Mayur Hola (M): Utho A, chocolate se le kar khichdi tak, it’s soppy ad season. Let’s write something contrarian? Rip it all to pieces as only you can.

Adyasha Roy Tomar (A): Judge me all you want. But I fell for it. I wrote a love letter. To advertising.

M: 

A: Deal with it, you’re a big boy now.

Dear adland, You’re a promiscuous one. Millenials, Gen Z, now gen Alpha. You three-timing-billion-dollar-industry. Yet, I can never be mad at you. You, Narnia of wants and needs and desires. My love, lust, loyalty lies with you.

They say you’re not good for me. Sometimes they say you’re dying, sometimes they call you toxic. “Get out while you can,” they tell me. From Santa Claus to ZooZoos, you’ve created dreams out of dust, you’ve said ‘just do it,’ and ‘isko laga dala toh life jhingalala’ in the same lifetime, you make me imagine for a living. I’ve loved you since the day I met you and love, it hurts sometimes. It hurts so good.

I see all that you do for me, my love. The hours of research to know my nooks and crannies. The intricately crafted words you use convince me of what I want, as if it was what I ALWAYS wanted. The dreamy visuals you use, the celebrities you employ to do your bidding – I am in awe, what a number you do on me.

Me, and leave you? Never. How many people can say they dream for a living?

I love you.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

M: Adyasha. Asha. Adya. A!

Sigh! So we’re going with this mush flow? Fine. Here’s my mosh mush pit.

Playing with balls. Football, basketball, medicine ball, stones as balls, just, you know, balls.

Doing nothing. Zoning out. Zombie mode on. That!

Doing everything. Working, doomscrolling, flirting, texting, losing my shit, staying zen. Watching a game. Playing a game. Just all at once. Just like in the movie.

Food and people who make the food, serve the food, dream up the food, ugly, delicious, messy, sexy, comforting, posh, junky, post-coital, pre-coital, just fucking food!

My people. I am the bone collector and my people know this. Also, people. I love observing people. Not judging them, I feel judgement comes in the way of learning. So, I watch quietly and without comment. I love how people move, eat, talk, grimace and kiss. I love the power people have over me. And vice versa.

Magic. Last but never the least, I love the magic that is creation. We the creators are magic. Nolan knows this. Lynch knew it. Bourdain knew it. Jobs knew it. Maradona knew it. Monet knew it. All the greats who create and influence the human mind know this. We are not bound by descriptions like art, marketing, adland, brand, cock, creator, whatever. We are only bound by the limits of our imagination. I quote from The Prestige: You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call ‘The Prestige’.

I live and love The Prestige.

Tomar is creative director, McCann Worldgroup, and Hola is vice president - brand, Swiggy. This first appeared in the February issue of Manifest. Get your copy here!