a brand story

My friend and colleague Shahan wrote a brand story for a brand that I felt was so amazing that this, and only this, is fitting enough to break our one month silence with. Day after tomorrow the entire office is off to Shillong. We'll post pictures from the hills or whatever they have there if there's any internet. Till then, toodle oo!!!!!!!!!!

The old man, having twenty minutes in hand before his second highlight of the day, his ‘special cup of tea’, was sitting in a park bench. The first highlight being his ‘special morning cup of tea’. He got up from his seat and stooped with effort to pick something up from the ground. It was a windy October day and the playground was filled with children and laughter.

The boy who had just thrown his broken watch away looked on intently as the old man picked it up and sat down. He was looking at its face with mild amusement. The boy got up from the concrete bench, left his friends and walked over to his discarded watch and its apparent new owner. He took a spot, stuck his hands inside his pockets and waited. The old man was still occupied with it; he was rubbing its scratched glassy face and from time to time, turning the tiny knob that made the dials spin. The boy forced a cough and when the man didn’t acknowledge it, decided that he too must be quite deaf like his grandfather. He waited. And then the man spoke.

“Next time start with a hello instead of a grunt. Sounds friendlier.”

The boy didn’t know what to do and would have perhaps run off if the man hadn’t looked up and smiled. That made him stay; an honest smile has that effect. The boy took out one hand from his pocket, shielded his eyes from the dying sun and announced the watch was his. The old man winked at him and thrust out his hand with the watch.

“Lucky you”, the old man said.

The boy didn’t take it. “No, not lucky. I threw it away because the dials don’t turn anymore. It’s old and boring”

“Me or the watch?”

The boy laughed genuinely and said he meant the watch.

“Is that why you threw it away”, the man asked.

“Yes. My mother’s going to give me one with digits on them and not dials”

“Well that must…”

The boy didn’t let him finish.

“And lights too, you know. It’s got a bright green light so you know what time it is even in the dark. And there’s three buttons that beep when you press them. One’s for the date and, and…”

The old man never knew what the other buttons did. He gestured to the boy to take a seat beside him by patting the bench. He smiled again as the boy sat down and folded his arms across his chest, swinging his legs.

“That fat boy from the 4^th floor has one just like it. I saw it.”

“Hmm. Well, can I keep this then?” the old man asked.

“Sure mister. Are you going to get it fixed?”

“No. I’ll just keep it as it is. And thank you.”

If the boy had been old enough to understand sarcasm he’d understand the old man wasn’t being so. He looked astonished which made the man smile again.

“Really? But what are you going to do with it?”

“Remember you.”

The boy didn’t look too convinced. The man continued.

“Besides, it’s not completely useless. I bet it works sometimes.”

“No it doesn’t! It’s been stuck at 11.35 since Monday and my father changed the batteries too. Didn’t help.”

The old man pondered over this for a moment and said, “It still says 11.35 even when it’s say, 5 o’clock?”

“Yes”

“And at 12?”

“Still 11.35. Always 11.35!”

“Hmm, well then. How about when it’s 11.35?”

The boy looked puzzled. He stuck out his lower lip and slapped his knees with his palms.

“When it’s really 11.35 your broken watch says the right time! You see, twice everyday this watch becomes just as right as any other. It can’t help being old and boring but that’s another thing.” The old man held the watch close to his face and looked at it brightly. Sunlight bounced off its glass surface and danced merrily on his face. “Sometimes, even things that seem useless at first have their reasons for being. Sometimes ordinary things, like us, only need favors from circumstance. It’s such a pity that I didn’t know this when I was your age. But now, I’m going to keep it and it’s going to give me the right time two times everyday! And the most fascinating thing is I won’t ever have to worry about batteries! Lucky me!”

It worked. At 11, the boy was on the threshold of life’s first revelation. He looked longingly at his old birthday present but didn’t have the heart to ask for it back. The old man admired it so.

“Well it’s almost time for my special cup of tea, young friend. I’ll just be a minute” said the old man suddenly. And with that he got up, unfolded his sleeves and walked away. The boy hardly heard; he just sat there, not waiting, simply sitting on a park bench on a windy October day.

And of course the old man never returned and of course he ‘forgot’ his remarkable new broken watch and of course when the boy’s mother came to fetch him, he pocketed it and took it home.

accident or genius?

Big ideas come out of inconsequential oversights or a lapse of order, perchance, by accident. Greatness lies in not ‘dismissing’ that accident, but nurturing it, and you might have the next “Alice in the wonderland”.

who says long copy is dead?

Here's the cool, original version of the Daily Star anniversary ad which not only was a hit, but also proves my point that postcard-style ads and full color aren't always necessary for a press ad to break clutter even in this day and age.

Baby don't you do it!

This is what I've been listening to recently:

Levon Helm - Dirt Farmer
Britney Spears - Blackout
The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride (leaks huzzah!)
Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree (leaks once again!)

