A number of invitees to my 12th book launch function held on 30th August, came with the apprehension that it would be a long winding ,boring function. To their total surprise it turned out to be a crisp function, starting on time and ending on time. Informative as well as entertaining. Brilliantly presented by the emcee for the evening , Seshadri- my youngest brother also known as Sesh among friends and Mohan among the family.
There is a difference between being an announcer in a meeting
and an emcee. While an announcer makes routine announcements, an emcee is
constantly connected with the audience with his impromptu comments delivered on
the spot to ensure that there is no lag in the conduct of the meeting. Sesh
ensured this very well. When I handed over the meticulously planned minute to
minute programme to him I told him that I have done my job but the success of
the programme depended entirely on how he delivered the programme to the
audience. He more than lived up to my expectation. Thanks Mohan!.
As I mentioned in my talk at the meeting Seshadri has been like
what Laxmana was to Lord Rama in the epic Ramayana. Fourteen years younger to
me , he literally followed my foot steps in life. Starting with the same
college ( R.A. Podar College of Com merce, Bombay) where both of us got our
Commerce degrees, he joined the same ad agency Clarion as a management trainee
where I had started my advertising career fourteen years earlier. Interestingly
he occupied the same cabin and table that I occupied when I was in Clarion and
handled the same set of clients that I handled. It was an amazing coincidence.
Though he left Clarion to join Ulka advertising where as I had left clarion to
join Grant Kenyan Eckhardt advertising, we connected again when he joined my
agency Anugrah Marketing & Advertising ( became Anugrah Madison in 1988) as
Director of Client Services, within two years of my starting my own agency, much against the wishes of my father and his
own hesitation as he was doing extremely well in Ulka Bombay. With divine grace
and elders` blessings things turned out well for both of us . He became a
pillar of strength to me taking care of all the professional aspects of running
my agency while I could indulge in a parallel life with several professional
and voluntary organizations. He was very popular with all clients known for his
honesty, hard work and sincerity and developed an identity of his own. When I
retired in 2007 at the age of 65 I had no hesitation in handing over the mantle
of running the agency to him.. He had a successful six year stint as the MD of
the agency before he also retired in 2013. He was also active in some of the
professional and voluntary organizations that I was involved with.
Another interesting coincidence is that he has also written his
autobiography titled `Living in a shadow`,after retirement, in which he has
beautifully chronicled his life story in impeccable English ( I always get all
my writings vetted by him because I think his English is better than mine) In
the book he has extensively quoted the role I have played in his life as the
elder brother but I feel that I was only doing my duty and played the role of a
catalyst in his life. As the saying goes, ` I can only take the horse to the
water but can`t make him drink`. His success was entirely his own- the result
of his hard work.
Unlike me he is reserved in talking about himself and shares his
autobiography with only those genuinely interested in reading it.. He is
reticent about promoting the book, though I feel it is eminently readable and
should reach more people to know how a person with a simple background evolved
to create an identity for himself. Another uncommon autobiography of a common
man.
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