How an ad changed my life

[Applause]

namaste

i am people today’s uh

theme of the event is asthatva and

i think for as long as i remember i have

been identified or as tithified

as a curly haired girl but while i was

growing up

the idea of curly hair being beautiful

was so alien to the people

i was growing up with that it was almost

considered as a disability

definitely it was very difficult to

manage i was growing up with

very dry dull almost damaged hair

and it was nearly impossible for anyone

to manage it

i remember my relatives meeting me and

saying oh to maribya

still the same they would give advice to

my

mom like you know you should comb her

hair a certain way so they will

straighten up

i just felt that there is something

certainly wrong about the type of hair i

had

and that’s how the the idea that curly

is not beautiful

was instilled in my head but i was fine

with it as long as

i was in school but then i turned 17

and the days of tying a ponytail or

having oily hair all day were gone

and now i was in college and college was

the time when i was supposed to be

a diva but unfortunately what bollywood

had taught me all my life

was that only girls who had straight

long black beautiful hair were the divas

everyone else who had short hair who had

curly hair

who had anything other than this normal

diva

stereotypical diva were not considered

too good these were girls who would be

unhappy

or wouldn’t wouldn’t be the protagonist

or would be considered a very negative

character or would be friend zone

and i didn’t want to be friendzoned not

so soon at least

and that’s when someone introduced me to

this magical

magical thing in my hands it was

a straightening iron and what it did was

it could straighten up my hair and

immediately

like in a blink of an eye i would look

so different

i would i started looking beautiful all

of

all of a sudden it was completely

magic to me i was so happy to receive it

i wouldn’t i

i couldn’t thank more to god and to the

people

who invented this i was so happy that

all

it took me was just pulling my hair on a

burning hot plate

and that’s it there i was it felt like i

was the cinderella who just found a

ferry

all of a sudden i felt like i was the

most beautiful

chick on this planet conditions applied

i

i was aware of the conditions that i am

beautiful only with this hair

straightener

not without it when life happened

i grew up to enter advertising

and what are the odds i was managing

uh beauty brands i was selling cold

creams and

face lotions and beauty creams and hair

products

hair conditioners etc and i was enjoying

it

this was also when i was going on a lot

of dates and meeting guys

and i met someone who was a really

really charming guy

and eventually fell in love with him

he was the guy any girl

would feel so proud of he was good

looking

he was smart he was attractive he was

from a good family

he was well educated he was well behaved

occasionally but he was everything

i could i have ever dreamt of like he

was more than that

and that’s when i felt that if i could

have this guy

that would be like an ultimate

validation of

me being beautiful

that’s it there it was i just need to

have the sky

but there’s this thing uh there’s a

complex that a lot of

people who have newly acquired wealth

often go through uh they feel

often obsessed with this wealth that

they have suddenly acquired

so much so that they get insecure about

losing it

it’s called sudden wealth syndrome it’s

a real thing you can

google it and i felt that sudden wealth

syndrome hit me at that point

and well my fears came true

when this guy started behaving he

started acting weird and eventually

dumped me

but that’s not the bad part i mean i’m

happy

that he did the worst part was that he

dumped me on a whatsapp message

like that’s what he chose to

to break up with me

and that just left me wondering that

what is it exactly

that happened that make made him hate me

so much

he did not give me a specific reason for

this breakup

so i started digging in and i started

blaming myself that there must be

something wrong that i did

there is something wrong probably in me

probably i don’t look

good enough probably i am not good

enough

and suddenly all the things that i had

heard

as a as a child and everything that was

said to me as a kid by my aunts about my

hair

about my body about my face everything

came back to me

and i started believing that i am not

beautiful i am not even closer

close to it i am ugly

i feel so ugly that i stopped looking at

myself in the mirror

in fact i stopped clicking pictures or

even facing the camera directly

while taking pictures there is a

specific timeline

on my instagram where i’m not facing the

camera directly

it was the period when i was shying away

from facing myself because i hated it so

much

i mean isn’t it funny that a person who

is the brand custodian of so many beauty

brands

actually couldn’t relate to the beauty

category itself

i felt distant from the category of

beauty

from my own beauty and this went on

for a few months when i was also taken

on board with

another brand which was a hair product

brand

this brand wanted to do a campaign for

their shampoo

and this was under the campaign thought

of true beauty

it’s not the actual name but sort of

similar

and so i went through everything that

they have done i was trying to study the

brand whatever they have done in the

past i was trying to read their history

all the ads that they have done in the

past and what i learned was that true

beauty was trying to feature

women of different types they were

trying to break the idol standards of

duty that are usually portrayed

in media or in in films

and they were trying to feature women

with different hair types

the one like me also with different skin

type

with different body types with different

skin colors

and i don’t know what happened to me

that time

but i just after doing this activity for

the entire day

at the end of the day i went in front of

the mirror and took a good look at

myself

i just opened my hair i untied them and

i went for a wash and when i came back

i left my hair for the entire week just

the way they were

i did not comb them i did not

try to arrange them they were frizzy

they were curly they were puffy they

were just the way they were

and after many many years for the first

time

i felt truly beautiful with no

conditions applied

and that day i understood the power of

an

idea the idea

