The PR Pier - Much Ado About Nothing

I have had a checkered history of sorts when it comes to a career. In fact I would refrain from even calling it a career, considering I’ve been occupied in vocations as different from the other as skydiving and scubadiving, as also the fact that in none of them did I ever graduate to occupy the next level because by the time promotions came, so did our move – to a new town and a new workplace. Like most firsts, the first job has its own place in the memoryspace. My first job experience can be wrapped up well in the title of one of Shakespeare’s plays – Much Ado About Nothing. I remember it as a drone of some stunningly insipid tasks and celebration of some routine, unexciting results, which I am afraid to admit did not carry even an iota of achievement about itself.

I began with being an executive in a PR company, which translates to no more than being a clerk, following stories on the brands that you’re on, cutting and pasting them on a file, writing eulogies to the company’s credit, irrespective of it being eulogy-worthy. If the market share of the auto giant is nosediving, project it as an environment conscious, social citizen; if an upmarket restaurant is opening up, offer a few free lunches to the food writers (it’s a different story that there are no free lunches and you expect the eats to translate to real meat by way of a thumping praise for the restaurant in the foodies’ column); track down the scribes who’re following the corporate beat; breathe down their necks like any private bank’s loan-selling agent – in short, do everything to transform your computer printout into a newspaper story.

The journey of the text from the PR company’s desktop to the pale pages of the newspaper is somewhat like that of a superstar rising up from the gallows of anonymity to delirious stardom. However, unlike the superstar’s asiduity and charm in new releases, which helps him stay at the top of the charts, the corporate can not possibly churn out any bestselling idea at intermittent, if not regular, intervals to keep featuring on the financial pages now and then. So it was largely up to the weight-bearing PR mules to maintain the client’s popularity ratings and constantly endeavour to keep the name appearing on the pages in some context or the other.

Selling the press release was the most difficult, if not impossible, part. A PR story is not an advertisement which the company pays for. This is mere goodwill creation, keep throwing the company’s name into the financial pages of the newspaper, and you’ve earned the scraps from the giant who’s employed you as its PR agent. There’s nothing in it for the print or electronic medium unless it is a groundbreaking new product or philosophy, something exclusive that the newspaper or TV channel would give its right arm for.

Product launches, however, were easy times, all you needed to do was organise a press conference. You’d turn into an event manager, tie up with a hotel, become the courier for the invite to the journalists and the bait would be sound bytes from the company’s top men and a lavish spread of lunch. Interestingly the pivot for the success of the press conference, that is attendance from a huge number of publications and channels, would not be the exclusivity of the product or the stature of the brand ambassador. Instead it would be the stature of the venue and the exclusivity of the menu that would ensure the maximum footfalls.

Gruelling hours would be spent over deciding the venue, the invitees from the media, the delivery of the invites, the phone calls before sending out the invite, the phone call confirming the receipt of the invitation, the phone calls confirming the attendance, and then finally a plan outlining the execution from entry to exit. The pointers to success would be visible soon after the PR people occupied their places behind the desks handing out press releases before the conference begins. If a heavyweight journalist from a heavyweight publication walks in, half the battle is won. And even if the rest are from the light-weight category, it makes no difference, so long as all the seats are occupied and the client is made to feel that he’s got his money’s worth out of the sheer numbers of this congregation. But that’d be just a curtain-raiser, the real worth of the show would be the quantity and quality that would get covered and emerge the next day.

So like buyers of a lottery ticket hunting for one particular number, the next morning would be spent poring over newspapers to see the details of the press release. There would be surprises, some pleasant and some nasty – some newspapers, who the PR executives thought were putty in their hands had only a curt announcement of the brand launch, while the ones with attitude were singing paeans about the positioning, price and the promise of the product and how it would outdo its competitors in the near future.

Expressions would change from dejected to upbeat, accompanied with mild cursing and some exultation. The precious words from the papers would then be cut and pasted and filed for posterity in the voluminous folders made for the same – medals of gallantry in the visibility war. After the victory lap, people would start staking claim to a particular journalist’s presence at the conference or a half page description of the company’s plan or deride a colleague’s association with some newspaper crony where only six sentences have been published in spite of the gala event.

Spurred by the success the bosses would go advertising their achievement to the client. The client’s expression would remain fixed at some particle in space even after our bosses have got over with a rendition that would make Milton come out of his grave. But obviously the client knows that Milton is not enough and he wants some of Shelley and Shakespeare too as he wonders aloud, “I remember there was a journalist from X Times, why hasn’t the story featured in that newspaper?” The bosses open their mouths, shift about a bit in their chairs, give some vague answer and once again start mouthing words to get Milton out of his grave.

Hereafter, there would be an unending repititiveness to the whole process of clothing the client’s persona in different sheens and textures while the basic mannequin remained the same. At times, I would wonder, what are we trying to sell more, the face or the clothes. But time and again that is what we would end up doing, making our draping plea with a new-found grandiloquence at each step of our selling our non-seller strategem. Another act in the play titled, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.

