Remembering Piyush Pandey: Rajesh Ramaswamy

Some years back around 2010, when I was in Lintas Bangalore, me and my friend Akshay, being passionate about Indian advertising, compiled a dvd of the best Indian ads (according to us). It had over 500 ads. Ever since Mile sur mera tumhara right upto Hutch dog and boy. With a playtime of over 3 hours. 

I think more than 1 hour of that must have been Piyush Pandey’s showreel. I’d watch those ads again and again, and marvel at the thinking. The writing. The insights and every tiny nuance. How did someone think of using an old couple for SBI life. And come up with a line that is so simple yet speaks volumes about a relationship.

“Heere ko kya pata tumhari umar”. That could be one of the most romantic lines ever said. More sparkling than the diamond he gave her. No slow motion shots. No grand music accompanying it. No hero on bended knees. No nothing. Infact the hero is wearing a banian. In tubelight lighting. But it is still so intimate that you feel a thousand violins accompanying it. 

Or 

Har ghar chup chaap se yeh kehta hai

Ke isme andar isme kaun rehta hai

Chatt kehti hai ke yeh kiska aasmaan hai

Rang kehti hai yeh kiska jahaan hai

Kamron mein kiski Kalpana jhalakti hai

Iss sparsh par nange pair kiske bachcke chalte hai

Kaun chun chun ke isse pyar se sajaata hai

Kaun is makaan mein apna ghar basaata hai

Uff..the tiniest details in the writing. I love the chup chap se…or the nange pair or the makaan mein ghar basaata hai part. It never felt like an ad. It felt personal. It spoke to me. My neighbour. My mom. And everyone else I knew. Ofcourse it’s common that everyone knew Piyush. 

Like I had never met him. And one day after fan boying for many years, I bumped into him at an award function with Arun Iyer. Arun introduced me, and Piyush said ‘Arrey, rula diya yaar tune toh…aisa nahin karna chahiye’ and gave me a big hug. It was a compliment for a Tansihq father daughter ad we’d just made at Lintas. 

He greeted and spoke to me like he knew me from many years. I guess that’s when I realized what he was all about. He knew you. He knew everyone. He knew India. And how we all think. 

Which is why his work seems so special. It seems like a close friend is sitting right next to you and narrating a story, like the way you would want to hear it. If I were to complete that dvd today, it would be updated with another hour of his showreel.  

Like many years back, Vivek Kakkad who was starting off as an ad film maker said ‘Machaan, I think I have got the script of my lifetime’. And narrated the story that Pandey had told him. About how an old lady who makes repeated visits to the hospital to check on her ailing grandson. And begging permission, persistently to feed him the favourite dal she had made. 

I was blown by the script. How he had latched on to a simple observation of ‘outside food not allowed’ at hospitals. The context to highlight ‘ghar ka khana ghar ka khana hota hai’ for Fortune Oil. The comfort in that is half the remedy. 

No great wordplay even there. Just like how we would all say it. And the dish Piyush had picked was dal. Not a gulab jamoon. Just an everyday dish. The choice of that dish is nuance. It speaks volumes. Where he made that feel more special than everything else in the world. 

That was the essence of his work. To take the everyday regular stuff that we all overlook, and place it on a pedestal and relook it all over again…and feel wonderful about our lives. Kakkad knew he had gotten the best opportunity in hand. And I knew I was going to see one of the best ads I’ve ever seen. Much before it was made. 

In an industry, where we get to hear feedback like ‘this is too downmarket, pedestrian, middle class’ he was bold enough to create magic in that world, that it made you envious, proud and get back to the roots everytime you were stuck. 

It was always about something so simple. So near us. So dear to us. That we never cared about and overlooked. Going all over the place before realizing that it was always there so next to us.

Even if his laugh was loud, his writing was so gentle. So chup chap.