By Anil Raturi
Piyush Pandey was undoubtedly a gifted creator. In his passing, India has lost an extraordinary mind. For many decades now, I have been a quiet admirer of his work.
I have vivid childhood memories of going to see films in the Rialto Cinema, Mussoorie, during the decade of the 1960s with my family. Those days, there were no televisions in small Indian towns and watching films in cinema halls was still a fascinating experience. Before the film began, there used to be projection of a “News Reel” of about five minutes duration, which used to be a compilation of government related news produced by the Department of Information and Broadcasting. It was followed by the screening of various commercial advertisements.
I still remember that, in the darkness of the hall, the audience could hear the rich baritone voices of male voiceovers speaking in very low pitch, clipped anglicised accents about the various products being advertised on screen. Invariably, those advertisements used to be in English, even though in those days, perhaps not more than five percent of Indians understood English!
It seemed to be a hangover of the colonial “Boxwallah” days surviving as a legacy that was indeed anachronistic.
The Indian advertising industry had still not reinvented itself in tune with the imperatives of an independent India.
It was here that Piyush Pandey, with his understanding of the indigenous psyche, ushered in a creative revolution in the world of advertising by bringing in the vernacular in place of English.
This assisted in the change of the mindset that subsequently evolved and endeavoured to transcend the narrow elitist confines to target the broader Indian domestic market.
The now legendary Cadbury’s “Kuch Khas hai…” advertisement scripted by Piyush in 1993 is a case in point.
The Cadbury’s Chocolate till then was considered a luxury that the children of only the well to do could afford. Keeping the expanding middle class in mind, the company wanted to reach out to the adults as well.
Piyush Pandey’s “Kuch Khas Hai…” creation ruptured the past limited appeal of the product to forge a wider, more universal attraction for it in the market. The rest is history.
It is fascinating how a student of history not formally trained in the profession of advertising, successfully dabbled in the creative world to leave behind such an awe-inspiring legacy!
RIP Piyush Pandey.
(Anil Raturi is a retired IPS officer and former DGP, Uttarakhand.)
