Hai Koi MICA Lal?

Once upon a time I used to live in Ahmedabad. And I used to work for the ad agency called Mudra Communications. Those were heady days for advertising agencies. The founder of Mudra AG Krishnamurthy (AGK) ran the place. The Ahmedabad office of Mudra used to be decorated from the floor to ceiling with photos from the various shoots of Vimal. Remember the "Only Vimal" campaign starring the oh-so-gorgeous Mehr Jessia? Deepak Parashar, Deepak Malhotra, Bikram Saluja and Himanshu Malik were the male models who were the brand ambassadors of Vimal suitings.

The creative duo Freddy Birdy and Naved Akhtar were the stars at Mudra those days. Their campaign for Nestle Polo "Mint with a hole" was the rage. I still have prints of their public service campaign "All You Have to Spend On the Elderly is Your Time" at home.

Mudra had set up the Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad, known as MICA among students. MICA was one of the first schools of communication and advertising in India. Tucked away in the village of Shela near Ahmedabad, the campus was still being built as the first batch of people from MICA graduated. I have not been to MICA since then but from what I hear MICA is not only doing well but thriving.

It was great to know that it is not just students but Professors who read the book Mediocre But Arrogant and liked it. Here is a mail from Deval Kartik - a Professor at MICA. Deval Kartik (deval@mica.ac.in) is an Adjunct Professor at MICA. I had to be cautious while spelling that word. It is not "Ad Junked Professor", stupid. Here is her mail to me:

"Hey Abhijit

Thanks for writing such a 'straight from the heart' book. Really enjoyed reading it. And now waiting for the sequel.

I loved the book at two levels. One, it is set in the time I can identify with. I graduated to be 'Mediocre But Arrogant' in 1990. Not too far away for your period, though from a completely different part of the country. Yet, there are several characters one can identify with clearly...some profs and some batch mates!

And now, I am on the other side of the game and can almost sense my students calling me...well...I hope not Kaamini!!! Hehehehe.. But more than that I can really see where all assignments come from, why someone is ever so bright for a 6pm PPT and lot more.

The best I could do was gift the book to MICA library and just tell a few of them about it!

The good word spreads ever so quickly!

Cheers and keep writing!

Deval Kartik
MICA"