Envy

Bollywood (because “Hindi Film Cinema” sounds like a government scheme) has arrived on LinkedIn. And guess what? I love it. Suniel Shetty led the charge—actor, entrepreneur, mentor, investor, and man with more biceps than most start- ups have clients. 9,60,323 followers later, his posts are pure protein: clean, inspiring, and no nonsense. He writes like he’s doing reps between paragraphs. Then…

What’s common to James by Percival Everett, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Roots by Alex Haley, and The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is their shared concern with race, identity, and the legacy of slavery in America—each offering a different lens into how race is constructed, perceived, and lived across…

DID YOU KNOW THIS ADVERTISING STORY? The behind-the-scenes story about the well-known Mobil campaign by Bill Bernbach and team.

In 1965, the Mobil Oil Corporation planned to celebrate its 100th anniversary. They decided to meet two advertising agencies: the one doing the Volkswagen ads and the agency doing the Avis campaign. Since DDB was doing both the campaigns it was DDB vs DDB. During the meeting, Rawleigh Warner Jr, Mobil’s chairman, revealed a poster that had been prepared in-house. Needless to say, Mr. Warner had…

THURSDAY THANK YOU Newspapers, magazines and radio sound so passe now. At least in the way we consume them. But once upon a time they ruled the roost. A big thank you to newspapers, magazines and radio for helping shape me into the person I am.

People of my generation – I was born in 1958 – consumed a lot of news. The media of dissemination were mainly newspapers and radio. Television had yet to appear on the scene in India. I remember my father listening to the BBC even then – in the late 60s. Listening to the news was a ritual to him: 7.30 a m Malayalam news, 8 a m English news(Lotika Ratnam and Surjit Sen are two names I can recall),…

I am a pacifist. I suffer whenever I hear of war in any part of the world. The Russia-Ukraine war is no exception. Like John Lennon, I imagine: Imagine there’s no countriesIt isn’t hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion, too Imagine all the peopleLivin’ life in peace Anton Chekhov The Master Storyteller: Anton Chekhov My introduction to Russia was through Mikhail Sholokhov,…

THURSDAY THANK YOU Creative persons draw inspiration from anything and everything. Also from their experiences and the experiences of others. Here's a confession -- good for the soul but, hopefully, not bad for the reputation:)

I got to work on Jai Soap when I was with DART in 1990-92. DART was a mid-size ad agency of that time.  It was helmed by Mrs Kanchan Dutta. I had joined DART as Copy Chief — unlike today when everyone begins as creative director we had to work our way up. I must mention this here. Priti Nair, who went on to win many awards and became a star in her own right, cut her teeth as copywriter at DART.…

THURSDAY THANK YOU I believe EVERYONE in your life has enriched you in some way. Reason why it’s important to acknowledge their contribution and cultivate ‘an attitude of gratitude’. Hence this Thursday Thank You. The order of appearance is random.

Unlike the case nowadays I wasn’t born in a hospital. I was birthed in the vadakke ara, north room, of Nellekat Variyam, Moodur Post Office, Near Vattamkulam, Kerala. And that’s how I received my initials N V. That ancestral house of mine has changed hands. Now, I am ‘rootless’. Anyways, we are all just transit passengers on the space ship, Mother Earth. Once, on one of my annual visits to…

Maya Angelou said: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Almost, thirty years later, this note means the world to me.

A Note of Appreciation from Nitin Shete I was in Arms Advertising between 1992 and 1994. We were a great bunch of guys(both male and female) who worked on marquee clients with a fantastic boss(please note that I didn’t use the phrase ‘under a fantastic boss’). Nitin Shete was the bossman. Nitin is a great guy. What endeared him to us were two idiosyncrasies of his. First, he’d suffix…

A HOLI LESSON You learn from your own experiences and the experiences of others. Here's a Holi story as told to me by one of my friends. Please do share yours. Thank you.

