“Beta karte kya ho?”

It happens all the time. You could be whipping up enchanted concoctions at Willy

Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and there’s going to be that one disillusioned Oompa

Loompa who’s going to one day throw down the gauntlet and say “This sucks.”

When I first entered advertising, my very own version of Wonka’s Wonderland,

so to speak, I was surrounded by a bazillion versions of that one disgruntled

Oompa Loompa. This sucks. I’ve heard it over and over again, and a million times

since and I’ve met more people in advertising who hate it than outside (mostly

because I don’t go outside, because... germs!)

“Beta karte kya ho?” our relatives have often asked, “Ji ad banate hain,” we

volunteer as little information as possible. Because the truth, that against a

backdrop of global intellectual terrorism, vulgar mass insanity, moral

impoverishment and the very important issue of Kim Kardashian’s fine ass, what

an ad girl (or for the sake of equality, man) does, can seem of little consequence. We

write jingles and slogans and taglines and bi-lines. We perpetuate unrealistic,

happy and sometimes sappy imagery of families-of-five (in varying permutations

and combinations of gay, straight, black, white and brown), carefully selected to

match the idiosyncrasies and the thick accents of the Bulls Eye target group, to

sell them things that they may or may not need. We peddle the American dream in

a Twinings Tea Pack, hand-crafted in London, sourced from Darjeeling, packaged

in China and sold in Wakinosawa, at a special price of 399.00 kidneys (with a start

burst that says: ask your local retailer for the free glass bowl) and we do it happily...

well almost.

If you’ve ever been for an interview in an ad agency, you have, no doubt, been

asked the following question, “Why advertising?” Why... why would you want to

do this, when you could be helping out at papa ji ki dukan? More often than not,

the answer lies in the question, “Precisely, because I don’t want to work at papa ji

ki dukan.” But sometimes, very rarely, provided that your stars are perfectly

aligned and Mercury Retrograde isn’t a thing and the Earth is tilted at a 1.564

degree angle from the axis on the exact day and brief window of your interview,

your answer will be, “Because I love advertising.” And if the person interviewing

you has had an ever so slightly average bowel movement that morning she (or for

the sake of equality, he) might actually believe you, and you will be hired for the

only right reason there is to work in advertising... for the love of what we do.

And it’s not easy, the crazy deadlines and the low IQ interactions and the riddled

briefs (oh my god the briefs, so many briefs!!!) and the lack of a brief or the

presence of a one (by brief, I mean, underwear of course), the clamour and the

deliberation, the crowded lunchtime and the excessive chilling, the cigarettes and

the coffees and the small talk and the smiling when you don’t want to smile

because you’re pissed... and you’re pissed a lot. I think I finally understand why

ad men on the Madison Avenue in the 60s drank on the job. Remember that?

Remember, the sweet old days of airtime excess when Lucky Strike commercials

were on TV and children could watch it!!! (You don’t hear about excess airtime

simply lying around in the 21st century, I’ll tell you that. These days airtime take-

home is through the roof, so now we have a legitimate cover for screening ads and

over-charging clients - they call it censorship.)

The point is, a few years into advertising no matter how driven, how hormonal,

how over the top, jumping-on-tables-shirtless you are about it, the bloom is likely

to come off the rose. That’s when the drop outs begin. That’s when you bring back

the cards you once made redundant because you wanted to be in the system so

bad, and things like “more time for masturbation” actually start to make sense in

an existential way. But like any robust nuptial this love affair too must withstand.

One could argue that advertising does in fact move mountains, and mend social

fabric and resolve conventional and unconventional problems in ingenious ways

but we don’t pander to that debate, because the word for the I-am-better-than-you

profession is “politics.” So instead we write tag lines and jingles (riddled with

secret messages to make you a little bit wiser, a little more well...consumer.)

The way I see it, if you’re in the system and don’t like it, change it, or better yet...

leave. Find disillusionment on greener pastures (At Amul, our cows only graze on

the finest organically-cultivated pastures, so that now your American dream is

only a Swedish Cow-Milk Carton away, in your local Lajpat Nagar general store. Try

them, maybe.)

And if you’re not in the system, should it really matter?