the largest needed some doing. Subhas Ghosal’s mandate for Mike: Do the Delhi in Bombay.

 Mike thought it might help to have me brought back to the city. We had a good run together in Delhi. There was a chance it could continue here. But things were not that easy. Bombay had evolved some excellent systems and boasted some of the finest talent in the city. Sadly, much of it was lying fallow while a few other fine people had metamorphosed into prima donnas. Almost all copy was written by free-lancers, while six of our own good ones sat twiddling their thumbs. “We must change all that,” Mike said. And Mike did. Feathers got ruffled, but at least there was a flapping of wings.

Not easy, this flapping. I remember with anguish still one of the first meetings we had in Bombay. There arose a battle of wills between me, and the AV executive. A disagreement over the aesthetics and relevance of an AV treatment. Before I knew what was happening, the AVE’s resignation was on Mike’s table. Mike’s usual rational emollients did not work. He turned to me and said, “Ivan, now you listen to me,” to which I belligerently said, “This time, Mike. No.” He ended the meeting there.

I went home that evening as if walking on burning coals. I confessed my transgression to Ingrid, my wife and said that I had to apologize before the sun set. We went to Mike’s place. He heard my act of contrition and said. “Don’t apologize. You were fighting for what you believed. And so was the other fellow. We’ll meet tomorrow morning.”

The next morning saw resolution and handshakes. The audio-visual presentation went on to win awards. And that’s the way it went. Mike’s quiet gift was seen at work -- unravelling the knotty skeins of aggressive emotion and weaving them into sensible solutions. Confrontations mutated into rollicking, good professional stimulation; atrophied skills sprang to life, all of it leading to a great environment and ultimately to work that won clients and industry awards. Subhas Ghosal was heard to have said at an awards ceremony where HTA walked away with 24 pieces of metal, “Mike you have showered me with an embarrassment of riches.”

Mr. Ghosal was due for more ‘embarrassing’ riches when year after year Mike Khanna’s office showed growth that could only be reported with with at least some show of bashful modesty. When in 1985, Mike took over from Mr. Ghosal an agency, which the latter had polished to a shine that reflected his own refinement and professionalism, he knew that he was stepping into shoes that were not easy to fill. The eyes of the entire industry, many of them with the skeptic’s squint, watched as HTA hopped, stepped and jumped across borders to be counted among JWT’s top performers globally. Those shoes had morphed into sneakers, it would seem, as the agency sprinted ahead.

It was a seamless transition. Subhas Ghosal as Chairman Emeritus remained Mike’s mentor and chief cheerleader, his choice of successor more than vindicated.

Mike’s quiet and most often unfailing logic was a screen that hid a sharp insight into people and an intuitive grasp of issues that eluded more overtly brilliant minds. To some (like me) who tended to get blinded by the neon glare of corporate showmanship, Mike’s logical approach was a revelation and at most times a buffer to my own very fallible ‘creative leaps’. It made him an ideal counselor.

That is how he was able to create leaders who today are at the helm of the country’s most respected companies. Many of them openly admit their debt of gratitude for his role in their growth. To their litanies of praise and thanksgiving, I add my own, with the hope that it may wipe out the memory of the day I had to say Sorry, Mike.


This appeared in Cat-a-list, the Hindu Business Line. June 2015

Mike Khanna. Wizard without a wand

 The business world will toss numbers; will talk of the magical growth he showed in the time he led Hindustan Thompson, now JWT; first as head of the Delhi office, which bobbed up from No.7 in that city to No.1 in just one year of his taking over; he did the same with the Bombay office and finally as CEO of HTA, India, he walked the agency up a steep climb to the pinnacle; success following him like a poodle. And those who do not know him will have visions of a man like some others with similar achievements, men who draw attention to their success with big flourishes of the corporate wand and the abracadabra of individual style.

With Mike there were no flourishes; no conjurer’s patter, no abracadabra showmanship. He almost seemed like a novice with a pack of cards, slowly dealing them out, stopping to spit-wet his fingers when suddenly you would notice: he has dealt you an ace. And then another and another. You looked in awe. And there he was, unimpressed with his own magic, intent on just dealing you those aces.

But the aces we are talking about are not those numbers; of billings, growth, profit or industry ranking; facts and figures that even then placed him on the throne of the advertising industry. Oh there is much to be said about all that and the business world can talk about it at length.

