Emerging Kerala - Oru Puthiya Onam

Story, Script & Direction plus Narration

Footsteps in the sand

One night I had a dream. I was walking along the beach with my best friend. Across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints, one belonging to me and the other to my best friend.

When some scenes swept past me, I noticed that there was only one set of footprints. I realized that these were during the happiest, and also during the saddest times of my life. This flustered me up quite a bit and I questioned my best buddy about it the next day.

‘Hey, you promised me that you’ll stand by me through thick and thin. Then how is it that during the most eventful days of my life, there is only one set of footprints?  I just don’t understand why, when I needed you the most, is when you abandoned me’.

Pat came the reply. ‘Dude, when you see only one set of footprints, it was when I had to carry you home because you were so terribly drunk’.

Have a friend who insists on driving back home in an intoxicated state? Give him a ride instead. Don’t let him drink and drive.

Make the logo bigger!

What that means.

To the company

There it is. Those unimaginative words that wander into an advertising agency, in the dying minutes of a hard day’s work. The client is no dictator but that’s what his tone suggests. The last thing any creative person who is worth his salt, wants to hear at the end of the day. There are pointless heated arguments between the servicing hypocrites and the creative folks, after which the latter decides to go ahead and get the job out of the way.

To the art director

He has to put an end to his endless chatting, right away, on Facebook. He has got to stop ogling at his ex-girlfriend’s curvaceous about-an-hour-ago bikini snaps and bookmark the page for a more detailed view, later. Maybe get his binoculars next time. He has to now make the logo 25% bigger. That means the headline has to be a tad shorter.

To the copywriter

He has to wrap up the headline in less than six words. No one realizes how much agony he went through to get it right the first time. He has to drink some black coffee and take a few drags of his favourite Marlboro. And if that’s not enough inspiration, he has to look up to the skies, stretch out his hands and plead, ‘God, give me some’.

To the account manager 

He has to remain out of sight from the above mentioned souls till they have finished their job. Or he risks getting a band-aid, anywhere on his cleanly shaven face. He can keep flirting with the newly joined intern. Maybe ask her out for dinner that night. ‘Don’t worry sweetheart, I’ll teach you everything I know. You have to treat me to coffee first’.

To the creative director

He can keep watching the trailer of the upcoming Spielberg flick on YouTube. ‘Man, this is going to be one awesome movie’. The phone rings. ‘Honey, I’ll be a little late. I've got some important work to complete’. He can now finish another ten levels of Angry Birds before he leaves for the day.

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The job is now finished and has been mailed to the client but the art-copy duo is not satisfied. They have to curse the client, blame the agency and drown their sorrows in a bottle of Old Monk XXX Rum. Or they wouldn't be able to sleep that night. 

So out they go for a drink to their favourite joint. A bottle down between the two and they are craving for more. The account manager is calling. His voice is urgent. The client wants the logo to be even bigger. 10% more will do. And he wants it quickly. 

That’s it. The account manager’s legs ought to be broken. And the client. They got to put this specimen in a museum. Now how do they head back to office? All they have is a battered old car. And the two drunks decide to drive back to office. 

What that means. The logo remained as it was. But both of them slept peacefully that night. And forever for many countless nights to come.

What this means. Don’t drink and drive under any circumstances.

If Only

If only I was a virus,

I could infect you with passion,
the passion of a deadly love!

If only I was a feather,
I could make you feel the touch,
the touch of a sensual kiss!

If only you understood
the fever of love,
I could unleash on you the heat,
the heat of a violent hug.

No ifs, just us and
only skin between us,
I dreamt of you all day,
let’s make love all night.

Termites can teach you Marketing!

It’s the first semester of college. The year is 2007. Some of us have just set foot in the capital city. Well, that’s not the story I want to tell you. There’s something else. It’s an amazing recollect about times in Delhi when termites actually taught me a bit or two about marketing.

In a nutshell, the first semester was about refreshing new friendships, a slightly different lifestyle, not to mention some eye-opening realities and some not-very-rude cultural shocks. As students of integrated marketing communication (to this day I still have doubts what that means), we were handed the famed Philip Kotler books on ‘brand architecture’. That’s what you call the science of marketing, communication and the sort in common professorial lingo.

Six months down the lane, our first semester exams are due. Tomorrow was our brand architecture paper. So the night before, after having had a sumptuous dinner with finger-licking dal fry and rotis, I decide to settle down to study. No, I’m no genius that I can master marketing in a night’s time. That’s the way we have been trained by our education system. You write exams because you need marks. And you open your books when exams have arrived, and are licking you in the face.

So here we enter the ‘kitchen’ to kick off our all-night-group-discussion (hey that’s only till we start snoring, face down on our oversized books cum pillows). But you might be thinking, why the kitchen? Because that’s where we kept our books away, neatly stacked on the kitchen shelves. Don’t be mistaken but neither was our kitchen a library nor was our library in the kitchen. The space was the prime reason.

The kitchen greets us with the sweet smell of, not dal fry but untouched books (the dal fry was from the hospital canteen nearby). Rows and rows of new books just sitting there and staring at the kitchen walls. You didn’t feel like touching them. They looked so neat, clean and happy because humans had rarely laid hands on them after they had been printed.

The Philip Kotlers were holding their forte at the bottom of the pile where they had been languishing for around 6 months. So the four of us (my roommates and I) fish out these monsters from the heap. And holy mother of shit, our books have been attacked. Attacked by tiny and dirty brown creatures. Termites!!! And they were smiling too (I think they were even burping because it kept making some sort of weird termite sound). They had eaten right through the shelves and even gnawed away at almost all our Kotlers.

Oh what were we to do now? There was no way we could learn a thing that night. To hell with these mean wood-suckers cum book-suckers. You want to kill them but you think they have been learning (I mean eating) marketing for days. Could they teach you a thing or two?

No termites never taught me anything in marketing. But they taught me one important thing, the best way to eradicate them is Rawat’s Bhaago herbal paste. Also very effective against cockroaches and ants at your home.

And two. This lesson was not taught by termites. Rather it was from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. And not until the second semester marketing exams did this small piece of wisdom dawn on me. Get you learning done with while there is still daylight. Because if not the bloody termites, the power will fuck you the night before the exams!