that straight hair is beautiful was

instilled in me as a kid

the thing is that human beings love

symmetry

we find symmetrical things beautiful

very easily

because symmetry is easy to adapt it’s

easy to register

and that’s why we love it but anything

which is remotely asymmetrical

we find it different we find it

difficult to understand

and when we define it difficult to

understand we call it weird

it instills doubts in us and human

beings don’t like to be

in doubts that’s why every weird thing

or every different thing becomes

not so beautiful and that day

this template of beauty in my mind was

broken

and i’m grateful to this brand for doing

this

but that is not the only template i was

carrying

our mind is set to create templates for

everything because it makes our job

easier just like how we do it in

advertising because it makes our job

easier once again

and just like beauty i had a template

for success also in my mind

i always wanted to become an author

and i wrote my first book with a lot of

interest it’s called live life stop

analyzing it

i wouldn’t recommend you all to go and

read it it’s a pathetically written book

i wrote it when i was in 12th standard

and i was i would

i remember i would take all the time i

would get from my studies and

try to write this book uh in that time

my second book is something that i love

i i it’s my favorite one

it’s called dope kebab and that one was

written with a lot of love

my third book however is the one i would

recommend

to you i would highly recommend to you

to go and read that book

this one was called two day down and

this was written out of

sheer greed of becoming a best-selling

author

and that was the template i was living

with

the thing is that as i grew up being a

writer in the publishing and

book industry i understood that it is

very important for me to become a

bestseller

a best-selling author because that is

what will get me

bigger publishers publishers who will

actually give me contracts which means

hashtag fame hashtag name hashtag

richness hashtag money hashtag

everything we all want

so i i started working towards that that

became my dream that became my template

to success

and i did everything possible whatsoever

whatsoever possible to get there

and i got there i did instagram reviews

i did

a post to follow i did a lot of

campaigning i went on to the

to to most noted platforms just to speak

about my books

i gave people my book to read and then

review about it

i did of click baits i did free copy

contest

i did meet the author contest i did free

workshops i did blah blah blah hundreds

of things

and here i was i derived i became the

best seller

i became the best-selling author

but i as much as i want the story to end

here

it unfortunately doesn’t

because in real life stories don’t end

after you become something

becoming beautiful best seller

successful they are just adjectives to

feel

and in order to feel them you need to

consistently be them

there’s nothing like becoming one of

them

unfortunately it took me a while to

understand that

because when i became a bestseller i was

clueless of what to do to

do with this tag i i did not turn the

rich

overnight i did not become famous

the way i imagined i would become

i nothing changed nothing much changed

around me or in my life i was the same

person working in advertising

living off my salary i was doing the

same things

nothing nothing changed

and it only made me disappointed i felt

cheated i felt like

someone told me that if you will become

a bestseller

then something good will happen to you

you will become rich you will become

famous

everything that you ever want would come

to you

i felt so cheated that

there came a point that i felt like i

should i should call it quits it’s high

time

because i didn’t know what to do from

here

what to what to what should be my next

goal what to dream next

and while i was it again it felt like

a breakup because i was i was with this

i was in the relationship with books and

with

writing for over a decade and i loved it

but today i was so heartbroken that i

felt that i need to walk off i need to

walk out of this relationship

i felt so heartbroken that once again it

felt like it reminded me of the

breakup that i just went through

and then i said to myself that wait a

minute

maybe this is not the love for writing

that is making you feel this way but the

love for

the best selling tag that is making you

feel this way

because this best seller tag was once

again

a validation for me to be worthy of a

writer

having a best-selling tag meant i was a

great writer

and when i was not able to make that

make that happen

or may give get a proof of that it

disturbed me

once again i was struck by the sudden

wealth syndrome

so i thought that okay let me put aside

all the tags

and look beyond them and see what

happens

that’s when i started focusing on the

art form

and i started enjoying it for what it

was i

started enjoying writing for what it was

and that is when i realized that you

know probably i don’t need

a publisher to treat my ideas and rebond

them

as per commercial viability maybe i

don’t need the mamas and cha-chas of the

world to validate

my style of writing or review it

maybe i don’t need a charming contract

to validate my worthiness of being

an author or a writer as long as

my idea is worth spreading

today i write and i share my ideas

as a copywriter through acts as a

screenwriter to my short stories

and short films and as a speaker

through platforms like tedx

i intend to add perspective

to someone’s life through my writing

i truly believe that perspective

is a really strong power that you can

share

a perspective has the ability to bring

about a change

its perspective that makes one design

different

from the other and make one type of

beauty look different from the other

type of beauty

it’s perspective that helps you break

one template

step out of it and create another

a lot of times we blame media for not

representing

beauty the way it should be or for

showing negative

uh standards of beauty but in my case

i believe i’m thankful for the same

media

for changing my perspective on beauty

and they did it by

simply reshaping the template they used

to sell a beauty product

and i couldn’t be more grateful for them

doing this

so as an advertising professional i

would highly recommend you all to use a

template in all your social media posts

but keep away from them when it comes to

life

thank you

you