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Business News/ Opinion / The modification of Indian advertising
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The modification of Indian advertising

The idiom of Indian advertising is now almost completely vernacular. English thinking is out

In fact, all the young convent-educated types are either hurrying off abroad or trying to be hip by speaking pidgin Hindi.Premium
In fact, all the young convent-educated types are either hurrying off abroad or trying to be hip by speaking pidgin Hindi.

The other day, I was sitting with this old friend of mine whom I was meeting after a long time. He and I had started our careers together in an advertising firm. I had left early and joined a different line of work, but he had remained in advertising, and is now quite a senior person in the industry.

“There’s no hope for you now in the creative departments of ad firms—at least on the copywriting side—unless you are from a smaller town in the Hindi belt," he told me, grimly swigging some very healthful juice he had ordered, made from fruits that, I think, are grown in India only in very boutique organic farms. “The highest we can go is Kanpur, but that too only if you have superbright ideas coming out of ears at the rate of six per minute."

“Hey, I thought advertising creative was filled with guys who won English debates and Just-A-Minutes in college festivals, and listened to classic rock," I said. “That’s what it was like in our time."

He looked at me silently for a while in a sort of awed silence, like I was someone who had just stepped out of a time machine wearing a threadbare Roman toga and smelly torn slippers. “Where have you been?" he whispered finally, in all sincerity.

I admitted that I had had no contact with the industry for many years now. I have several good friends who work in advertising, but never really talk about work when we meet. I reminded him about the sort of people we had seen in creative in the agency where we had worked a quarter century ago. Most of them looked like they had doped their way through South Bombay (it was Bombay then) colleges. Some of them, in fact, talked and behaved like it was still 1968 and Woodstock had got over the night before. A few of them were one step ahead, and had gone retro-foppish, sporting suspenders and bow ties. Almost all of them were involved in some way or the other with the English theatre or music scene.

The firm was led by a legendary adman who, I am sure, could not have spoken a line of correct Hindi even under the threat of death. The size of his world was revealed to me late one evening when some sort of serious crisis related to something some client was demanding ASAP had broken out. Such crises were regular occurrences, but this time it was so severe that even I, a mere trainee, had been hauled into the Great Man’s room along with the rest of the team.

After much shouting and screaming and gnashing of teeth (on his part), and cowering and helpless stammering (from the rest of the crowd), it was decided that the only man who could save us was some lowly faded-bluish-collar chap in the production department, but he had left for home a couple of hours back. “Where does he live?" howled the Great Man (there were obviously no cellphones then).

“Chembur, sir," stuttered someone (We were in a high-rise in Nariman Point at the southern tip of Bombay). “Chembur!" exclaimed the Great Man, shocked. “Well, make an STD call to him and tell him to come back immediately!" Then he chewed the top of his goatee a bit, and said: “And send him a telegram also!" In an epiphanic moment, I realised that the Great Man had never been north of Mahalakshmi in the city where he had spent all his life (well, he may have visited Bandra and Pali Hill a few times, and passed through Chembur on his way to Panchgani).

I reminded my friend of that incident and he shook his head with a rueful smile. “Those days are long gone," he said. “We wouldn’t hire anyone in creative from Maharashtra who comes from a town larger than Akola or Amravati. Actually, we mostly hire people from, say, Gorakhpur, Mughal Sarai, Alwar, Rohtak. And it helps if your name is Natwar. Or Chhotelal."

“This is the New India, my friend," he said, sucking up the last dregs of his exotic juice through the straw without making any of those soft obscene noises that I always end up emitting when I try doing that. “It’s been coming for 20 years and it’s been in full bloom for quite some time. We guys in advertising, we have to spot the sociological changes before they happen, keep up constantly with the popular idiom, jump on the trendwagon even as the guys driving it are tuning the engine."

“We are now a young nation," he said, with a strange mixture of pleasure and rancour in his voice. “A young nation that is proud to be vernacular, that is sneering at smug middle-aged English-speaking guys like you." I thought of replying to that, but decided not to.

“In fact, all the young convent-educated types are either hurrying off abroad or trying to be hip by speaking pidgin Hindi," he said, and shrugged. “Key in sms in Google, and the first suggestion you get is sms in Hindi. That is the market, man, and we need the right guys to speak to that market, and persuade it. It’s only expensive international apparel brands and luxury cars that can afford to speak in English in their advertising. And that’s not because they are selling only to Westernised Indians. Not by a long shot. English is just part of their brand image. But the market is the same."

He brooded for a while, and opened his mouth to start off again, but I raised my palm and stopped him. I knew what he was going to say. He was going to say something like: “And Narendra Modi represents the triumph of this New India." This has become a cliché and I believe that like all clichés and generalisations, it is only half true, though of course, yes, it is as much as half the truth.

My friend shut his mouth and was quiet for a while, watching me finish off my lassi. The way his hair was cut, the way he was dressed, he would not have looked out of place at all in the financial district or business hotels in any Western city. But there was a hint of desperation in his eyes. And I knew again what he was going to say next.

He was going to ask me if I knew of any young men called Natwar.

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Published: 19 Nov 2014, 12:57 PM IST
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