I joined advertising at Ogilvy way back in 1987, fresh out of college. And, as luck would have it, I had some terrific seniors to learn from. Neville D’Souza was one of them. He was already a creative group head then, and one of the top art directors in the agency. And with Josy Paul as his copy partner, the two were a formidable creative team.
I remember walking into their room one day. Neville was seriously busy with a layout. I stood hesitantly, not wanting to break his concentration. But he suddenly looked up and said, “Hey Subhash, what do you think of this?” I looked at the ad, mumbled my two bits. He listened intently and said “Hey, that’s a great point, man. Lemme see what I can do about it.” As I walked back to my desk, I was struck with wonderment. Here was a top creative guy with many years of experience and I was a trainee, just 3-4 months old in the business. But that didn’t matter to him at all. He just genuinely wanted to know my point of view and see if it could better his work in some way.
That was dear Nevile for you. He never gave a damn about designations or departments. He believed every single person can be creative. And to him, creativity and art knew no hierarchy.
A bunch of us often used to land up at Neville and his wife Lorraine’s lovely little apartment in Bandra. And we’d eat & drink and jam on the guitar and the place would fill with laughter. And what I vividly remember was Neville’s pieces of art in that flat! There were so many, paintings, sketches, sculptures, clay models that there was no more place on the walls! In fact, he’d started putting up his paintings on the ceiling! So, we’d lie down on our backs and admire his art! His apartment was a virtual kaleidoscope of colours and brush strokes!
I periodically stayed in touch with Nevs long after he’d retired from advertising and moved to Goa. They say that human beings are at their most creative when they’re children. In that way, I don’t think Neville really grew up. He carried his childlike curiosity and enthusiasm right through his life. When we visited his Goa place, it was full of art and sculptures too.
I remember we were all chatting away in their living room, while my then 8 yr old son was wandering around looking at all of Neville’s art. After a point, we suddenly realised that Neville was no longer sitting in our midst. He’d vanished. We then found him on the terrace, sitting with my son, creating a new piece of art with broken ceramic tiles! They were like two children thoroughly having fun together.
And that’s the beauty in the way Neville looked at things. He saw inspiration for art in everything around him. A collection of stones put together, a broken guitar, crushed ceramic tiles, a flower pot, an old chair…. everything was a canvas for him. There was beauty in broken things too, he’d chuckle and say. And you’d look in total awe with what he could do with it.
Sad for us, as we shall miss him terribly. But he’s gone to a better place. Am sure he’s up there in heaven, teaching the angels to create art out of wisps of clouds.
Given this world of conflict we seem to be living in, we certainly could do with more Nevilles around. Maybe we could learn to make all that’s broken look beautiful again.
