The art of staying timeless

In advertising, we talk about the big idea.
The spark.
The thing that makes people stop, watch, feel something.

For me, that spark came when I was four.
It wasn’t in a classroom or at some workshop.
It was on TV.

A tabla maestro, sitting cross-legged, smiling into the camera.
“Wah Ustad!” he said, holding his tabla like it owed him rent.
An 11-year-old student of his, Aditya Kalyanpur, sitting next to him looked up and said,
“Arre huzoor, Wah Taj boliye.”

That was it. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just watched one of the greatest advertisements ever
made.

Not because it sold tea. Because it stayed.

I didn’t know who Ustad Zakir Hussain was back then.
But I knew he was somebody.
You didn’t need to understand the tabla to understand him.
You could feel the joy in what he was doing.

And here’s the thing: it wasn’t fake.

This wasn’t a guy showing up for a paycheck.
He wasn’t performing for the camera.
He was playing.

That’s what stayed with me.

The joy.
The craft.
The effortless mastery that only comes after decades of doing the same thing over and over, without
your parents yelling, “Beta, kuch aur karlo!”

Fast forward 20 years.
I wasn’t supposed to end up in advertising.
I was an engineer. One of those “safe career” kids.
My parents thought I’d spend my life solving equations, designing machines, building something
tangible. Instead, I went from solving circuits to solving briefs.

From algorithms to taglines.
To my parents, it was baffling.
For the longest time, they didn’t know how to explain what I did.
Partly because there was not a single advertiser in my house.

They’d tell neighbors, “He works on Facebook or some tweeting thing.”
And honestly, I couldn’t explain it either.
All I knew was I’d found something I cared about.

Something that felt a little bit like Zakir Hussain and his tabla.
Watching him taught me something important.

It taught me that the magic isn’t in the hands or the tools.
It’s in the approach.
Zakir Hussain took something profound—a tabla—and made it timeless.

He didn’t do it by showing off.
He did it by loving the craft.
By pouring himself into it.

By collaborating with others, learning, and constantly experimenting.

That’s a lesson I carry with me.

When I write, I think about him.

About how he stayed rooted in Indian classical music, yet worked with jazz musicians in Shakti to
create something new.

He didn’t compromise.
He didn’t dilute.
But he adapted.

That’s what great advertising does.
It’s not about yelling, “Look how amazing this is!”
It’s about finding the one thing that makes it special—

Not by shouting.
Not by selling.
By playing.

Because here’s the truth: people don’t remember what you tell them.

They remember how you make them feel.

“Wah Ustad.”
Two words.
Thirty years later, I still feel it.

For the past seven years, my hair has carried an uncanny resemblance to his iconic look.
I didn’t plan it—it just happened.
Maybe it’s my subconscious reminding me every morning of him.
Or maybe it’s just me being lazy to comb my hair.

Either way, when I look in the mirror, it makes me smile.
Because it’s a reminder of that ad, that spark, that masterclass in joy and simplicity.
And of what it taught me: the art of staying timeless.