VJ Nikhil: “So, what didn't you like about her? Her body or the performance?"
The King (I'll get to it later): "Hmmm.. it's the performance, she wasn't into it."
The performer: "No I don't think I have a bad a body, and I think my performance was pretty good too. It's just that we don't share a connection."
That's MTV SplitsVilla Season 2. Double the crap, double the sleaze but not double the mazaa.
(The performance being an erotic sway to some crappy music in the skimpiest clothes possible, after which the girl hopefully looks at the king, praying 'Oh God, hope he is pleased with my body and my performance.' )
The show is hosted by Nikhil, wearing a look that says – 'if it wasn't for all the money, I swear to God, I'd kill 'em all'. What the heck, downturn could lead to more awful things, like hosting MTV Couplesutra for instance (Yuck, totally). And surrounded by dumb guys and sexy dumb girls, isn't such a bad thing, after all.
Just when I thought, television couldn't be more mindless, here it is. The show is confused, it wants to be a juvenile show with some harmless adult content. I have absolutely no clue about its target audience, alright I maybe 10 years too old for it but c'mon this is plain crap. A Twisted Tale of Love says the baseline. Yeah, you got to be really twisted, to be here and to be doing anything with it.
The episode I watched, had a king and a queen (probably for their best 'performances' and bodies, whatever). Where they, sitting on their ridiculous wooden thrones, each week get to dump a girl and a boy and send him and her packing out of the villa, after rounds of erotic performances. Reasons for dumping may often be one or all of the following - She/he wasn't trying hard enough (which means didn't jump into the pool, and dance for the king/queen) , she/he wasn't really into me (wasn't drooling for me), and the all time favourite – we didn't have a connection (I can't figure it out, neither can they).
So, hey twisted! Come, fall in love on Saturdays 7 pm, only on MTV.
What do you do when you are closer to 30 than to 16, yet want to read a Mills & Boon? You pick up The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan.
I quite liked The Zoya Factor.
Because the author is the creative director at JWT, I aspire to be her someday - a creative head at a hip agency with a lofty book contract for a chick-lit novella. Nice.
Because the protagonist works in an advertising agency, a story of a believable world, so what if, I have never written a TVC script with Sharukh Khan in it or am not on a first name basis with the India's cricket team? Advertising agency it is.
Because I am a sucker for all things mush., not over the top kind, but the ones that make you go all awwww and weak in the knees ... The Zoya Factor has many moments of it.
And mostly because the language is – very every day, very chic, very conversational. A tad too conversational maybe.
The details, were completely taken care of... the scene describing Zoya's garden, the drab clothes she goes to bed in... the typical Sunday feast at home, the creative & client servicing meetings, etcetera.
The only bit I did not like was the author's liberal use of 'Hello', almost every page would have a sentence like – 'Hello, like the Indian Team's skipper visited my suite everyday.' Then there would be one more in the next paragraph, 'Hello, you were the one who invited me', 'Hello, I am not exactly looking my best today' etcetera. Nothing wrong with 'hello' just that, it reminded me of someone who talks that way, and whom I am not particularly fond of.
So, if you are a woman and do not exactly hate cricket, chances are, you will enjoy The Zoya Factor.
To show my grand kids and tell 'em, "look your thamma created this Volkswagen ad."
"Awww thamma, you are soooo cool," they would scream, hugging me.
I am cool with scam ads. Of all kinds - published just once in some obscure journal, never published, went to the client but got rejected, never went to the client, whatever.
What's wrong with creating ads that clients don't buy, they don't have to like everything. What's wrong with creating ads just for the awards? Why can't we sometimes, only sometimes, just forget the target audience? Why can't we create ads just to win awards? Why can't we create ads for pure pleasure?
Having said that, I know ideally we got to strike a balance between being arty and being good for the business. But then, what's the guarantee that our clients are right all the time. They have bad days at work too, bad budgets, or plain bad taste. However, why should that decide the fate of the ad, that probably could have won some award, seen by a few thousand people, fetched me a few minutes of fame and a hike.
With the kind of clients, the kind of work, the deadlines, the shrinking budgets and other unfavourable conditions that we have to deal with everyday, scams reassure us that our sensibilities are still in place. That we aren't in the wrong profession after all. That there's hope.
Scam ads are what make my portfolio happy, not those that made my client smile. By the way, the picture above, is my favourite scam (sadly, never went to the client). Bring on the scams, I say, hoping Cannes will introduce a 'Best Scam of the Year' someday.
