When I struggled to find a billet

I was a poor student. Let me unburden myself of that albatross. Now that I have long since retired and not looking for a job, that admission comes quite easily. Whether it was during my school days and later on in university, I was one of those who just about scraped through his exams, year on year. My school reports were invariably conspicuous for their ‘Could do better’ and ‘His marks are not a true reflection of his ability’ remarks from the school Warden in Bangalore. I derived cold comfort from these consolatory observations.

This business of struggling when exams came around was somewhat mystifying to my teachers. I won elocution contests. They still speak warmly of my stirring St. Crispian’s Day speech from Henry V. Not to mention the opening lines from the poem What Tomas an Buile Said in a Pub by someone called James Stephens, ‘I saw God. Do you doubt it? / Do you dare doubt it?’ I had the audience eating out of my hands. I was classified an A singer, over the years carolling in the alto and tenor sections of the school choir. I was somewhat discombobulated when my voice broke, but I got over that.

As for my title role as Electrella in our inter-house drama competition, a latter-day adaptation (salute to Mr. Bill Scott, our house master) of the fabled Cinderella, I must have created quite an impression despite disastrously coming on stage prematurely in a sparkling red long gown for the grand Ball when I ought still to have been weeping inconsolably in tattered rags, mopping the floor, till the Fairy Godfather came along with his magic wand in a Chrysler cardboard cut-out. Some of my classmates were convinced I was in drag, not that we knew the meaning of that word at the time. Such terms were not in currency, at least not in school during the 60s. Still and all, we won first prize.

I was a mean off-spinner and could hold one end up stoically with the bat, though I kept running my partners out too frequently for comfort. ‘A good, all-round chap, pity he could not sail through his exams more convincingly, though his potential was there for all to see,’ declaimed the Warden again, who was getting to be a bit repetitive. There was no call for him to keep rubbing it in. Anyhow, that was to have been my epitaph on school leaving day. Many moons later I told myself, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were academic dropouts, couldn’t clear their exams for love or money and they didn’t do too badly for themselves. Hope springs eternal.

Speculation was rife at home in Calcutta as to what my problem was. In those days, nobody had heard of Attention Deficit Syndrome, but whatever was its equivalent back in the day (‘he is one of those dreamy types’) was identified as the root cause for my looking reasonably, if deceptively, bright even if my marksheets invariably told a different story. In the event, my dad forced me to take up B. Com (Hons) in college, a course I was patently unfit to attempt, but being a banker, he felt there was a fair chance of my getting a job somewhere if I could tell the difference between a Bank Reconciliation Statement and a Cash Flow Statement. Presumably I would have been pushed into slogging for four years thereafter to clear my Chartered Accountancy exams – a more arduous drudgery it would be difficult to imagine. A fate worse than death. Charles Lamb hit the nail on the head when he said, ‘I had grown to my desk, as it were, and the wood had entered into my soul.’ What’s more, I was no wiser at the end of it all in being able to tell a BRS from a CFS. 

Unfortunately, in those innocent days most of us did exactly what our daddy told us to do. In the event, I was able to perk up enough gumption to put my foot down and say, ‘Enough is enough.’ I would have been much happier doing English Literature, diving headlong into Shakespeare, Donne, Austen, Bronte (all the four siblings) and the like. And for leisure reading at home, there was always Wodehouse, Christie, Conan Doyle and Erle Stanley Gardner, whose impressive body of work did not exactly do any harm to one’s betterment of the English language. The home reading part was fine, but college was a bummer. To make matters worse, B. Com classes were conducted at the ungodly hours of 6 to 10 in the morning! Daily wake-up alarm was set for 4.30 a.m. Nodded off on the tram ride to Park Street, thence the ten-minute trudge to college. Creeping like snail, unwillingly. None of this was mood-enhancing; cynicism came easily and thoughts were riveted on The Beatles and Bob Dylan. As if that wasn’t enough, my mother made sure I attended Carnatic music classes in the afternoon!

Post university, while wrestling with my own doubts and misgivings about what sort of employment would best suit my temperament, if not my dubious academic qualifications, my thoughts first turned to journalism. I applied and was written-tested and interviewed by India’s leading English daily, The Times of India. I was offered a job as a journalist trainee to be based out of Bombay (Mumbai happened later) at a princely stipend of Rs.400/- a month; accommodation was to be my headache. As to why I wanted to be a journalist having obtained a degree in Commerce, I came clean and told them my life story which seemed to impress the top brass at The Old Lady of Bori Bunder – for its candidness. Anti-climactically, I did not take up the job for the simple reason that I had no idea how I was going to make ends meet on 400 soiled notes a month in a sinfully expensive metro like Bombay – even in the early 70s. After paying rent for PG accommodation and living on vada pav, I might have been able to keep the body intact and only just, but the soul would have been consigned to kingdom come.

Thus, I rushed back to Calcutta (Kolkata happened later) to the comfort of home and hearth and resumed chewing my finger nails. At which point, somebody I met at a party uttered the magic word, ‘Advertising.’ Put me in mind of that seminal moment in the film The Graduate, when Dustin Hoffman was wandering around aimlessly after his graduation, completely at a loose end, and one of his rich dad’s pals, tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, ‘Plastics, now there’s a career for you, young man.’ Or words to that effect. You will have to watch the movie to know what happened after that. This is about me and not Dustin Hoffman, who did very well for himself, thank you very much.

Without going into the tedious details of the whys and wherefores, I landed a job as a trainee in a reputed advertising agency in Calcutta. That my dad held a senior position in a bank which happened to be an important client of the agency might have helped push things along, but I can swear blind I got the job by sheer dint of merit. Truth to tell, pretty much everybody at the agency was the son or daughter of someone who was someone close to the agency’s top echelons. That was how it was those days. Simple, innocent times. Forget about ad agencies, even most corporate houses of repute were quick to take in young trainees who came in with ‘influence.’ Made the shortlisting simpler. As Mary Hopkin might have put it, Those were the days, my friend.

I loved advertising and the frenetic work ethic, where you learned on the job in smoke-filled conference rooms and what was expected of you was basic common sense, a better than average level of articulation, a thick skin (clients could be unreasonably demanding and tough), a calm and becoming personality and, above all, the ability to knock back a few large ones without batting an eyelid. The industry produced its fair share of rumpot geniuses. I passed muster on most of those essential qualifications bar the thick skin and the ability to knock back even one small one; but I made do. I had found my true calling. I was even given a leg-up by the very client I was detailed to handle – in their marketing division as advertising manager. En passant, I was flattered when the branch head of one of our rival agencies tried to entice me with a lucrative offer, throwing in a refrigerator as an attractive company perk! As I was quite happy in my first agency and owned a refrigerator (two would have been surplus to requirements), I gracefully turned down the offer.

Last but by no means the least, I found my life partner during my initial stint in the advertising agency.  Who could ask for more? On that count alone if for nothing else, I owe an everlasting debt to the man at that party several decades ago in Calcutta who whispered into my shell-like ear, ‘Advertising, now there’s a career for you, young man.’ Or words to that effect. Unlike Dustin Hoffman, I paid heed to his words.