Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Late farewell dos on Wednesdays is a cakewalk for the advertising types

Yesterday Joyoti, a good friend of mines spent her last day in JWT and the usual suspects went out for a farewell dinner. The plan was to leave around 7-7.30 but given Bombay traffic and an added religious festival to the route, it took us more than an hour from our isle in Lower Parel to Bandra. You can't start a conversation about Bombay without complaining about the traffic..in that we are like the British who always have the weather to talk about. Shibani's upperclass instincts and great taste got us to agree to go to BONOBO (have no clue what it means) and it lived up to it. Low lighting, great ambiance good food and wine. Hmmm...

As the food and drinks went in the warmth in us came out...it thawd the uncomfortable, fused the distant, and glued our bunch together. The details are not relevant and too controversial to reveal, but what what was nice is the learning that despite all our masks, our defenses, and projections, deep down we all are the same. We all seek companionship, we all want to be recognised and approved and included, we all have the same hopes and dreams, and we all want to make it easy for each other.

Advertising is like the never land...nobody ever grows up. We are in it because we love the energy, the action the ideas and we are willing to work for the work itself (obviously there is no money...its been famed to be the NGO of ideas). Its this spirit of the industry that keeps all of us young, all of us going and pulsing..and happy as we drift away to sleep.

Ps. On a different day this post could have turned out differently.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

High adventure on a boring workday afternoon

A cat chanced upon me in the most unlikely place.
I wanted some alone-time at lunch break with no one to disturb me. So with a cup of tea, I made myself comfortable under a tree where those in high offices park their car. From the cat’s perspective I wasn’t a car and even less likely to be anyone holding a higher office.

Like all of the cat species she was clear what she wanted and was determined to get it….in this case it was to cross the car and go on her way. I am otherwise very accommodative to even spiders, ants and the occasional cockroach but her moves intrigued me and I decided to sit and watch.

The first trick out of her bag was the blank beautiful green eyed stare…arrogant and petulant. But I out-stared her. This defiance on my part drew the battle lines for her.

The next was the ‘quickly surprise and run by’ strategy and she edged her way forward…but then quickly retreated. She knew surprise wouldn’t work as I was looking, and her trigonometric calculations would have predicted a direct collision with me.

She then sat for a while under the car contemplating and hoping to outwait me.

What amazed me is how similar she seemed like the other felines …each of them prefers to walk in a path of least obstruction, avoiding so much as even a dead stick, and wisely avoiding wasteful or risky affairs…

True to her feline instincts she choose to turn away well knowing the difference between when to carry on, which battles to choose, when to turn back gracefully and forget about it.

Newton will be proud

We metamorphose, for better or for worse. Life does that to us. From happy to panic attack depressive to happy again I’ve seen it all in the last 10 years; well at least a lot of it. This only makes me believe more that our natural state is to be happy…therefore we seek it. Physics explains we are bundles of energy. And energy is constantly striving to attain equilibrium or balance.

We do that be giving out excess energy – when we stand we sit to feel better and lie down to feel better still. In lying down we are in equilibrium. When we carry doubts, hurts, baggage and expectations we are off keel…and the only way to balance ourselves is to give it up…curl up into a bundle of joy or lie flat in surrender, and let go.

Now what does letting go mean? You can’t actively let go…it takes its own time, but you can work towards it by letting yourself feel all the emotions and hurts and doubts. Then slowly as each hurt is felt, each emotion is experienced and each doubt is cleared, we transform. Always for better.