Vakadu Vantalu

Backstory

When you google Ashok Reddy TeamLease, you realise that Ashok has everything. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. So when we got invited to his 40th birthday, I was at my wits end on what gift to get him. It was to be grand event in Hyderabad. It seemed like a very big thing for a regular birthday, but Chendana told me that since Ashok was a confirmed bachelor and would never get married, this was an excuse to have all his his near and dear ones get together. Even more reason to get him a gift. So we go to this fancy hotel where his party is hosted, empty handed of course, and in attendance is the entire Reddy clan, his friends from all ages and stages of life and alcohol. Just a few minutes before midnight, he goes on one knee and proposes to Pooja. So now this birthday has turned into a pre-engagement event. More pressure on the gift. All I remember of the party was taking lots of alcohol, taking lots of pictures and not taking any gift along.

I got back to Bangalore and made him a coffee table book of the party pictures. With a headline that said – Are You Reddy? A few months later, he married Pooja. The Reddy was Ready. The book found place on his coffee table.

Subsequently, I moved to my new house at the other end of town and we didn’t keep in touch. 10 years later he called to say he wanted to gift his mum a recipe book of a selection of her best recipes for her 75th birthday. I said Yes in a heartbeat. We shot at his beautiful home, eating the food that we shot, and taking home the rest.

Ashok and Pooja left no stone unturned in the execution and production of the book. Mother Reddy was happy.