Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Advertising’s Great River

It was once said of India’s leading advertising agency of its time, Lintas, that like the Great Ganga, most of India had passed through it.

It was once said of India’s leading advertising agency of its time, Lintas, that like the Great Ganga, most of India had passed through it. To be sure, actor Kabir Bedi, playwright Satyadev Dubey, thespians Alyque Padamsee and Gerson da Cunha, director Shyam Benegal and poet Imtiaz Dharker, had all at some time or the other added their might to the creative powerhouse. And, the fact that all this eclectic, electric talent had reported each morning to floors 13 and 15 at the Express Towers at Nariman Point had given the looming and dark skyscraper something of iconic status. No surprises then that last weekend, when the agency finally vacated its premises for swanky new digs at Lower Parel, members of staff current and former came to re-live the magic for one last time, once more. “I don’t know whose idea it was. I, like many others, saw the invitation on Facebook saying Lintas was moving from Express Towers, come say goodbye,” says Peter Griffin, former copywriter and now a journalist. “A pal asked me the previous day whether I was coming to the alma mater. And that’s what it was, really, a place where so many of us got an advertising education,” he said, about the event where, over bhel, vada-pav, sandwich (the lifeblood of offices back in the day before Swiggy), dewy-eyed nostalgia and a well stocked bar had flowed. And, as it tends to happen on such occasions, memories of after-hour tiffins shared on precarious ledges, table tennis games played in the lift lobby, morning ‘prayer meets‘ with Alyque (God) Padamsee and kindly canteen managers who sold chilled beer after formal working hours, were invoked and cherished as senior, middle and junior staff bade farewell to the hallowed portals. “Until the mid-90s, Lintas used to have a year-end party to which anyone who had ever worked there was invited. This was like those parties, except, there was no space for dancing,” Griffin said. Incidentally, Lintas was the first agency to have moved to Lower Parel, with its group agency SSCB Lintas — this when Padamsee had famously attempted to rebrand the area to the presumably cooler ‘Upper Worli’ and arguably the last of the majors to leave SoBo. As one of its copywriters could well quip, “Will the last ad agency leaving South Mumbai kindly turn the lights off?”

Actor Kabir Bedi (above), thespians Alyque Padamsee and Gerson da Cunha and director Shyam Benegal had all at some time or the other added their might to the creative powerhouse that is Lintas (Hindustan Times)

Different Strokes

Adar Poonawalla (second from left)

If wife Natasha Poonawalla pushes the style envelope on international red carpets like the MET Gala, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Bradley Cooper and Salma Hayek, make no mistake about it, husband Adar Poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India, is making all the right moves back home. Ever since he launched his Clean City Initiative (APCCI) three years ago, he has been winning accolades and commendation for putting his money where his mouth is with his proactive philanthropy. Last week, he received a ‘Special Recognition Award’ from a Pune club for these philanthropic initiatives. “I started three years ago in January 2015, inspired by Swachh Bharat, one of Prime Minister Modi’s dreams of improving the quality of life in India,” he said about APCII. “I took it as a personal challenge to improve the conditions in my city, both from the angle of health and hygiene, and from the angle of what impression the city would carry when visited by foreigners.” And, for all his jetting from one glamour capital to another, Poonawalla’s commitment to cleaning up his city appears steadfast. “With a team of 450 people and 250 machines and trucks, my initiative is managing 410km of road in Pune daily,” he says with pride. As for scalability, he throws the gauntlet to his industry peers. “I hope other individuals and corporates replicate this model in their own cities and states across the country,” he says . “It still remains the only project of its kind and scale in the country.”

#INDvsPAK

Summary of first 10 overs -

India: 53 runs.

Pakistan: 0 wickets.

Star Sports: 47 ads.

-Tweet by Ramesh Srivats

Arnab’s Other Avatar

(From left) Edgard Kagan, US Consul General, Arnab Goswami, Manoj Gursahani, Chairman, US- India Investors Forum and Yaakov Finkelstein, Israel Consul General.

He’s known as one of Indian media’s most powerful and successful denizens and not the kind you would associate with hosting a big party. So, when Arnab Goswami sent out personal invitation messages for a ‘Lazy Sunday Brunch’ over the weekend, even Fathers’ Day or the India vs Pakistan cricket match did not keep guests away. Held at a ball room of a suburban five-star hotel, the occasion was the two-year anniversary of Arnab’s nascent, but high-rated TV news channel. We spotted industry veterans, industrialists and media stalwarts like Star’s Uday Shankar, former Viacom head Raj Nayak and 9XMedia’s Pradeep Guha, US Consul General Edgard Kagan as well as industrialist couple Jalal and Vita Dani, who had come to congratulate Goswami. Goswami, himself, dressed in a casual blue bandhi and jeans, looked younger and trimmer than his on-screen avatar, and played the gracious and ebullient host going up to each guest to make them comfortable – a far cry from his vitriolic-spewing, finger-wagging persona on television. One of media’s most polarizing personalities, Goswami is an enigma to most people, formidable and fiery on camera and warm and gracious off it. And, this Sunday afternoon, we were pleased to have met the latter avatar.