Making of Professor Rajan

It was in 1996 that S.R. Ayer, popularly known as “Mani” Ayer, after retiring from Ogilvy & Mather, became the mastermind behind the Advertising Management Course offered by MICA (Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad). He laid the solid foundation that later made the Institute a premier one in Advertising Management in the country. Immediately after he settled down in Chennai in 1994, as the (then) President of the Advertising Club Madras, I requested him to be the Chairman of the All India Advertising Conference of the Ad Club in 1994. He not only masterminded a good programme but also introduced a few interesting ideas to ensure top quality of the sessions without overlapping speakers! The conference brought me close to Mr. Ayer. I became his ardent admirer and started looking upto him for his guidance in my hours of crisis, professionally. He was well known for his legendary leadership qualities and his innate good nature in dealing with people. He became one of my best well wishers. Two years after MICA was started Mr.Ayer invited me to be a guest lecturer at MICA to handle a couple of sessions in Rural Marketing. I put together a presentation of three lectures based on what I had learnt about rural marketing over the years. It was my first presentation on the subject to an outside audience. Though I had been taking classes on general advertising for students at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kothari Academy, Advertising Club etc., it was my first attempt at addressing management students. I was frankly nervous as I expected the bright boys and girls to tear me apart with questions. But my fears were unfounded because the students found my lectures interesting and asked sensible questions which I could easily handle. Mr. Ayer told me later that I had got a rating of 4 out of 5 from the students. My first successful attempt at teaching Rural marketing resulted in my becoming a regular guest faculty in Rural marketing for the next fifteen years not only in Mica but also several other Management Institutes all over India. As the President of Rural Marketing Association of India I even master minded a full two credit Rural Marketing course for MICA and was responsible for implementing it with other specialists in RM. It was a role that I thoroughly enjoyed . The credit for converting me from a professional in rural marketing to Prof. R.V. Rajan in rural marketing must go to Mr. Ayer. He passed away in February, 2010 at the age of 74 leaving behind a big vacuum in the world of advertising. Extracted from my autobiography titled `Courage My Companion`