Ever since the news of the passing of Piyush Pandey became public, a flood of condolences have poured in. And these aren’t condolences which have the usual plaudits but are sincere commentaries on a life well lived and lived with integrity and formidable creativity.
The passing of Piyush Pandey is in many ways the end of an era. It is the end of an era where creativity rose to unbelievable heights, where creativity dominated the advertising space, and it wasn’t about account planning or account management, but it was creative which was driving both client acquisition and client retention.
In many ways, Piyush Pandey also non-anglicized the Indian advertising space.
I remember when I joined Ogilvy in Kolkata in 1990, advertising was all about Sherry the drink. Under Piyush Pandey, it became about Sherry the cricketer. We, many a time, looked down upon people who spoke languages other than English and often referred to them as people speaking in the vernacular, until Piyush Pandey arrived.
Because for him, it wasn’t whether it was Hindi or Tamil or Kannada or Bengali: he just wanted to speak the language that consumers understood, that the housewife in Meerut and the lady on Marina Beach understood. He wanted people to recognise that brands were not distant to them, but were a part of them. In Fevicol, he didn’t talk about the potency of the gum or the tensile strength of the product, but instead used simple, humorous analogies to stretch the point, and the point remained stretched and glued to the Indian mind and the Indian psyche for years after.
When he wrote ‘Har Ghar Kuch Kheta Hai’, It wasn’t about the paint, it was about the sentiment. It wasn’t about the durability, which many paint companies would go to town about, but it was about how proud people felt in India about owning a home, and at the time that those lines were written, it was an India that was on the cusp of liberalization and change, where people’s aspirations were signified by their ownership of basic assets, like a car or, for that matter, a home.
‘Chal Meri Luna’ was not about a moped. It was about the ability to be free using mobility that was available. Luna was not just a moped. It enabled the consumer to be free l; to go where he or she wanted to without a care in the world, and that line, ‘Chal Meri Luna’, almost made it seem magical, and it remained so for both the consumers as well as the client.
When a girl came dancing onto the field from stands in a cricket stadium and broke into an impromptu, spontaneous jig seeing her boyfriend score a magnificent six, it was about breaking convention and breaking taboos. At a time when meetha was signified by sweetmeats made in ghee or oil, here was a refreshing change when Cadbury’s became the leitmotif of everything that’s sweet.
I remember those millions of hours spent with Piyush, both in advertising and out of it, where we would talk about not just the changing consumer, but the changing India. There were innumerable times when he would call me after a particular television appearance and say, and “You know, I so agree with you.
Why are we tolerating this?”
And he was a kind, benign soul, but behind the kindness and that gentlemanliness lay an incisively sharp mind which was always observant. And there’s a reason why Piyush Pandey became who he did.
He didn’t write, he felt. He didn’t amplify emotions, he exemplified them. And when that kind of a person travels and lives and stays amidst you, you know that the world is special.
We will be less special, but the heavens will be more so from tomorrow.
Piyush Pandey, may you travel well and may now the gods be the subject of your work and participants in your amazing ability as a raconteur.
Delight them like you delighted us. And thank you for being such a special friend.
And see you soon Partner!
