Alack, bareheaded!

There's a poet lurking inside every copy writer. The ends may differ  — to move the reader to a certain mental state in poetry and to move him enough to procure or recognise a product in advertising — but the means of using words to 'startle' the reader from a humdrum condition to a more engaging one is the same.

Again  Pritish Nandy
Rupa; Rs 995;  Pp 103

So it comes as no surprise that one of the best advertising men that India never had, Pritish Nandy, has returned to poetry, his first love, after wading through the swishy waters of journalism, politics and film production. Unsurprisingly, Again is a collection of poems that has the smell and the spring of topshop billboard slogans. The cascading typography that comes with the words has a glossy ad's signature on them. The rather ironic lines, "My friends are famous. My enemies too./The women I have loved (or escaped from) are now more famous than me./And that's how I would like it to be./I raise a toast/to my anonymity," remind me of the good old liner notes on an LP.

Full report here Hindustan Times