 What ‘Thompsonites’ will talk about are other aces, their own personal ones, for which they will remember him most. From secretaries, studio artists and accountants to members of the executive committee, all have poignant stories to establish their personal relationship with Mike: of how on a bad day, he sat them down, got to the heart of the problem and sent them away with a new spring in their step; of how they came to him with clenched fists over an issue with a colleague and how a cuppa tea with him would end in handshakes all round. A creative director will tell you how, on the occasion of the global CEO’s visit, her presentation was delayed by an hour, and how Mike went up to her, put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Relax. This is not the end of the world.” “I could have kissed him then,” she said. “But I went about getting the job done.” An office manager narrates how on his wife’s birthday, he had invited Mike home for dinner, at which he demonstrated the five-finger-and-palm bhangra clap.

His manner was calming. He broke down difficult and high tension situations with his quiet, unbeatable logic to resolve both business and even creative crises. his intuitive feel for the moment, touched with humaneness, his ability to get down to the root of the matter at hand to help you with a problem and above all, his sense of fairness were among the aces up his sleeve. These were the aces he dealt around.

Early this morning, on the 7th of June, the mobile phones of those who worked with Mike were clogged with messages, all of them saying that they were still holding in their hand the aces that Mike had personally dealt them: the ‘can do’ spirit. The freedom to try and fail. A strong sense of self-worth. Fairness. Integrity. Leadership. Challenge. A sense of fun. Aces that they hold close to their chest. Aces that have led them to where they are today. Many are now happily retired and a good number are CEOs, chairmen of companies and leaders in their fields. They are all of them echoing one line,”I am what I am today because of Mike.”

 Blog:Excalibur: arthurivannoel.blogspot.in

Save the Parsi

With my arithmetic stuck between the digits of my ten fingers, I cannot risk a comment on Ms Heptulla's very advanced calculation that the Muslims, at 13-point-some percent are not a minority. Attractive, clever and convenient as the idea is, I will let that pass.

What really won my heart was her concern for what she considers the real minority -- the Parsis. We must, she said, make sure that their numbers do not diminish any further.

I am completely with the honourable Minister in this, her concern for the Parsis. With her I would hang my abacus upon the willow and weep if that disaster happened. Like Abou Ben Adhem, may their tribe increase, I pray.

What I am anxious to see in the near future is what steps the Minister plans to take to increase their numbers. I am sure she will consider all measures -- political, social, anthropological, legal, scientific, technological...whatever. Not easy, this reversal of the diminishing trend. Since Parsis are not allowed to marry non-Parsis (as a result of their promise never to convert) the problem is compounded. The progeny of a formal alliance of a Parsi with a non-Parsi is not considered Parsi. So every mixed marriage is anathema to the Parsi Book of Numbers. The mind races to all obvious possibilities: fertility departments in Parsi General Hospitals, a reduction in the marriage age for Parsis, exclusive Parsi sperm banks and a total ban on birth control and mixed marriages. Other more titillating and mischievous routes have been suggested; but of course, Ms. Heptullah will think of more and better solutions to this problem, surely.

            Oh how I love the Parsi. Right from school and college days, right up to my years in advertising, I have held the Taraporewalas, Dinshaws, Mistrys and all those affectionately called bawas close to my ventricles. Their Hindustani abuses, cutely yodelled, their readiness to laugh at themselves, their total lack of guile and the luminescent Parsi-peg they so readily offer to quench a little thirst I found endearing indeed.

Oh, yes, Ms. Heptulla. Save the Parsi, please.

            I have suffered a great loss in moving out of Mumbai in that I am not able to accept those invitations to an agiary for weddings and navjots. I am sure I am not alone in my partiality to this social treat. Who will not remember those occasions, when ears perked up for that call, “Jamwa chaalo” you made a dash for the gormandising arena only to find yourself in the third row, having being beaten by smarter legs than your own? And as you stood, gushing saliva onto your starched dress-shirt, you watched the cruelly teasing passage of chicken farcha, patranu maachi, Sali boti, dhansaak and the entire lagan nu bonu before your now half-glazed eyes. And when you sat down to the feast, your belt slyly loosened by two spaces at least, your Grace Before and After Meals, discreetly belched would be a silent “God save the Parsi.” Foreshadowing the sentiments of our gracious Minister.

            But dismiss me and my personal biases as so much hogwash. Who among us Indians has not sipped of that legendary glass of milk sweetened at Sanjan so many centuries ago? You may take for granted the industrial, commercial and economic sweetening of India by the likes of the Tatas and the Godrejes or the global flourish of aapro Zubin’s baton. You may invoke the memory of names like Dadabhai Naoroji, JRD and Homi Bhabha down to a more recent Russi Mody or your very own baug friend, Pesu. I ask you to think back to the nicest, liveliest, the most gracious, most talented and jocular people you have known. I can bet you a Parsi peg that if you have lived in Mumbai, most of them on your list would be bawas. Real “darrrlings”, as they call everyone else.

