Since 2001

Backstory

The movie came out in 2001, and finally, I could put a word to my life occurrences.

I graduated top of my class (nearly top) in BE Computer Science. In my new world, this would not matter, but back then it served as a good opening conversation for my parents. Having majored in robotics and image processing and still not being able to fix a paper jam in the printer speaks highly of the inefficiencies of the education system. I was picked up from campus by an Italian company that sold computer hardware. Naturally, I quit in 21 days. Four years in engineering and 3 weeks in an engineering-related job inspired me to become a hairdresser. I even interviewed to be an apprentice at a salon. But the boss lady said that I was overqualified and the work required me to stand for long hours. My foray into advertising was due to life’s best creation – a baby! 

Thankfully Yash was pregnant and ready to deliver. Thankfully Natasha put in her papers. Thankfully the mindset at Trikaya Bombay at that moment was that trespassers would be recruited. Thankfully I was waiting at the reception, to be interviewed on Lakme, sitting near the not yet Miss India Aishwarya Rai. Thankfully P&G wanted someone who knew how to work on the machine without powering it off from the mains every time it refused to obey. Thankfully I had my BE degree and could look at a DOS screen and type c:/dir and look all intelligent and important. Thankfully I was hired.

My affair with advertising continued long after my marriage to Mihir. I was to move to Bangalore and was told that there was no vacancy in the Bangalore office. I handed over my resignation and was waiting for Gertie to type out my relieving letter when sways in Subhash, and literally sways me off my feet. He was moving to the Bangalore office as branch head, and he didn’t care about vacancies, Rashmi came in from nowhere and said that I was good, he said come along, I had my exit letter in my hand, he tore it, I got the transfer. Subhash knows the pulse of his people. He backs you up, lets you rise, and takes your fall. He had the ability to keep it and us together. Today if he was to start an agency under a tree and wanted people, I’d join him in a heartbeat. Of my many other bosses, Ashu was a charm. He still is. He was instrumental in bringing the fun back into work. He would sing and play the guitar for his team while they chased artworks and deadlines – for 6 hours straight. He would wake up a client at midnight to get an ad approved, ringing his doorbell, to prove a point that if you briefed his team after work hours, he would get you to work after work hours.

My interest in design came from my ability to quickly learn QuarkXPress and CorelDraw. Quark is the design dinosaur, Corel is the monkey trying to be the man and Illustrator is the man trying to ape. The love for it came from sitting behind Remy and observing her work the white canvas. I should have sat at her feet!

During my time, brands happened (Britannia, Wrigleys, 3M, Arvind Mills, Cinzano, Volvo, P&G), pitches happened (with the Mr. Gupta, Nirvik, Subhash) mergers happened (Trikaya became Trikaya Grey), takeover happened (Trikaya Grey became Grey Worldwide) and enough confidence happened to fly solo. Ashu and I did a media-related dot-com project and implemented it at Star TV as proof of concept. We were a part of the dot-com boom and the bust – funded and dusted, no loss, no gain, and full of bragging rights.

Lagaan was released in 2001 under the Aamir Khan Productions banner. I was on a break – busy being a mother, when a project big enough to bill with 8% service tax landed at my door. I had 2 hours to think of a name, open a bank account, apply for service tax, and bill the client. Monica Gangoly Productions was a direct and pompous lift. Not my best work in branding.

It’s been 22 years designing for print, film, digital and web, 18 years doing film production and editing, 11 years working towards sustainability, 10 years curating expressive and creative arts therapies courses, 9 years building creative educational tools for students, 4 years mentoring design students and now every year I will have to change these numbers on the website.

You are a strange and interesting woman. If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid. If we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call ‘fatum’, what we currently refer to as destiny. Life’s a mess, Monica.

This dialogue was my life occurrence, from the movie that was released in 2001 – Serendipity!

What! Are you still looking for my picture?