My good friend S.Krishna is no more. Also known
as Pertinax Krishna, 85 year old Krishna passed away recently after a brief
struggle with cancer. He had never fully recovered from the irreparable loss of
his dear wife more than a year ago. She had
died a day after their 58th wedding anniversary. Inspite of him being old with
health issues, the way he looked after his wife during her last days could be a
lesson in loving care for the youngsters of today.
He
was 55 when he decided to pursue his passion for advertising by starting his
own advertising agency called Pertinax.
He had started his working career earlier with Post & Telegraphs Department
, where he spent 10 years after which he had a long stint with Lucas TVS in
their marketing dept. It was in Lucas TVS that his interests in advertising took
roots when he was dealing with R.K.Swamy
Advertising Associates who were the advertising
agency for his company.
A voracious reader and a bilingual writer in
English & Tamil, Krishna was
regularly contributing articles and stories to the leading dailies and magazines
of the time. His stories were published by The Hindu, Indian Express, Caravan,
Kalki etc. A collection of his Tamil stories was published by Vanathi
Padhippagam. He was known for his excellent command of English which was reflected in his writings. A perfectionist in
whatever he did, he would not hesitate to pull up people for their slackness .
He was brutally frank to the extent that he could sometimes hurt people with
his comments.
He
was an active member of the Advertising Club, Madras right from its early
years. The office bearers of the Club used to dread his presence in Annual
General Meetings of the Club because he would not hesitate to ask probing questions on the affairs of the Club and
expect an answer. It is this very quality of Krishna which brought me close to
him. When I got actively involved with the Adclub, I realised that Krishna was
genuinely interested in the Club and had no malice towards anyone. Nor was he
aspiring for any posts. When I found out that he was a creative writer, I decided,
as the President of the Club between 1993-95, to request him to take up the job of editing the Club
Magazine `Headline` which used to be an annual publication. He not only helped
in converting the magazine into a
quarterly but also brought out excellent issues of the
magazine, rich in content and quality with total dedication and commitment .
He did this for seven years in a row until a misunderstanding with one of
the Presidents made him give up the responsibility. It is sad that the magazine
was never revived after he quit the post.
I
cannot forget Krishna for playing an important role in helping me bring out the Golden
Jubilee Commemoration Volume of the Adclub, Madras, one of my dream projects, when I became the club`s
Golden jubilee Committee Chairman in 2005-6. In spite of his advancing
age ( he was 75) he would run around using available transport looking for
materials and photos for the book. I remember an instance when he walked the
streets of Kodambakkam trying to locate a photo studio, which had a photo of the founders of the Adclub, Madras in
1956. Not only did he help in collecting information but he also wrote the main
story in the book tracing the 50 year history of the Adclub, Madras. I was all
admiration for his enthusiasm and the
physical energy that he displayed at that time. Though I faded into the background after the event , he continued to attend Club Meetings until health issues prevented
him. He had already handed over the running of his agency to his second son.
The
last big writing assignment that he did
was the chapter on the history of
advertising for a book called `Madras ( Chennai)- A Four Hundred Year history
of the First City of India`, a project of the Association of British Scholar
Programme consisting of 50 articles on a variety of topics, edited by the well
known historian /Journalist S.Muthiah. He was eagerly looking forward to the
release of the book. Pity that he passed away without seeing his effort in
print.
Post
my retirement from my business, I was a regular visitor to his home. I always looked forward to his critical
comments on my writings. I am going to miss a well wisher – a frank , outspoken
person who may not have made many friends in the advertising business but was a good human being with good intentions.
May his Soul rest in peace!
