Flying across Asia, daring Sars, and home-gown naysayers and finally in 2003, with Goutam as the Chairman of AFAA, India saw what is still called the finest AdAsia ever…
- ETBrandEquity
- April 01, 2020, 12:55 IST
Many people with long memories remember Goutam Rakshit the professional. His Agency, Advertising Avenues. His celeb
Many people with long memories remember Goutam Rakshit the professional. His Agency, Advertising Avenues. His celebrated partners Ashok Roy and Gopi Kukre. His much awarded work for Onida (the Devil campaign), VIP Frenchie, Skybags, TNT Skypak and so on.
I recall meeting Goutam Rakshit after India had lost the third consecutive bid to host the AdAsia. It was Manila, I was new to the industry bodies, and a respected marketing leader commented “I think we should just give up trying. It’s so embarrassing to lose repeatedly”.
I saw Pradeep Guha who was then the Czar at the Times group look at Goutam and they said “let’s do this”.
And that began an intense industry-relationship between the three of us. Which developed into a deep friendship. We began representing a diffident India on the Board of the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA), building relationships and finally won the bid a few years later. Then for almost 18 months we lived together. Flying across Asia, daring Sars, and home-gown naysayers and finally in 2003, with Pradeep as the driving force, and Goutam as the Chairman of AFAA India saw what is still called the finest AdAsia ever.
ETBrandEquity iStream Congress: A Video and Audio Streaming Virtual ConferenceIn the meanwhile the three of us remained close friends.
We called each other “Chairman Sir”! I called him Chairman Sir because he had been Chairman AFAA (and as an honorary Bong I called him Aamadir Chairman). He called me Chairman Sir, because he was just gracious.
When I was “parachuted” into the role of President of the AAAI, he was a three-time President already (he was also President of the ASCI and Chairman ABC) and he was the person I leaned upon for guidance and advice.
He was one of the speakers at my book launch and we can sit back and laugh at that speech today, and he was a speaker when I was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the AAAI and I can still hear the deep voice of Pradeep loudly commenting from the front row “Redeemed”, as Goutam completed a touching speech. In the Advertising Club, he was Chairman of the Judging Committee of the Abby Awards and I was supposed to be Chairman Event Committee (but Pradeep did all the work), and we never disagreed about anything.
We graduated into a zone where he coined a term for a group of old friends “ECG”. He solemnly declared it was the Elite Core Group but mischievously told me aside that all the members needed an ECG. That was quintessential Goutam. Always laughing and always laughing with you. So there were little holiday trips that we took together and the mind is flooded with memories of him at my landmark birthday in Goa, at an IAA CEO trip to the West Coast of the USA and a particularly difficult trip to Shanghai where N.Murali joined us as well.
But then memories are all we are left with. We were to meet as a part of the ECG on 13th. March but Covid 19 denied me the pleasure of a drink with him. I last saw him at Jaideep Gandhi‘s son’s party. He was his usual gregarious self.
I’ll never hear that sprightly voice beginning a conversation with “Chairman Sir” but he lives. Because as they say, “to live in the hearts we leave behind, is not to die.”
The author is an advertising veteran and founder of Canco Advertising.
