Whether it’s the revolutionary tunes of Rang De Basanti or the catchy lyrics from Delhi 6 songs, Prasoon Joshi has proven that art and music need not be derogatory or offensive in order to be popular in Bollywood. Recently Joshi’s heartfelt poetic tribute to the girl child after PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik’s Olympic wins was widely shared on social media with celebrities like Deepika Padukone and Kangana Ranaut also tweeting about it. Currently working on a web series with Neerja director Ram Madhvani alongside a book which will be a compilation of his poetry, the Mumbai-based lyricist-writer-poet-adman turns 47 today. Joshi, who will head the music jury at Spikes Asia 2016, talks to us about what poetry and advertising mean to him, the importance of technology today and how the audience needs to be more vocal about offensive lyrics.
People should definitely put a stamp of rejection on the work they feel is substandard. You should get up and switch the song off and make a bold statement to your family members, to the girls in the family and to the men also. That – ‘listen, this is not going to be on in my family. I am not going to run this song. Nobody is going to play this song in my family. This is compromising women, this is compromising the girl child, this is racist, this is sexist. I am not going to allow this...’
Advertising caters to the child in me. Advertising is like something made in a microwave. It loses its relevance fast. Except for ads like thanda matlab Coca Cola or Happydent, mostly they come and go. Poetry is like dheemi aanch pe chada hua ishq (a simmering passion). Poetry caters to the adult in me.
Technology is very much a part of our lives. It’s no more an option to make a digitally viable campaign. So you have to have something, a thought which catches on, catches the imagination of people. Earlier people had appointment viewing, you know that at this particular time people are going to watch Mahabharata and I put my ad there, I have guarantee that so many people would have watched my ad. Now giving a message to these people is very challenging because you don’t know which programme they are watching when.
It’s a very cluttered market that we are living in and it’s no more a novelty to have a star. It’s not easy to just put an ad with a film star who says ‘I use it, do you?’ That doesn’t work anymore. You need to have a very good idea and a very good reason for the star to be there.