Mornings are pure nightmare. Afternoons are no good either. Twilights have ceased to matter. But, nights I remember, for that's when I make plans to seize the next day.
Yes, I need more time. To do everything. To up my metabolism, to tackle inflation, to defy age, to keep my job, to keep my friends, to stay married, to stay sane. I do need more time.
This is how the film Wanted ends, with the hero looking at me, eyes piercingly cold and asking me, 'What the f%$# have you done lately?' Wow!
A couple of hours and a few goose pimples later, I was still thinking about it. Really, what have I done lately? Nothing that I want to share, nothing that I can remember, but I am pepped up. And someday soon, I'll be ready to answer that at length.
By the way, what have YOU done lately?
a typo is very bad...
It's a very bad feeling. A combination of feelings actually, extreme grief, denial, anger, damn-you, how-could-I, I-am-no-good, this-ain't-the- end-of-the-world, or-maybe-it is, etcetera. The world's suddenly not a pretty place anymore, everything ceases to matter and all you are left with is a crazy sick feeling.
Needless to say, I do everything to avoid a copy error – check the ad or any copy based deliverable until my eyes hurt, until the account executive snatches it away from me, until the art director threatens me with his I've-had-enough look, or until I decide to not care enough about my job. Most often, none of these happen, and I go on checking every word, like a maniac.
Yet, there's no sure-fire way to avoid a typographical error. Just when you think you are absolutely certain about the headline, the subhead, the bodycopy... you have screwed up the address, or the baseline in the logo. And likewise.
I remember every major copy mistake I've ever made. When I say major, I mean, a mistake that cost my agency a lot of money/cost my client a lot of money/cost my agency the client/almost cost me my job.
It's a weired feeling that refuses to go, nothing helps, not even hours of retail therapy, not even a comforting never-mind-that-sweety mail from a friend, or a it's-okay-let's-learn-from-mistakes mail from the boss. Only thing that gets that horrid feeling out, is the next piece of copy that you write, the perfect copy. The typo free copy.
And all will be well again.
'T-shirt ka 200 rupees madam'
'200 rupees? Kya baat kar rahe ho'
'Quality dheko madam, whole market me just single piece. Designer item hai madam'
'150 last, bas dena hai ke nahi bolo?'
'180'
'Nahi, bola na 150'
'madam 170,
'Nahi, 160, jaldi bolo, late ho raha hai'
Okay madam, le lo, 160'
Happiness.
I've grown up believing bargaining to be a time-honoured tradition. We (my friends, my mother, aunts and I) often take pride in admitting to who haggles the best. 'What kind of lousy shopper are you, giving the vendor whatever he asks for', my friends and I would scream at the non-haggler in our group. The best one would find herself invited to important flea-market shopping sprees.
I have bargained everywhere, for everything possible. And in every language – the polite Hindi, the rude Hindi, Bengali, English, English with Tamil accent, English with Punjabi accent and in pitiable Tamil. And I have also mastered, what I call the smart haggler attitude(s). Now, this is a tricky one, you got to decide on your attitude only after you have selected your shopkeeper. And no, you never feel bad for the shopkeeper. Look at it this way, if he is ready to sell a 450 Rupees skirt for 130 Rupees, he is certainly making a good profit. Now, about the attitude(s) – there's a 'Not interested but I'll buy it if I get it at my price' attitude, then there's an 'Interested but I'll buy it if I get it at my price' attitude, then the most common one 'Look I'm interested you're interested may the best man' win attitude.
Appreciation for a good bargain is one thing, being fanatic about it is quite another. Someone I know bargains so bad that she never goes to a shop twice. Lest she is booed at or chased away. I haven't been that bad, but bad nonetheless. None of these any more, it's time for redemption.
I have spent a thousand rupees on a flimsy pair of slippers, just for that swoosh. I have spent two hundred rupees on a bar of soap for its sleek packaging. I have spent a couple of hundreds for 100 ml of moisturizer, that promises me lavender. And even more on stuff that I never wore.
So, to all Bhaias and Unclejis of Atta market, Sarojni Nagar, Janpath, New market, Park Street, T Nagar, Beasant Nagar, Ooty Mall Road, Lokhandwala, Bandra, General Bazaar, MG Road, Brigade Road and the rest... I am sorry.