All four are either unreleased or recent releases. I realized that Levon Helm's album, which is the most traditionally-written, backwards-looking, gosh-darn oldest-sounding album in this list, is also the best. I mean sure, Levon motherfuckin' Helm and all of that, but what about Britney and the new pop?

THIS IS MEANT TO BE COMMENTARY but I couldn't be bothered to think it through. Cool subject line though if you're feeling clever. Here's something better:



Also, curious fact: both the Levon Helm and Goldfrapp albums have songs called "Little Bird". But my favorite "Little Bird" is from Man of La Mancha.

RIP Sir George. Flashman lives!

Jesus. I've been dealing with Pal's leaving Bitopi (Godspeed you glorious pervert!) which, in spite of the celebrations with cheap alcohol, cheaper prostitutes, and the 40 gigs of porn that we gave him, still leave me lonely and wallowing. And then a couple days ago I heard of Phil Dusenberry's passing.

And now comes the worst news of all--Sir George MacDonald Fraser is no longer the greatest living writer of our times. Sir George MacDonald Fraser is no more. Time to go back home and get to re-reading them all. I can't seem to find my copies of the Great Game, Mountain of Light or Angel of the Lord either, goddammit.

Oh, and side note: none of the early obituaries have even mentioned Pyrates or Black Ajax yet, those bastards.

On happier news, happy birthday to the best friends God can give, the most wonderful alcoholic manic-depressive failure in my world, Seth Augenstein.

The night I met Kaisar Hamid

Picture the Kakoli railgate at 12:30 am December 26th, with the city still sluggish from post-Eid smorgasbording and the convenience of Christmas being a government holiday. All souls are tucked in. Untucked souls are gallivanting at house parties drunk on bootleg vodka. Other untuckeds are in Coffee World, too proud to complain about the price of a latte. Only the guards in their arctic gear are about. A solitary rickshaw waits for a train to pass, heedlessly going CHOO CHOO!!!!!!!! like a wild long-haired man running through a crowd. But there’s no crowd to run through, only the cream soup of cold and fog.

In this show of light-streaks in darkness, a large shape advances. Too fat to stalk, too short to loom, and I’m being kind with the “advances” here since all in all, “predatory waddle” doesn’t really have any style. And I wasn’t really walking with any purpose. Maybe a large shape waddles while scratching its balls (but you can’t see that because he’s got a bitchin’ poncho on). But that large shape, the shapeless hulk, advancing as it were while simultaneously dealing with a testicular itch, is none other than yrs truly, Creative Fellow Arafat Kazi of Bitopi Advertising Ltd.

So it’s midnight, and I’m standing there. Right on the rail tracks actually, because they’re still warm after the passing train and my sandals aren’t doing me much good. Negotiating the purchase of two packs of Benson & Hedges Lights cigarettes from the man called Boss. They call him Boss, he calls me Boss. Like the theme song from Boss Nigger but I think that joke would be lost on him.

Anyway. Midnight. Hulking now, looming over. I buy cigarettes for me and Ammu. Four wheel drive approaches, stops near me. A moustachio’d curly haired face, looking for all the world like an aged matador, or like Athos from The Three Musketeers (haven’t seen the movie, mental picture) peers out and looks at me.

He said: “I am Kaisar Hamid.”

What do you do when an ex-Captain of the National Football Team, longtime Captain of your bitterest foe Mohammedan, says hi to you in the long, dark hours when you’re out by yourself buying a cigarette and there’s not a soul about? I thought of denouncing him by haughtily saying that I was faithful to Abahoni, or even by punching him for the one or two matches he’s won against Abahoni over the years. (Any reasonable judge would acquit me. Any reasonable judge would be bound to support Abahoni.) But then I remembered: Captain of the National Team. Even though the list of National Team Captains that I know include my band’s bassist Farhan and his older brother Fazle, they’re basketball players, not to be held in the same regard or even universe as fuckin’ FOOTBALL. And then I remembered: it’s been years since I’ve cared about football anyway, and plus, I never cared that much.

I look at Kaisar Hamid and said “Assalamualaikum”.

And then that portion of my brain which helps discern reality from that which is not real, of reason from unreason, which in my case is a highly volatile, synaesthetic, arbitrary and frankly temperamental machine, kicked in. Regardless of the many aspects of my life that willfully cock a snoot at the laws of physics and natural aesthetics, there are certain things that should not be. Multilegged creatures dropping from the sky, should not be. Kaisar Hamid should not be wantonly introducing himself to me; he should be pursing his lips at the fat hobo (for Gulshan will one day see the golden day when even beggars can go fat, like in America) and saying “Drive on!” to his chauffeur.