The 6-year wonder

December 2010, Atharv, my son, turned 6. There are many shining indicators of his having become a ‘big boy’. For one, he is out of kindergarten and has entered Class 1; second, he has miraculously stopped sucking his thumb of his own sheer will; third he has his fingers rolling seamlessly over the keyboard of his synthesizer. The pencil on the paper now moves quicker than usual and he can manage to mouth some impeccable English without me having to stitch his words with the grammar thread. The computer games show his level rise from easy to medium to tough, as he maneuvers the movement on a minefield or saves the ship’s crew from drowning. Much as I feel thrilled with the mind and the body muscles making visible strides towards acquiring more power, there is a vague fear of keeping myself abreast with this new-found development. I had thought that it would not be until his teens that my mind would start ticking about keeping pace with his thought, mindset, needs and abilities. But his ability to wrap up transactional analysis even before I can set it into motion has all my neurons doing a break dance within.

Queries like why his TV viewing is contingent upon his having finished his homework, or why he needs to learn to ride a bicycle, or why his younger sister doesn’t get yelled at as much as he does, or why children are not allowed for certain official parties, or why adults don’t undress before the kids, or why characters on cartoon network kiss on the lips onscreen but Mama says it is unhygienic to do so in his context, or why do people have to die, or where do they go once they are dead, or why he can’t pet the stray dogs in the colony, or why are they called stray dogs when the whole colony is their home – have been coming my way for a long time now. He and I are like two tennis players sending the ball back and forth from my court to his waiting for the other one to bat an eyelid and score a point. Right from the start, I have endeavoured to lace even the fairy-tales with a bit of real. Of late however, as he does a touché act with his repartees to some of my ‘rules on life’, I realize that while he revels in the mysticism and make-believe of stories and television, he deserves real answers to real questions. The questions are gaining more depth and I am increasingly out of depth providing custom-made answers.

For instance, a typical conversation goes like this.

“What is Good Friday?”

“It was the day Jesus Christ died.”

“How did he die?”

Now much as I would like to leave out the gory details of the crucifix, I don’t want to insult his intelligence.   So I begin with the age-old tale of good vs bad and victory of good over evil and tell him the story as bloodlessly as possible. He listens with consternation; I feel that he is playing the scene in his mind when the next few questions have me stumped.

“But didn’t you tell me Jesus is God?”

“Yes.”

“So how can God die?” I swallow before I can construct the next logical answer for him.

“Well he did and didn’t. He resurrected himself on Sunday and that is why we have Easter.”

Somehow, he’s not happy about the idea of God having to die and instead of ‘moral of the story’, the conversation ends with his ‘advice after the story’.

“Mama I think you don’t know this story too well. It is not possible for God to die. No one can kill God.”

The profundity of his observation about God being immortal leaves me with no choice but to concur, but the slur regarding the absence of correct details in my information bag has me worried. Also, he has some pertinent demands on why he ought to be treated differently from his father by the entourage of help at home. As my husband’s helper gets him a glass of water after he gets back from office, he promptly asks for a glass for himself as well. While I am telling him not to ask his father’s assistant to get him water, he immediately asks me, “He gets it for daddy, why not for me.” So I begin with the whole concept of privileges associated with the kind of work Daddy does.

“Daddy works so hard day and night. He works for us and also leads his men at work and in battle, and that is why he is entitled to that glass of water being served to him when he gets home.”

“But what about you? You don’t work, you only sleep the whole day, still you’re served a glass of water when you get home.”

Now this one is a rude shock, though he’s said it very matter of factly. My recovery, however, is quick. “It’s not bhaiya (the assistant) but didi (my domestic help, who stays full-time at home with me), who gets me water. And why, I go the school, I work for the welfare of the jawans’ families, help you with your homework. Isn’t all of that work?”

“Well yes,” he says after a thought, “but still it’s didi who does the maximum work in the house.”

“How come?”

“She washes our clothes, washes the dishes, cleans our room, locates all our toys for us, puts all our clothes properly, isn’t that a lot of work?”

“Yes, but I teach you, bathe you and dress you up, tell you stories……..”

“But that’s not hard Mama; it is didi who does the real hard work.”

Having said that he walks off having made a case in point. I realise it’s actually not a tough job to work for my own kids but it is definitely hard for my domestic help to make a living out of washing dishes and  support her entire family with the meager bucks she makes thus.

So there goes my theory about all the work that I do, he can already distinguish between ‘ordinary work’ and ‘hard work’. This very adult-like quality to his constant quest and observations is a mixed bag. For instance I was once trying to get Gayatri, my daughter to eat her veggies. I was telling her how I started to eat vegetables. “Before I got married to Daddy,” I began, “I didn’t like many vegetables, and so Daddy’s mother, Dadi, said, “that’s not so good”. Then I began to eat different vegetables. Then Daddy’s younger brother got married and Dadi asked his wife, Mitali the same question. She used to eat all vegetables. Dadi was very happy. Then Daddy’s youngest brother got married. She was asked the same question. She too used to have vegetables but not all. So Dadi told Mitali chachi, “You are the best”.”

“But mama, how can that be,” Atharv interrupted me before my story progressed further.

“Why?” I asked him.

“Because it is YOU who is the best Mama.”

For once my spirits have soared sky-high with his remark.

“Really?” I ask him.

He nods his head nonchalantly indicating that I am asking the obvious.

From the uncanny knack for articulating wisdom out of the banal, to the innocence underlying the most brutal and frank opinion, every remark of my son is a cerebral stimulant. But amidst the moments of self-introspection that arise out of his comments, there are also moments of immense self gratification. Especially that particular moment when my son declares that his mother is the best.