Ad maestro Piyush Pandey on why he writes about the lighter side of life, how every experience is an inspiration, why you never actually ‘arrive’ and more
“Nahin ki hai toh jaldi hi shuruat karo, yaaron zindagi mein kuch to khurafat karo…”
As Piyush Pandey recites these lines from one of his “observational” poems during a chat, he has a twinkle in his eyes that gives away one of the defining features of his personality: the ad legend is a lover of life, in all its extraordinariness. His relationship with life, in fact, is one of the narrative strands that comes through most memorably in his recently released compendium of memoirs, very aptly titled Pandeymonium: Piyush Pandey on Advertising.
“If you appreciate life, you will find that there is something that you can enrich yourself with, everywhere,” he affirms as he points out that this is indeed one of the most important things he has attempted to convey through the book, regardless of whether the reader is privy to the world of advertising or not. He adds, “There is within me a huge amount of respect for friendship, for teamwork, for mutual respect, for mentors and above all else, for the fact that in life, every experience is an inspiration. You can learn from everything, no matter who you are and what you do.”
His prose aside, which has before this book manifested itself in the 1999 Hindi film, Bhopal Express co-written with his brother Prasoon Pandey, an adaptation of Walt Disney’s Aladdin and Lion King — also with his brother — and an essay dedicated to his mother titled ‘Two Books and a Life’ among other things, his poetry seems to be founded on his fascination with life too. Ask him if his verse always leans towards the lighter side of life or if he has ever aspired to his very own version of Mira Ka Vishpan and he laughs, “I’m not capable of writing poetry of the Mira Ka Vishpan kind, it’s too heavy and too high! What I write are observations and I write them as a hobby. If I feel like it, I just jot things down for myself and for those immediately around me.”
Are we ever likely to see any of these observations in print? “You might, in fact, see a small book of poems like these in the near future, and I plan to send it to schools and colleges to be put in their libraries for the students to enjoy. These poems are meant for light-hearted fun, I can’t actually call them literature. If I do, the real literary fellows will kill me, so I can only go as far as to call them street literature,” he chuckles.
The streets seem to have an inherent connect with Pandey, a fact that is reflected both in his memoirs and in some of his earlier statements to the media. He has affirmed on an earlier occasion that he comes from a “street culture” and will, therefore, always write for the streets. “I like when my work reaches the people it is meant for. A lot of young people are fooled by the notion that winning an award or two implies that you’ve arrived. I don’t think you ever arrive until the man on the street likes your work. After that, if you win an award for the same piece of work, it’s a bonus in life. It can’t be the other way around,” he quips.
A sign of the ad man having truly ‘arrived’ himself might lie in what Pandeymonium terms the “Piyush touch” — an association of the man with emotional, sensitive or humorous ad films that has led to many giving him credit for films he has had nothing to do with. “But there are so many other sensitive and funny people around me!” he says with a guffaw and adds, “When we talk emotion, there are nine emotions in our culture and in ad films, whether it is humour, sentimentality, nostalgia, romance or anything else, when some people find something touching that they feel good about they say, aaah...this must be Piyush. While the fact remains that I know a whole bunch of people who are much younger and also have the same affinity to similar emotions.”
Does he ever see this to mean that he has “arrived” too? He responds promptly, “You never arrive, really. You just keep moving.” There must, surely, have been some moments that had him feeling exceedingly good about himself and his achievements? “I’m always very happy with myself! But I never fool myself. There comes a stage when you start feeling happy about those whom you work with and that gives you a different kick altogether. For instance, when Rajiv Rao created the Zoo Zoos, I was on a high for months! And I felt so fortunate to have a rockstar like him as my colleague, doing this kind of great work. I think when you reach a certain age, you can either become insecure about someone else doing work that is more talked about than yours, or you can become like a parent and marvel at how wonderful your children are. I’ve gone the latter way,” he concludes.
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