But by the miraculous adipose that flows in my veins, which in my chacha’s case allows him to appear in every one of Sarwar Faruqi’s commercials, stopped this man. The stern eyes that had no doubt stared down Cardinal Richeleu in past lives, battled Scarlet Pimpernels by the dozen and mayhaps even scored a goal or two against Abahoni, was fascinated by the steely lump of stearine solidified in the wintry cold.

I shrugged. I’m fat. Reality is what reality is. Who am I to judge thy grace, reality? Judge Kaisar Hamid not, lest ye be judged yourself by Kaisar Hamid.

Kaisar Hamid is not a man who wastes paragraphs pondering on the nature of his existence. He is, therefore he is. Kaisar Hamid ergo sum. No cogito there. So he reiterated the state of his being.

“I am Kaisar Hamid,” he said.

I am an idealist. I don’t accept reality for what it is. Like Christopher Columbus, Galileo, Baldrick—the great dreamers of the Renaissance—I take what life gives me and idealize it. Usually making circular worlds circle each other, with a great big turnip in the middle. But this time, I was ready for reality. I said, “No way, are you really?”, and then peeked through his window for a closer look. The man, for all that he played for Mohammedan, did not lie. He was, actually, veritably, in fact, in truth—Kaisar Hamid.

I felt like I was trapped in Haruki Murakami’s short story, where Frog saves the world from Worm, and must convince his initially skeptic sidekick that incredible though it may seem, he really did exist. Like Frog, Kaisar Hamid was patient re: my skepticism. Larger than life itself, he understood that others, those who did not move in his exalted circles or hear the harmony of his spherely footballs, must react with human doubt when he chooses to manifest himself. So, to make himself clearer, he said:

“I am Kaisar Hamid.”

Take the bull by the horns, my inner voice urged me. You don’t know when the next night will come when, needing a packet of cigarettes, you will venture out into the cold and be greeted by Kaisar Hamid affirming his existence and proving that he too walks with men. So I closed my eyes, held my breath, and shook his hand. His real hands.

Before I could move the topic of discussion from Cartesian elementaries and Biblical eventualities (Who am I? on my part, to be answered by “I am who am Kaisar Hamid”) to the more speculatory questioning of Darwin or, perhaps, Richard Dawkins (How did we get here and what the hell are you doing?), Kaisar Hamid deftly pirouetted on the Sudoku board of smalltalk and—O visionary futurist!—toe-twirled to the question that Douglas Adams ultimately answers from the window view of Milliways: what happens tomorrow?

“There is a BKSP match tomorrow. You will go there.”

I felt like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken and starts bouncing up and down. Just to be sure, I asked for one last time:

“Are you really Kaisar Hamid?” I said.

“I am Kaisar Hamid”, replied Kaisar Hamid, who is Kaisar Hamid. His chauffeur rummaged through his wallet and gave me his business card. As you have no doubt been expecting with Pavlovian sureness—yes, it was Kaisar Hamid.

I had finally accepted reality. Now I would rebel. I said, “But Mr. Hamid, how can I go to the match tomorrow? I would love to, but I have a job, you see!”

“Where do you work?” said Kaisar Hamid.

I said, “I work at Bitopi Advertising Ltd, in the Creative Department.”

“I needed one with a body like yours”, said Kaisar Hamid.

I hung my head in shame. “When do you think was the last time I played football?” I said.

Kaisar Hamid looked at me appraisingly. “Still,” he said.

I heard his “Still” more as a command than as an argument. And I saw that it was true—the night was, indeed, very still. You would not have believed that ten minutes ago a train had passed by, or that eight minutes ago an economic transaction had taken place. If I were to tell you that, no more than two minutes ago, a conversation had taken place here, between myself and the famous football player Kaisar Hamid, you would have laughed.

The greatest print ad ever made

My friend, Joe Holmes, is now a horse.

Joe always said when he died he’d like to become a horse.

One day Joe died.

Early this May I saw a horse that looked like Joe drawing a milk wagon.

I sneaked up to him and whispered, “Is it you, Joe?”

He said, “Yes, and am I happy!”

I said, “Why?”

He said, “I am now wearing a comfortable collar for the first time in my life. My shirt collars always used to shrink and murder me. In fact, one choked me to death. That is why I died!”

“Goodness, Joe,” I exclaimed, “Why didn’t you tell me about your shirts sooner? I would have told you about Arrow shirts. They never shrink out of perfect fit. Not even the oxfords.”

“G’wan,” said Joe. “Oxford’s the worst shrinker of all!”

“Maybe,” I replied, “but not Gordon, the Arrow oxford. I know, I’m wearing one. It’s Sanforized-Shrunk—can’t even shrink 1%! Besides, it has Arrow’s unique Mitoga tailored fit! And,” I said reaching a crescendo, “Gordon costs only $2!”

“Swell,” said Joe, “My boss needs a shirt like that. I’ll tell him about Gordon. Maybe he’ll give me an extra quart of oats. And, gosh, do I love oats!"