My farewell letter to FCB Ulka
Hello everybody,
Bye bye. Sniffs. Weeps some in her hanky. The vulnerability makes your heart crumble.
I joined Ulka in March 09. Dusty auto rides in metallic heat to the Badarpur office. In the beginning, I was quite at sea, as we tried to establish the one idea on which DOCOMO communication would be based. I had never done this before, and didn’t quite know where we were going. Once ‘Do the new’ was established, the rest of my time at Ulka was spent substantiating this claim. Got a grip on things and till now it’s been pistons pumping, steam hissing, work churning continuously in the DOCOMO factory. They made us go up chimneys and pick ideas with our young fingers till they bled. (No, not really).
I worked mostly on print and radio. By now, I am totally DOCOMO-ised. So, I now leave to kind of remember how my head worked before this. I can give you a smart line but I hope in a few days, I’ll be back to writing long rambling stuff for no Target Audience in particular, with no CTA, awaiting no CTR, in no hurry to get things ‘actioned’ for MR. And then wham! Back to selling stuff with headlines, bodycopy and jingles.
I am now moving to Mumbai with the hope of discovering the faces of all the names that are thrown around so carelessly – Bandra, Colaba etc. Hope to find out if the city beaches can compare with the Aravallis. Have a sneaking prejudice that the local trains will just make me miss the swanky metro here. But then they say, you don’t compare an ex with your current one.
I am going to miss Vasudha, who stands up for creative like a warrior. It’s been great times with Sanjay, Ekta, Ankur, Varun, Swati, Deepika, Som, Andy, Karan, Abhijeet, Anuraag, Shivi, Vaarunya, Nauti, Jaipal, Kanika, Shubhra and recently Pahwa. Richa Wadhera, your Salsa classes were spectacular. And Anurag Bhalla, you’ve been constant SFX from the day I joined. Waah waah!
Guys, seriously .. no goodbye. I’ll see you all around. Meet me if
1) You hit Mumbai.
2) You want to start cycling. On road, off road whatever. There’s a godawesome group here in gurgaon – PedalYatris.
Keep in touch. My last date here is 30th sept.
Tips hat,
Eyes disappear under,
Answers the last Q with a cigar puff.
Turns on the heel and vanishes down the dark alley.
All that jazz.
MJ