Analysing rewards of creativity

What I've liked
'Bak-Bak' at its best

Ah! The joy of doing nothing but sitting around in the warm late afternoon sun with old friends and cracking jokes over a cup of tea and biscuits.  This must sound like heaven to a majority of our working population.And what a clever thing to do -- to capture this idyllic life in a charming little television commercial for Parle's Marie biscuits. After all, just think about how much can be said about baked flour and sugar that hasn't been said already?

But if you do look around (as the creators of the ad have clearly done) you will notice that biscuits and chai are our way of "meeting over a couple of drinks" as is commonly done elsewhere.

And, of course, unending rounds of both (tea and biscuits) keep the conversation going. I like the fact that this small slice-of-life has been reproduced in all its faithfulness to what happens in reality.

There is no hard sell whatsoever. The casting is well done, the script keeps it real. The jokes are as innocently risqué as is typical of the generation represented.

The product, even though present in all the frames, never outshines the players. That is what is so nice about this ad -- the 'realness' of it and the ability of its creators to keep the product in its place and yet manage to make it the hero.

What I've learned

Compelling creative

After having spent so many years in advertising, I am more than familiar with the hypnotic power of great creative work. The truth is you don't really have to be in advertising or in any other creative field to recognise it when in its presence.

Whether you are part of an audience at a kutcheri or listening to a small-time local politician or preacher or even as a student in a classroom, you would have invariably experienced the power of a compelling creative rendition of a thought or belief.

There is always pin-drop silence during the session, which lingers on for a heart-stopping moment even when the performer finishes his piece and then the audience breaks out into a thunderous applause.

The eloquence of silence says it all. It is almost as if there is a shared sense of wonder about being introduced to a never-before witnessed point of view. That is what I call 'compelling creative' and I lived through this experience last weekend in a cinema hall showing Aamir Khan's movie Taare Zameen Par.

Even though it was a film about children, for adults, the theatre had a fair share of school kids. As I watched them trooping in before the show, I confess I groaned anticipating a noisy undisciplined audience.

But was I wrong! The theatre was uncannily quiet right through the show. None of the usual rustling of snack packets or the loud whispers and giggles of teenaged couples, not even the omnipresent ringing or should I say singing of mobile phones.

The only other experience I've had that commanded such mass attention was at Puttaparthi at Satya Sai Baba's darshan, where an otherwise noisy Indian populace managed to maintain pin-drop silence for hours waiting for the his darshan.

For one person to hold the attention of an unruly audience is truly remarkable and TZP manages that in the most inspiring couple of hours that I have experienced in a long time.

Sometimes rapt silence is the loudest applause that a creative person can receive!