CHENNAI: Talking to Indu Balachandran is a bit like carrying on a wacky, fun-filled conversation with your alter-ego, albeit one that looks at life around you with a keen, hilarious eye. On the eve of the launch of her book, Don’t Go Away. We’ll Be Right Back.(The Oops and Downs of Advertising), Indu goes on a rewind trip, describing what made her a Gwaliorborn, Bangalore-raised kid – “largely on an unhealthy diet of MAD Magazines since I was 8,” she gurgles – write a book on her years working in JWT, moving from copy trainee to VP to Executive Creative Director, over 29 years.Coupled with the zany illustrations of Paul Fernandes, her book is all about a rollercoaster ride through life in an ad agency: trials, triumphs, trip-ups – and the professional’s happy ability to laugh at itself. Now a travel-writer and humour columnist, Indu reveals, “advertising prepares you for anything.” Of course, acquiring alternative skills as a drummer in school and an English teacher with a superb sense of humour may have helped. “Despite this deep influence, I set off to acquire an Economics degree at the iconic Central College, which was judiciously located next to the Central Jail in Bengaluru. As Paul Samuelson (American Economist) may have had a heart attack if I actually went on to become an Economist, I hurriedly joined a Journalism course,” she declares with a straight face.She may have joined the Deccan Herald after her course, but she says rather woefully, “Chief reporter, Freddy politely asked me to join an ad agency, seeing my excessive use of exaggeration.” Her next move was to JWT, where she thought she’d reached heaven. “It was a desi Mad Men show of the late 70’s. At the Chennai office, Pond’s dominated my life.Then Parry’s Coffy Bite, with the “Coffee? Or Toffee?” argument,” she says. “But making films for Pepsi was the best of all — script readings with Maddy and Suriya and sitting two heart-stopping inches away from Shah Rukh Khan between takes! And regularly going to AR Rahman’s studio to listen to Pond’s jingles around 3am was the most goose-bumpy of all,” she exults.Whoa. Those are certainly experiences and a half. “I’m also a compulsive notes-taker,” Indu admits. Ad-related howlers dot her book: unintentional bloopers uttered at meetings – “Let’s avoid the usual clichés like the plague!” hysterical proofchecking errors – “Our restaurant has a bra attached” – all crop up. And she began writing spoofy articles for magazines, which suddenly grew into a whole book.Asked how much of it is sourced from real life, she grins. “People are saying: “This is exactly what happens in my agency too,” so these are universal truths about ad agencies. But this industry has the amazing ability to laugh at itself.Apart from the obvious absurd exaggeration, which is my style, there’s huge affection in all that leg-pull.” And yes, many of the wacky overheard-in-office one-liners are, she says, from her diaries. “Don’t ever tell Jay Leno, but I stole some lines from his show and twisted them around.For example, “[Ad agencies] never make the same mistake twice. Plenty of new ones are available.” Indu now has several little notebooks bursting with funny stories from her travels, but she also has lapses of delirium, she admits.“I think of doing stand-up comedy,” she says dreamily.“There’s also a racy plot for a screenplay buzzing in my head. And it very definitely stars Shah Rukh Khan, Maddy and Ranbir Kapoor.”
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