STILL WRITING. STILL BECOMING.

No Conditions Apply. Sindoor Khela. The defining work of my career so far. The entire experience was an education. Swati Bhattacharya’s idea, her vision, her way of telling the story. Fred Levron’s guidance on how to make an idea stronger. TOI’s drive to become more relevant in Bengal. And a tradition renewing itself. It changed my understanding of what this work could mean. I was one of the main hands. Mind and heart, all in. And then the awards started coming. Cannes happened. Kyoorius happened. Spikes Asia. LIA happened. One Show happened. D&AD happened. Abby happened as well. The words found their merit. The hard work found its appreciation. And I found a new way of looking at work.

Then there was the work that launched Hero ISL from Hero’s point of view. It all started with two football fanatics, Satadru and I, going to our boss, the great Sanjay Sharma, and pleading, “Sir, India’s premier football league is starting. Hero is the main sponsor. We really want to do something for it.” Our enthusiasm met a brief from the client. We thought, we fought and eventually the scooters did a lot. By the way,  Ranbir and Alia may have to thank us for it. We brought them together on screen for the first time, with a football and a few scooters in the mix. The ad was a banger for Hero. An ad about football in the language of Hero Motocorp. Worked wonders.

Vistara took me somewhere new. What started as “let’s do something for our 7th anniversary” turned into “how do we get people to fly again?” Restrictions had eased, but people were still apprehensive about flying. I told Arijit Da, my senior, that I wanted to do something different. We ended up making “The Soundtrack of Travel”.

I should also tell you about Medtronic’s #SayYesToABetterTomorrow. We wanted to talk about the helplessness and hope of a Parkinson’s patient through a child’s guilt. “Sorry Dadu”, born in Ritika’s mind, told that story with a lot of heart.

In 2024, Lifestyle came calling. They wanted to rethink how the brand presented itself, especially in menswear. We took the brands to Baku, Azerbaijan. And gave the work a new editorial look. Lifestyle was reborn as a brand that understands high fashion and talks that way too.