Picture: learnenglish In the 70s there were three friends: Sanjay, Malvinder, and Raja. They were staying in a cantonment area. Sanjay and Malvinder were staying in the officers’ accommodation provided to their fathers. Raja was staying with his parents in the accommodation provided for Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs). One year, Raja came in the morning to play Holi with Sanjay and…

THURSDAY THANK YOU This One Is For The English Nut

Sumanto Chattopadhyay The English Nut is a series of short videos by Sumanto Chattopadhyay who is is also the chairman and chief creative officer of 82.5 Communications, a part of the Ogilvy Group and WPP. This is ‘his labour of love’. Sumanto is a man of many parts. To my mind, he qualifies as The Renaissance Man (look at the various garbs he dons). For the record, this is not a paid plug for…

THURSDAY THANK YOU I believe EVERYONE in your life has enriched you in some way. Reason why it’s important to acknowledge their contribution and cultivate ‘an attitude of gratitude’. Hence this Thursday Thank You. The order of appearance is random.

He slips the world in through my door every day. Come rain or sunshine, he’s been regular 365 days a year for the last 25+ years. On all days I realize that he’s come and gone only by the sound of the doorbell. I see him once a month when he comes to collect the payment. My first cup of tea in the morning is incomplete without his delivery. For years I didn’t even know his name. He’s my…

A random act of kindness is a non-premeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world. I was the recipient of one such act recently. And it left me with a happy feeling. Please do share yours.

Someone you are following on LinkedIn DMs you with a great suggestion. What possibly can you say?THANK YOU, VENU GOPAL NAIR (linkedin.com/in/venugopalnair) You don’t have to look for charities or occasions to extend a helping hand to someone. All around you people could do with your help. Sometimes, it may just be a smile, or a kind word to someone. As a backgrounder, I have been uploading a…

THURSDAY THANK YOU A teacher affects eternity, you can never tell where their influence stops. I had some great school teachers who lit a spark for a particular subject in me. Here are memories of some of them.

Yours truly is standing, extreme left, first row from top I can never forget four teachers. First, there was Mr K N Sharma. He used to take mathematics. My love for mathematics is largely due to him – especially my love for trigonometry. ‘Some people have curly brown hair till painted black,’ he told us. That was my introduction to mnemonics and the way to remember the trigonometric functions:…

THURSDAY THANK YOU Experience more positive emotions by noticing and reflecting upon the things you are thankful for. And feel more alive, sleep better, express more compassion, even have stronger immune systems.

Image thanks: Positive Psychology Gratitude I consider myself luckier than many others: have made it to 64 years — all in one piece– with more friends than enemies Thank you.

THURSDAY THANK YOU Are we afraid of dreaming? Here's my friend, Sreekumar Nair, who is all set to fly solo around the world in his DIY aircraft. Bon voyage, dear friend.

This one is for Sreekumar Nair, my classmate from REC Calicut (now NIT Calicut). My memories of Sreekumar go way back to our days in A-Hostel when we had joined REC Calicut in 1975. Sreekumar was of medium-build, good at studies. If I am not mistaken when we moved into our single-seated rooms in our pre-final year, Sreekumar moved to D-Hostel and I went to E-Hostel. In spite of being in…

THURSDAY THANK YOU What a man can do well, a woman can do better. Smriti Ram is a living example of this. Read on and find out.

Smriti Ram, CEO Sanmour Pharma linkedin.com/in/smritigulwadysanmourpharma I met Smriti Ram for the first time in 1981. At that time she was Smriti Ullal. She became Smriti Ram after her marriage. I don’t know much about Smriti Ram. But, yes, I worked closely with Smriti Ullal. Today, Smriti Ram is CEO–Sanmour Pharma. She is also the recipient of Goldman Sachs 10000 Global Women Entrepreneurs…

THURSDAY THANK YOU Here’s a short trip on my memory train. I am sure you’ll see bits of me in you just like there will be bits of you in me. Do share your experiences.

Some students of The Class of ’75 of Kendriya Vidyalaya Pulgaon Camp at the Bhairav Baba Temple in 2015 during a reunion. Do you visit temples – applies equally to mosques, dargahs, churches, gurdwaras, synagogues, etc? Is it because of faith or because you like to visit places? I must share this incident from the time when I was in school at Kendriya Vidyalaya Pulgaon Camp in the 70s. I had…