Raja takes a BREAK…

Since my childhood there has not been a quarter I had been with out a break. This said some might think I am someone who follows the westerner’s calendar of working for 90 days and taking a break off work for say 10 days. But that is not the break I am talking about, I am speaking of breaking bones, body parts and even breaking down physically.

Friends of mine say my biological clock decides when to take this BREAK and promptly BREAKS something down. By doing this blog I started recollecting instances of all the breaks I have had till date. Typhoid, jaundice, malaria, broken bones in hand – right and left, legs – right and left, chin – right and left, eyebrow – right and left… pretty difficult to count. So I decided to count the number of instances of break downs since I joined Ogilvy – that was roughly two and a half years ago.

Three months after I joined Ogilvy, it was a cool Sunday when I had to visit my friend’s dad at a city hospital in Chennai. I was coming back with my friend’s brother in the pillion when these two guys on a Yamaha RX100 rammed to the right of my vehicle. They in fact rammed right into my right leg. The impact broke my little toe. The impact was so severe that my little toe was left hanging in the air with little support from my leg. I had a successful surgery to put the toe back in place. When one of my good friends Shyam asked me about my regaining complete consciousness in my little toe, which the doctor had said I would not. The toe would just be a vestige henceforth. I told Shyam “I don’t need my little toe to say/show up yours”. It took 4 months to heal.

By then I was ready for my next bout. This time I played a cricket match for Ogilvy, opened the innings broke my left wrist. This time it was not a complete fracture, just a small crack said the doctor. This one would take 15 days to a month by then I had another family doctor – this time unusually it was an orthopedist. By now he had become too friendly with me to qualify as my family doctor. "An orthto for a family doctor, not bad" remarked my friends. It hardly healed when it was my next turn.

And now it was time for a complete overhaul, the total breakdown. Yes I had malaria this time and this is the second time in 2 years I had malaria. I have heard of the creative personnel in my office remarking that I am just a parasite a malarial parasite. I had to tell them all, sorry folks I am just a victim. Lots of tablets of varying sizes and colour and a month of abstinence from my favourite liquid diets got me back to normal.

I was a normal man for 5 months, people around me were very happy for me. After a long, long time I was accident free. But the happiness lasted till I sped like jet into the office one fine morning, suddenly saw one of my coworkers taking a turn. To avoid this gent I tried breaking my speed. All I could remember after this was a broken chin, which needed 6 stitches to pull back. Alas cried the whole office, Raja’s back to normal. He is back to his olden ways.

Just three months later, three days ago. I decided to slip down a stair, twist my foot and break a bone. Thank god, for a change it is my left foot now. It should take 10 days to heal. The first question my friends asked me when I reached office after this incident was, Raja what next??

When I look at myself in the mirror I am remembered of Samuel L Jackson in the movie Unbreakable…

Am I the unbreakable whom Samuel Jackson played in that movie?

God knows…

Get me baby one more time...

Again… It has happened!! Not quite unexpected of me, but given the fact that I was comfortably cuddled in the conference rooms of Ogilvy made some think I have arrived in life. “Raja will not move any more”, said one. “Raja will retire from O&M”, said another. In fact if I look back and think about the last 2 years I’ve been in advertising it makes me think, “Those were the best days of my life”.

But, as the wise would think and say, “The best is yet to come”, hopefully, it’s this time!

I was rather sad scripting my resignation letter. This time my hands trembled, I was not able to make the right contact with the keyboard to type bye bye out, unusual… quite unusual for someone who scripted this same damn shit 6 times before this one time. I still feel sad for having to leave this place, I actually had to promise myself and to my peers here like Arnie says in Terminator “I’ll be back”. Yes I would want to come back here sometime, I was proud to be an “Ogilvite”.

The place I’m moving… Yeah as every one of us know by now that I am moving to Dubai. I am joining a direct marketing & CRM agency there. My poor wife would be left back here till December… Yes that is when she would join me post her giving birth to our junior in September. I don’t know if I would find a Triplicane in Dubai, complete with a CNK Road and an Everymans Mansion. It would be great fun if I do find something like that, till December.

So guys the single-minded proposition is “I have quit Ogilvy, I’m moving on…”

Jaggu Da Ki Amar Kahani – Brother Jaggu’s eternal story

The protagonist of this story is the great Jagmohan Dalmia, the all-powerful figurehead of Indian cricket.

When Zee went to court on the telecast issue, Jaggu Da’s lawyers said the board couldn’t be controlled by the Indian constitution. It was and autonomous, independent body which had its own constitution and laws. This effectively means that the scoreboards we see during cricket matches should read “BCCI” and not India. We the people should cheer not for India but for the BCCI team. Lots of people discussed this issue, some shouted, some called this shame on the countries cricket fans but Mr. Dalmia did not budge. Cut to the scene now… he has won the case against Zee hands down. Shrewd is not the word to describe Jaggu Da.

Now Jaggu has a different issue in hand. Phoren or local, coach or Pehelwan is the question. Yes everyone agrees that Jaggu should have toyed these options some 6 months ago when good old John called his parting shot. But Jaggu was entangled in the legal wrangle over the control of the board, the telecast issues etc.

Now on the Phoren ki pehelwan issue… First 2 phorigners and 2 pehelwan’s are short-listed. Then one pehelwan decides he is not fit to get into the ring. He backs out citing his commitments. Didn’t he know about his commitments before he came into the fray? Didn’t the board of Jaggu know he is a very committed human before they spelt his name to the media? Jaggu da is the only fit person in mother earth who could answer these questions. A high level committee has been constituted for finding the coach but at the end of the day it would be Jaggu da’s call no matter how high a level the committee is in.

These are just samples of what Jaggu Da is. At the end of the day, we like fools would keep on jabber walking about the coach issue and when a guy is appointed we would all again cheer for team India not knowing or rather forgetting the fact that it is the boards team and not a team chosen by the government of India which plays cricket.

Not long ago our newspapers in page 3 were talking about the Casting Couch controversy. This time around they would call it the Jaggu Da’s Casting Coach controversy and we Indians would happily be reading it and debating about this for time unknown.

Long Live Jaggu Da… Long live Indian cricket…

Gaja Bhai Calling

After 2 and something years of association with Ogilvy I’ve decided to hang my big Ogilvy boots and get to Gaja’s own county. The prime motive being quick bucks. I am joining a place called Jacobson’s Direct, a direct marketing agency there in Dubai. While I would continue the Civic Exnora/ Onyx job I have been doing here, it would be a different environment, different set of people etc.

Simply said "Same Kuppai, different Kuppai Thotti"

While I seriously don’t know when the shift would happen, I’m sure this would happen in the next couple of weeks. I would have to in the next couple of week stitch my Dubai dress with the cycle tyre rolled on the headdress thing. Do shopping for other stuff including the saddle for my vehicle oops! sorry, camel.

Now the silverlining: In some time I would also become a phoren return case…

Hope I shed that “case” on me and be a normal human being.