Piyus Pandey (1955-2025): Desi Boy

Piyush Pandey was unique, like his ads. Born one of nine siblings to a cooperative banker father, he saw Bharat from the ground up, first travelling from village to village in Rajasthan in Pandey Sr's jeep, and later travelling through the country while playing Ranji Trophy cricket for his state, seeing the cries of chai chai change to kapi kapi and the hot samosas give way to medu vadas. 

At St Stephen's College in Delhi, he acquired the polish needed to join the advertising giant, Ogilvy, but it was his desi heart that captured everyone's attention. As an Anglicised generation struggled to understand the new consumer raised on Doordarshan serials and a burgeoning market, Piyush Pandey, he of the printed shirts, handlebar moustache and booming laugh, became a star.

Whether it was writing the lyrics for the iconic song Mile Sur Mera Tumhara; designing the effective polio campaign, Do boond zindagi; or making memorable ads for Asian Paints, Cadbury and Fevicol, Pandey was where the action was. Writing copy, brainstorming, leading a team, touch by honour and genius, Piyush Pandey was with Ogilvy for 43 years, a lifetime spent in the service of easy communications. He didn't write to impress, he wrote to entertain, inform and enlighten. Not for him the use of celebrities, which he called a form of CSR because their movies were failing. A turn of phrase, a slight change in words, and voila, and an ad was born. Like Asian Paints homes. in which har ghar kuch kehta hai, every ad said something, meant something.

He wrote because he loved telling stories. Whether it was telling the story of Rajasthan Tourism or of BJP in 2014, he knew the magic of hope. His desh had given him so much, the least he could do was listen to its dhadkan (heartbeat). Like the Fevicol ad, everything he created didn't just land, it stuck. He was the aam aadmi with something khaas (special) about him.