Boredom that brought colour

The early days after retiring from professional cricket can feel strangely empty No morning nets no travel bags packed for the next match no team meetings Silence replaces the sounds of leather on willow and applause turns into the hum of ceiling fans in familiar roomsIn the mid1990s my days drifted like that Evenings were predictable mdash squash or swimming at the Bombay Gymkhana followed by a few beers at the bar Life seemed uneventful But sometimes boredom is just life waiting to introduce you to extraordinary peopleThatrsquos when I met Piyush Pandey and Sonal Dabral his distinguished colleague at OgilvyWe would swim sit by the poolside talk cricket advertising and life mdash and we laughed a lot Piyush was different He looked at the world through a colourful lens His stories wandered from the dunes of Jaisalmer he played firstclass cricket for Rajasthan to a casual observation during an interadvertising agency cricket match mdash an observation that would eventually become Cadburyrsquos iconic Kuch Khaas Hai campaignWhat fascinated me most was how uncomplicated his creativity was Cricket had taught him to observe And being a wicketkeeper he had mastered it early mdash watching batsmen studying fielders reading rhythms of play Except I realised he wasnrsquot only observing the game From behind the stumps he was also observing people mdash consumers emotions habits in an educated complicated world they call it the study of human anthropologyEverything his brands would one day needTeatasting was his first job Destiny thankfully rerouted him With his instincts and imagination tea rooms and smoky colonial bars of old Calcutta clubs would never have been enough Advertising was where he belongedWords came naturally to him mdash not just spoken but delivered with timing warmth and precision He started calling me ldquoHaathgaadirdquo At first I thought it was a jibe Then he explained mdash slow careful assured committed Suddenly that name became less of a nickname and more of a complimentPiyush was a close friend of Arun Lal mdash the gritty Test cricketer who left St Stephenrsquos Delhi for Calcutta and became the face of Bengal cricket Piyush would speak romantically mdash and knowingly mdash about the influence of princely states in shaping Indian cricket Patrons palaces and princes building cricketing legaciesHe enthused himself with anecdotes finding some of them enduring like the products in his campaignsldquoHe Piyush loved the story of Arun Lal and Krish Srikkanth with the late Pakistani President Gen ZiaulHaq and would laugh heartily even at the umpteenth hearing of it There must be something in the air where he and Arun studied for just like Piyush never had anyone badmouth him Arun along with GRV Vishwanath must be the only two cricketers who do not have anybody in the cricketing world utter an ill word about themrdquo wrote Sunil Gavaskar in this newspaper last Sunday I canrsquot wait to hear the full story from my former Bombay captain Presumably this emerged from the 198283 tour of Pakistan where Arun opened the India innings with SMG in the first three Tests of that Imran Khandominated seriesBack then Piyushrsquos stories sounded like yarns from another era Now it feels like he had seen the future The Maharajas had unknowingly sown the earliest seeds of what we today call the IPL Piyush already knew where fame money and cricket were headingFame sat lightly on him He wore it as casually as he dressedmdasha pack of Classic cigarettes from ITC a loose Baghru vegetabledyed shirt and wornout jeans That was his uniform From there he could hold his own with a boardroom CEOmdashor sing ldquoDhoondo Dhoondo Re Saajanardquo to a batsman fishing outside offstumpHe sold dreams in advertising but he never lost touch with realityWhere did Piyush learn advertising He revealed on TheBarberShop with Shantanu podcast that it was cricket He spoke about the journeys ldquoUniversity cricket and under22 crickethellip even Ranji Trophy crickethellip we travelled unreserved in secondclass thirdclass compartments for 48 hours Sometimes from Delhi to Chennai Chennai to Bangalore Bangalore to Mysore City Thatrsquos where you were seeing India Thatrsquos where you were seeing people Thatrsquos where you were meeting people Thatrsquos where somebody gave you a paratha rolled up Thatrsquos where I learnt advertisingrdquo he revealedObservation was his habit Humour was his language Emotion was his product Sitting in an office selling dreams he still stayed connected to the dust sweat and simplicity of the real IndiaMaybe thatrsquos why we connectedMaybe thatrsquos why Haathgaadi didnrsquot feel like an insult anymore It felt real Rustic Honest Just like himShishir Hattangadi is a former Mumbai Ranji Trophy captain and opening batsman He tweetsshishhattangadiClayton Murzellorsquos Pavilion End will be back next weekSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper