This is a short story written by me for "Kathalaya", an organization that promotes story telling. The campaign's underlying thought was, "there's a story everywhere".
Stories were stuck on random objects ranging from a chair to a tree.
I wrote this story posing as a bookshelf in a book store.

The God Of Ad Things.

Contrary to what many people believe, I work too.
As one copywriter put it, "We write lines to make people buy things that they don't actually require." So much to convince my mom!!

I don't blame people for taking our profession so lightly. It basically stems from the fact that people just read a line written on a hoarding, and assume that they would've done a better job writing that line. Well, even i thought that way and got duped into believing its so easy that I can do it any time of the day. I figured later on that days notwithstanding, even during nights I had a problem writing that one line.

As David Ogilvy once put it, "people think they know everything about two things. Sex and advertising." People always think great ideas can come from anywhere. Why does the world need copywriters to work full time. Such waste of resources. But then, another copywriter had a fitting answer to that. "Great ideas can come from anywhere- my ass."

Constantly churning out stuff is no child's play. We're in the business of building and sustaining brands. Last week I had the opportunity of being addressed by an advertising guru, the man who built brands such as Asian paints, Cadbury and Fevicol to name a few.
The name is Pandey. Piyush Pandey. The bond... The Fevicol bond of Indian Advertising.

Also encouraging is that he happens to be my boss's boss's boss's boss. So yeah, I can claim to be working under him. Rather working in his under's under's under's under.

First impressions.
Cocky. He has reason to be.
Confident. He has reason to be.
In love with me. He has reason to be. (I really didn't know what else to add)

His opening lines to us were, "Speculations are rife that I'm retiring soon. Well, no. I still haven't finished humping my competitors. I have humped them for 15 years now, and i will do so for another 15."

The story of how one of the Cadbury campaigns came into being was quite entertaining. While holidaying in Hawaii, Piyush got a call from his partner in Bombay saying, "What the fc*k! Cadbury has called for a pitch!"
With no time to spare, Piyush booked his return ticket to India. Meanwhile, waiting to board the plane, Piyush started work on the campaign.
And those memorable Cadbury commercials that eventually ran on TV are the ones that were written behind the boarding pass! This campaign was bloody successful and it went on to become a case study at the Harvard Business School in the years that followed.

Well that says two things about Harvard.
You don't have to be at Harvard to study at Harvard.
You can be an outsider and let Harvard study you.
To cut a long story short, I'll cut it here.

Between then and now

Guess who's back?
That doesn't mean I was backless until now (you never know, maybe I was). Let’s get straight to the point. Well not yet, because I still don't have a point to make.

That's predominantly the reason why I haven't blogged in a while.
Because people don't have a point. But they have a blog. Folks just put meaningless sentences together to make a nonexistent point on a blog just to be perceived cool.
Also, it’s been a long time since I have been perceived cool, so I thought I'll give blogging a shot!!

I'm sure my blog records numerous hits, unfortunately most of them mine. What do I have to do for people to read this? Just read this and let me know. (Intelligent line that. Maybe my definition of intelligent is not intelligent enough) Hence, to be read you need to understand your audience well, it’s easier when the audience is just me.

I'm sure 20 years down I'll be the only one reading this.

"Hey Devaiah,

You must be 40 now. (Wait, isn't 22+20=42) I know what you are thinking. But yes, you still hadn't quite understood addition back then. I congratulate you if you are divorced twice. Not bad at all, at least two women thought they could live with you. If you aren't, too bad for you. Maybe your marriage is still on which is worse.

Well let me give you a quick recap. You had just finished your engineering. You became a writer (now it must be evident that it was a bad career move). Your friends were all successful (bet that hasn't changed much, has it). It was a winter when the world was going mad. But fashionably mad. Terrorists wore versache (your spellings sucked even then) before taking an entire city hostage. You were still (lol) a virgin. Obama had just resumed office. I'm sure now a 5th Bush must be at the helm. Those dumb Americans. Did you watch terminator 9? Or Rocky 13? I'm sure you didn't. But I can bet my life(the fact you survived means I won the bet) that you wept at the end of Dhoom 19.0!

I'm sure you still lose your temper. ("Hell no") Of course you do. ("Bull shit no"). You just did.

Anyways, hope you’ve finally realized that you aren't funny. Get a life, and please don't sit down to write a letter that you will read when you are 60.

Regards,
Devaiah"



"Hey Devaiah,

You must be 60 now. (wait, isn't 42+20=62) I know what you are thinking. But yes, you still hadn't quite understood.....................