Piyush Pandey: Trailblazer who rewrote ad grammar with wit, local tropes and a Hindi heart

In 2004, Pandey was made executive chairman of Ogilvy India, and in 2019, he was named the agency’s worldwide creative chief.

On August 15, 1988, soon after the Prime Minister’s customary speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi, Doordarshan, then the sole TV channel in India, ran an advertisement promoting national integration. It was more music video than ad film, with music composed by Bhimsen Joshi and arranged by Louis Banks. The video was produced by Suresh Mullick, the creative head of Ogilvy and Mather (also the man who, made Mozart’s 25th Symphony a recognisable tune in

Piyush Pandey in a photo from 2002. (Girish Srivastav/HT Archive)