Jrd hoarding and garware

A friend sent me a famous  Koli song and that brought back a pleasant memory.

Years ago JRD TATA had created history again  by flying solo to repeat his historic flight .

I had written a AMUL BUTTER hoarding that showed JRD flying like superman in the cape and superman pose and the Amul butter babies dressed like Parsee kids looking up in amazement and  the line was ...

ITS A BIRD,  ITS A PLANE..NO ITS AAPRO SUPERMAN.

UT'TATA'RLY  BUT'TATA'RLY DELICIOUS.
AMUL

I got a call from Mr Tatas office asking for a print ( I sent him three ).

And then we got a strange call .from the marketing director of Garware nylons ,asking for the name of the person who wrote that hoarding.
Having been told ,I received a huge cake in the evening with a handwritten note by mr Garware saying , ' hats off to your creativity.that line made my day .this is a token of my appreciation.'

I wrote back saying that cake wasn't necessary,just that line in appreciation was more than enough .and sent him a print of the hoarding .

Next day again I got a call from their office asking if I would be interested in handling their advertising.  we ,of course, jumped at it .   went and took a brief for their nylon fishing nets.

It was a new challenge because we had never handled this product category .the campaign was to be in Marathi.
I went walking in the Koli settlements and observed how they talked , got a list of Koli Marathi books , read and re read them and created a four ad campaign. I don't remember all the ads ,but sort of  remember one.

It showed an old , blushing mother in law  ( watched fondly from the back by her husband ) telling her young daughter in law ,

" Ani te larat malaa matsyagandha Rani mhanle ki Mee lajena choor whayche. " ( When HE romantically called me matsyagandha Rani ,I use to blush and blush )

The copy went on to say that * when I got married ,we didn't have too much money but my husband had confidence and faith in Garware nets. ....and how he worked hard  and how he got me new gold necklace for Diwali ...etc '

It ended on a baseline

GARWARE NYLON NETS

KOLYACHYA MANGATA EVDHI MAJBOOT AND KOLNISARKHI LAVCHIC .( Strong like a Koli's wrist ,and supple like a koleen.)

That campaign won every award in its category.

Amul butter to fishing nets.. it was so much fun all the way.

Republic Day float

Watching the Republic Day parade always fills me with great pride.

It also reminded me of something funny  that happened years ago. That year the Maharashtra government decided to get some outsiders to conceptualize and design the Republic Day float of Maharashtra. The ministry of culture called me and said they hsve chosen two people, alec padumsee and me and two themes for the float. Cricket and films. And they had given the first choice to alec to choose, and he had chosen cricket so I was given films.
I didnt know where to get information on the history of films but luckily I was on a committee to help the national association for the blind and dilip kumar was on the same committee and  I used to meet him. He suggested that I get all the info from the archives of v. Shantarams rajkamal studios.
Now the float has two parts. The jeep or the cabin and the trailer. I conceptualised a design wherein the front cabin had a huge cut out of a lavani dancer in a classical pose of holding the pallu with both hands above her head and as it  turned it showed a smita patilish figure matching that form with a modern maharashtrian girl holding a computer printout.
And the main trailer had a giant film reel with each frame having a live tableaux of films through the ages actually acted out by performers. And like a normal film reel on a table , it would move on two fixed axis.

We made a design, made a model as per the central government requirements and sent it to Delhi for the approval of the Committee. I think sheila dixit, manishankar iyer etc were on the committee.
They approved the design with two changes. 1- make the film reel a double decker. So more tableauxs can be added and make the film reel  move in a figure of 8.
I thought both were ridiculous suggestions. A film print doesnt come in a double decker version and it's physically not possible for a film to move in a figure of 8.
So I refused and made the final model exactly the way I had conceptualized it. Thinking they won't have the time for more discussions or more designs and will have to accept it. And sent it.
I was wrong.
Everyones egos must have got hurt so  they rejected it since it  didn't follow their suggestions.

I didn't have the heart to follow it through and see what they had done for the Maharashtra float or if they didn't even  have one from Maharashtra that year.

Strange but true.