Bubbling with indefatigable energy, Alyque Padamsee was a unique genius who had mastered both theatre and advertising. Famous for playing Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi, he also created several iconic advertisement campaigns on Indian television.
A Double Life takes you on a memorable, sometimes hilarious, trip spanning nearly all the years of Padamsee's brilliant career. It also offers you a chance to go backstage with the man dubbed 'God' as he unfolds thrilling scenes from his high-voltage life. With acute human insights that illuminate the book like flashes of lightning, Padamsee reveals the hidden stories behind the provocative ads for mega brands like Liril and Kama Sutra, and blockbuster productions like Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Alyque Padamsee (1931-2018) was director of the Theatre Group of Bombay and chief executive of Lintas India. Considered the guru of English theatre in India, he has over seventy-six major productions to his name, including Broken Images, Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar. Informally known as 'God' in advertising circles, he successfully launched and built over a hundred brands.
Padamsee was also communications adviser to Chandrababu Naidu, the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, where he supervised the presentation to the then US President Bill Clinton and to the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for Theatre by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and was a recipient of the Padma Shri. He is the only Indian to have been voted into the International Clio Hall of Fame, the Oscars of world advertising.
Many people are amazed that I have two full-time careers, one in theatre and one in advertising, when they can barely handle one. Incredible as it may seem, I've spent most of my adult life helping to run Lintas among the largest advertising agencies in India-while at the same time, producing and directing fifty full-length plays for one of the most active theatre groups in this country. 'How did you manage it?' they ask. 'Is there any connection between the two professions?'
As I look around Bombay today, I am forcefully reminded that there is indeed a connection. Theatre people dominate the ad scene. If it's not Sylvester da Cunha Amul-buttering his way to glory after being a cardholder of the Theatre Group of Bombay for decades, it is Kersy Katrak leaping off the stage after Hamlet and forming India's legendary advertising agency, Mass Communication and Marketing (MCM). Then there are Roger Pereira and the late Homi Daruvala, the twin thespians who took Shilpi Advertising from an elegant boutique to a Top Ten agency. And Usha Katrak who stunned audiences with her Medea, years before she stunned the ad world with the agency Radeus.
Alyque Padamsee is a most extraordinary man. In earlier days, his prolific range of gifts and activities might have been surprising, but in our own age of specialization, the combination is rare indeed.
I first met Alyque in London in 1980, when we were both senior managers in the Lintas advertising network. He was running India's leading ad agency and I was managing our largest client, Unilever's food business worldwide, before going to Sydney to lead the Australia and New Zealand operations. Arriving in Sydney, it was clear to me that I needed completely new approaches to revive a slumbering company, and I started looking around for ideas. What about that man Padamsee? He was managing a very obviously successful business with a wonderful reputation in the key area of creativity. What was he doing to achieve it? So I started a dialogue (and a friendship) which progressively revealed over the months and years the amazing scale and scope of his world.
Back in the 1980s, there was a joke that was doing the rounds in advertising circles. Alyque Padamsee, CEO Lintas, also known as 'God', had a secretary called Jenny Pope. The joke said, that in order to meet God, you first had to meet the Pope.
Over the years, as I've got to know Alyque closely, I've often wondered why he was called God. I think I've understood. His perspicacity, his vision, his creative genius, his inimitable organizational abilities, his unending energy and his uncanny omnipresence-any one man who is endowed with all these qualities certainly qualified for the post of God. Today, as I write the introduction of the book on India's greatest English theatre and advertising man, I'm honoured. From being my boss in Lintas, to being my friend, guide and perpetual pace setter, Alyque has inspired, motivated, sometimes bullied but always encouraged me in my endeavours.
My earliest memories of Alyque are those of an incredibly casual but very focussed professional. He gave 100 per cent of himself to the issue at hand. He wandered around Lintas in rubber chappals (when he had a heel problem), equally at ease in the canteen and boardroom, giving freely of his advice to anyone who cared to listen. The smart ones not just listened but made mental (in my case written) notes. His organizational abilities amazed me.
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