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Tag: Harper Collins

  • The novel titled 'Journeys Never End’ exchanges hands through the film

    Harper Collins celebrates25 yrs in India with Dentsu

     

     

    Harper Collins India celebrates 25 years in India through a film that celebrates books. The campaign consists of a film that shows the journey of a novel. The novel titled ‘Journeys Never End’ exchanges hands through the film.

     

    The film starts with an old man holding the novel whilst traveling in a bus. As the bus stops at a church, he forgets the novel behind. A young man notices the book and picks it up to give it to him but the bus leaves. We see a young woman board the same bus and take the seat adjacent to the young man. She notices the book in the young man’s hands. Seeing her interested in the book, the young man hands it to her and leaves as his stop comes.

     

    What she finds written on the first page of the novel gives the film an unexpected twist. The film ends with supers,“Stories create books. Books create stories”and the HarperCollins India logo.

     

    The campaign was launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival, 2017.

    Said AnanthPadmanabhan, CEO HarperCollins India: “We made this short film to celebrate our lifelong passion for storytelling. Something that simply reaffirmed the power of stories and the fact that books open up a world of unimaginable possibilities. And in Dentsu One we found the perfect partner. Narayan’s love for the written word and Titus’ spontaneous creative impulse were the perfect combination. We all have a story and we love stories – and we thought that this was a great way to say it!”

     

    “In the advertising business, we keep talking about how we are all storytellers. Here was an intriguing brief that had us create a story about stories, without the storyteller intruding. When we asked Ananth ‘What do you want to happen as a result of this?’ he said, “The outcome I want is for the viewer to say ‘I want to pick up a book now!’ after seeing the film.” The insight was—in retrospect—very simple. Each of us is a story-creator, sometimes not knowing that’s what we are, mostly not knowing what triggers await us around the corner. That’s the basic reason books appeal to us: they tell the stories we believe we could have created. After all, our lives are a series of stories,” said Narayan Devanathan, group executive and strategy officer, Dentsu India.

     

    “HarperCollins is such an iconic brand with about 200 years of history. It was a great experience to work on this brand. Ananth’s brief took me back to my literature days. Books contain stories. But I thought there are stories that exist outside the books as well. That’s how the line came up. Books create stories. Several stories emerged from this line. We just decided to break the campaign with the Firozaone,”said Titus Upputuru, NCD, Dentsu One.

     

     

  • A former Senior Editor of The Times of India, Praful was one of South Asia's most widely published columnists

    Eminent journalist Praful Bidwai passes away

    By A Correspondent

     

    The print world has lost a very powerful and particularly relevant voice; a voice that for over forty years that has taken a consistent, unequivocal position in favour of a just, equitable and inclusive society in India and peace and nuclear disarmament globally.

     

    Praful Bidwai passed away unexpectedly on June 23 in Amsterdam at a dinner after a conference at The Transnational Institute. A former Senior Editor of The Times of India, Praful was one of South Asia’s most widely published columnists, whose articles appeared in more than 20 newspapers and magazines in the sub-continent and the Middle East. He is also frequently published by The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatiqueand Il Manifestoandis a founder-member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (India).

     

    A Senior Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, Praful Bidwai is co-author, with Achin Vanaik, of South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999, a radical critique of the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan and of reliance on nuclear weapons for security.

     

    His new book being published by Harper Collins, “The Phoenix Moment: Challenges Confronting the Indian Left”is an epic study of the achievements and the crises facing the Indian left.

     

  • The Creative Head at Draft FCB Ulka, Kochi, has released his first book 'The Vicks Mango Tree'

    Adman Anees Salim turns author

    By Ananya Saha

     

    Anees Salim, Creative Head at Draft FCB Ulka, Kochi, has released his first book about the Emergency. Called The Vicks Mango Tree, it has been published by HarperCollins. With a canon of Indian literature about Emergency, Mr Salim said, “Yes, the Emergency has been widely written about. But, for a writer, the darkest period in India’s history never loses its charm as a subject. The Emergency had captured my imagination very early in life, even as a schoolboy, and let me add that The Vicks Mango Tree is not just about the elements of the Emergency that should be criticized, it is also about the elements that should be laughed at.” However, he is hopeful that readers will find a different take on the topic through his authored fiction.

     

    When asked about his passion for writing, “To me, working on a creative brief and writing a book are two entirely different processes. I don’t think one process makes the other any simpler, unless you want to write a book on advertising or a novel set in the ad industry. But I do think advertising could be the ideal day job for a writer. This is the only day job I would do, and I am qualified to do. I would be a big misfit in any other industry,” said Mr Salim.

     

    Mr Salim, a dropout and proud of the fact, joined advertising in the late 1990s. He started his career as a trainee copywriter with Draft FCB Ulka.

     

    The adman is also authoring three other books. ‘The Blind Lady’s Descendants’ will be out in January 2013. Published by Amaryllis, the book tells story of a Muslim family living in a little known town. The book is in fact the suicide note of a young man named Amar Hamsa, who witnesses the slow decadence of his family. ‘Tales from A Vending Machine’, published by Harper Collins, will be a funny account of Hasina Mansoor, a 20-year-old girl running a tea vending machine at an airport lounge. A huge Bin Laden-fan and a fierce critic of America, Hasina is a keen observer of the sweeping changes in the Indian aviation industry. The book will come out in April-May 2013.

     

    The fourth book – Vanity Bagh – will be published by Picador. It would sketch the picture of a tiny Pakistan inside a big Indian city against the backdrop of a serial bomb blast. The book should be in stores by the second half of 2013.

     

    With a full-time advertising job, which in itself translates into whacky hours; how does he find the time to write? “In both the publishing and the advertising industries there are strict deadlines. I don’t claim to be an expert in managing time. But I sleep less, and start my day very early,” he quipped.

     

    While Mr Salim hopes that the book does well and readers find a different take on Emergency through The Vicks Mango Tree, we are enamoured by the name.

     

     

     

    From the Blurbs:

    A few months after a state of Emergency has been clamped onIndia, Raj Iyer, a fledgling journalist living in the alley of the Vicks mango tree, goes underground, to resurface some years later in a corner of theMunicipalParkas a bronze statue. No ones sure exactly why he has become so famous, though there is talk of a book being written on him, which hails him as a modern hero of Mangobaag.

     

    The Vicks Mango Tree is the story of the tiny fictional region of Mangobaag andIndiaas she limps through twenty- one months of suspended civil liberties, half-hearted revolts and stern censorships. It is also the tale of Teacher Bhatt, Rabia Sheik and Shankar Iyer, ordinary people in pursuit of their middle-class dreams, and local legends like Maharaja Muneer Shah, Miss Myna and Dr Abid Ali, who live and die in the dying light of a glorious past.

     

    Full of odd characters and piquant situations, and alive with the politics and possibilities of a not-so-long-ago time inIndiashistory, The Vicks Mango Tree is a compelling first novel.