            Think about it. Where could you turn for migraine relief after that verbal chappal-throwing on a Goswami show if not to Bawa Cyrus Broacha’s mad Week that Wasn’t?

            How else would you take away the bad taste in your mouth left by all that biased, sensationalist and depressing reportage except by snacking on Bachchi’s kurkure columns?

            And who will interpret the law for us common folk without all that thorny legalese and with that honest Parsi intent we have come to trust but our familiar Soli Sorabjee?

Come to think of it, we have to say a quiet thank you too to my good Parsi friend on India’s Madison Avenue, Sam Balsara for helping to put a shine on our new Prime Minister. Oh yes, Minister, you need to save the Parsi.

In all this, we can be sure, under the promised certainties of the new regime, that in naming the Parsis, the honourable Minister is not displaying any favouritism merely because of all the endearing qualities of this minority that I have incompletely enumerated. In time, we can expect other small enough social groups to be included in this programme of national salvation. One might well include the Jarawas of the Andamans, who despite their poisoned arrows and robust penile displays could be worthy candidates for saving and for inclusion in our list of minorities. And then, maybe, she would know of some more. Like the Jews perhaps, who may come in handy in case of a needed Entebbe type operation in the future?

Others, such as the Christians, who count themselves as blessed minorities had better read the new arithmetic on the wall. Their percentages may look small but their numbers are a little too large for comfort. They account for a measly 2%. But in terms of numbers, you may find more practising Christians in India than in all of Europe. So there, you have it. By the same logic, not a minority. To qualify for minority status worthy of demographic salvation, you better dwindle down to a size where you cannot be any trouble. Like the Parsis. Or the Jews. Or the Jarawas.

In the mean time, the Parsis would do well to seize the moment. An opportunity of many lifetimes. The State that welcomed them to India way back in 1599 in Sanjan is now the model for the country’s governance and even the language that they speak (minus their own sweet musical grace notes) may well be on its way to becoming the lingua franca after the Messianic dawn of May 16, 2014. 

Sudhir Deokar

 

Sudhir Deokar

The 3-D Art Director

The early 60s. I was a cub writer then, Sudhir a young tiger. Every day I watched him roar, bold and resonant on his easel. And I cowered behind my table wondering what I was doing in a place like this? Tentatively I handed him a line for an Esso advertisement, expecting a growl of disapproval. He looked at it for a moment and with the salivary articulation of well-chewed paan, he said: “Tomorrow.” The next morning I glanced at his easel and grew a hundred feet tall. There was my line on his layout, for sure, but barely recognizable even to me.  Sudhir had made it resonate beyond the thesaurus.

            He did this always. He took lines and gave them roundness, movement, dimension, resulting in halos for copywriters, account directors, clients and their brands. He freed the Air-India Maharaja from the croquill’s ruthless line and caressed him with that soft roundness. He poured sex appeal into Haryana Breweries’ beer barrels, played mid-wife to both DCM and Wipro Data Products and placed Hamdard on the medical pedestal it deserved. Name any Thompson brand from the early sixties to the Millenium year; Sudhir has gilded it with his brush. He retired as Creative Chief of the Mumbai office of HTA.

            He worked his magic with 6-B pencil, croquill, Rotring, Indian ink, water-colours and his sable hair wand; conjuring up caricatures, cartoons, stylized drawings and life-like water colours; his 20-minute layouts often used as artwork. Artwork became works of art, clients having them framed and put up in their offices. His visualisation of human situations or tabletop was photographically perfect. When the final picture was taken in the studio, you might not be able to tell the difference between the photographed picture and the 20-minute wash drawing. Mitter Bedi, Obi, Salian and so many others would marvel at the lens that was Sudhir’s eye.

            For close to three decades he gave my work the visual sanctification of his brush, and I feel blessed. I know that many who came before and after me will echo my feelings. He had the bigness and breadth to work with most anyone – from trainee to guru. Many of his trainees are gurus now. I look with awe today at a generation that thrives on the digital evacuation of ideas, but I still thrill to the memory of those visual insights shaped by hand and eye by artists like Sudhir. He was loved by all – from the most cussed of executives to the most difficult of clients.

            Besides being my creative soul mate, Sudhir became a friend of the family. His passing is a deep gash that my soul will have to bear for ever.

Ivan Arthur. Goa

Ivan.arthur@gmail.com

           

           

This tribute was published in afaqs and Campaign