Their ever-changing hairstyles and bold, unconventional fashion choices aren’t the only things they did Bhaskar Das memorable. The colorful marketing maverickwhose BDisms are legendary in advertising and media circles, passed into a higher realm on Wednesday morning (at age 72), surrounded at home by his loved ones, which is how he wanted it to be.
BD, as he was affectionately called by many (and Bhaskarda, by some), joined Bennet Coleman (BCCL) as a Management Trainee and, after more than three decades in frontline revenue roles, retired as President-Response.
In the two and a half years since he was diagnosed with lymphoma, even though his tall, thin body became more frail by the day, he never lost his joie de vivre or his sense of humor. A week ago, when a former colleague came to visit him at Breach Candy Hospital and announced himself at the door, Bhaskar’s nanosecond response was: “I have cancer, I don’t have amnesia.”
Nor did he lose the desire to learn that he had had all his life. He gave his admissions interview for his third doctorate the same day he started chemotherapy. He was always young, always curious.
For several years, he also worked as ET’s brand director. It was a position that required him to delicately and strategically balance editorial demands with his primary responsibility as head of advertising and sales. He did it with a combination of intellect and intuition. He always appreciated good journalism, reading the newspaper cover to cover and often calling or texting ecstatically in the morning about a great headline or well-written story. That made it hard for editors to say no when he “requested with folded hands” for an “innovative ad” (read odd-sized ad) in the paper! Their first reaction would almost always be “no,” but then he would cajole and cajole them and, in most cases, manage to wear down their defenses.
Those who worked with him remember how BD supported innovative ideas. Among the many examples they recount is how he supported the team that worked on India’s first in-flight magazine, Rajdhani Times, even when most dismissed it as a wasted effort. It created the Gray Cell and Red Cell divisions, recognizing that experiential solutions and IP would be a focus area for the brands. He kept his door open to everyone, turning his office into a center of ideas and energy.
His little nuggets of wisdom (“You can’t fight a tsunami with an umbrella”) became part of the lore. He always asked the team to think “backwards into the future,” which meant seeing the present from a future perspective and planning accordingly.
After withdrawing from Him Indian TimesHe went on to hold senior positions in several large media organizations.
He faced the end of this phase of his journey with equanimity and lightness of being. But not before he had given his feisty wife Shoma detailed instructions on what songs would be sung and what food would be served to celebrate his life.
He would delight in telling the world that his surname ‘Das’ suited him perfectly because it meant ‘servant’. But to many of those who worked with him and whom he enthused with his infectious enthusiasm, he was “Bossman.”