Page 51 - Seniors Today - April Issue

course at the Royal Dartmouth College
and saw action during World War II in
Scotland in the air raids conducted by
the Luftwaffe. The only remnant of Bal’s
short naval career was the helm of a ship
which adorned the back entrance to his
living room since his days in Darbhanga
Mansion on Carmichael Road. (Bal later
moved to Surya, his bungalow in Reis
Magos facing the Mandovi river in Goa.)
After his stint with the Navy, Bal worked
as a flight navigator with Air-India before
his ceremonious jump into the world of
advertising.
Such was his supreme self-confidence that
he once went to meet Bill Bernbach of Doyle
Dale Bernbach on Madison Avenue hoping
to strike a deal with him. I don’t think he
managed to, but it hardly deterred him.
Enough has been written about
Bal’s exploits as an advertising man.
His impatience with clients and his
unparalleled aggression made his clients
see him as an equal rather than as a
vendor as ad agencies are often seen today.
Wherever Bal sat a conference room
table that seat automatically became the
head of the table, such was his immense
personality and flair. He was known
for walking out of the reception area of
companies if clients did not call him in time
for a meeting. He was equally comfortable
with politicians and big industry leaders as
he was with royalty. Once during a dinner
with him and Gerson daCunha at the Thai
Pavilion at the President, he casually
recalled a conversation with “Zulfi”. It took
a while for the penny to drop and I realised
that he was talking about none other
than Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who obviously
was close to Bal, having studied at the
Cathedral and John Connon School in
Mumbai.
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #22 | APRIL 2021
Bal at an Ulka workshop at Fariyas Hotel, Lonavala in
1986. Photo courtesy Shalini Kagal
Bal was larger than life, his charisma
was all pervading and it shone on people
and things around him. Besides his
acumen as an advertising man, his others
interests is what made the man. He was
ardent art collector for one. When I was
a young advertising executive he once
asked me which clients I had handled
during my career, and when I mentioned
Grindays Bank he immediately told
me that he had the original etchings of
Captain Grindlay, Indophile, Imperialist
and artist.
His collection of chess pieces was
legendary. Some of them were over a
thousand years old. Noted for being one
of the pieces used in the Satyajit Ray’s
“Shatranj ke Khilari” he once regretfully
told me that when the chess set was
returned to him after the film shoot, one
of the pawns was missing. Bal loved
chess. In fact when I worked briefly at
Ulka, I would make a little extra pocket
money by beating him every day at lunch.
An instinctive gambler, he normally
played at Rs 100 a game. That meant that
I would at least make Rs 1,000 every
month to supplement my meagre salary
because I was a much better chess player
than he. But he would always attribute
his losing the game to me to the excellent
Saraswat food that I would share with
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