in vacant or in pensive mood

Finally came across a very simple McDonald's ad with an amazing insight at the heart of it. Called IMPATIENCE (by Oniria\TBWA in Paraguay, directed by Sebastián Sorera), it shows people digging into the bag of their order and munching on fries as they try to close the lift, get into their car, or wait at the drive-thru. There are two interesting things here. First, the idea of impatience. McDonald's personifies the fast food category. People arrive already hungry and don't want to spend much time figuring out WHAT to eat. But the thing that really gave me goosebumps was the idea of digging into the fries. And that is universal. Any order, whether online, dine-in or takeaway, that comes with a bag of fries, the fries are usually the first thing people grab and munch on before they even open the burger. That's what makes this ad so good, and one I truly enjoyed watching: a human insight at its heart. It's a category-generic insight, yes. But what makes it truly McDon...

It’s 2026. I have just spent six hours randomly viewing ads on AdsoftheWorld.com. But I decided to pivot from the aggregator and go straight to the source. That’s what brought me to the Fallon website, where the very first ad I came across was a lovely Disney ad.   Being a dad to an 11-year-old girl, I fell in love with it instantly. The insight is simple and powerful, as most great insights are. Once a princess, always a princess. The ad follows two girls who live opposite each other and become thick as thieves, playing princesses in their imaginary Disney world. Then life separates them, only for them to find each other again years later, now with daughters of their own, playing with castles and Disney characters. The ad moved me not just because of the girls’ mannerisms and behaviour, but because everything felt so right. The depiction of the elder sister as an evil Disney character, their carefree dancing on chairs, the paintings, and their simple exchanges of messages were...

Every day, when I pray in the Samadhi in the Ashram, I try to focus and count the different bird sounds I can hear. From the near to the faint and distant. If the mood and ears permit, I not only count the different sounds but also how many of the same species too.  This is a good way, I figured, to help me focus and identify different sounds. It's another matter that although I hear these birds almost every day - I yet don't know the names of some of these birds based on their calls. These birds, most of them, have built their home on the auspicious Service Tree that oversees the Samadhi. This tree has been the natural cover over the samadhi for as long as I can remember. In the last decade or so, it has unfortunately been causing a lot of problems.  The tree has been leaning towards the Samadhi almost as if bowing its head on to it. This is what usually happens when the roots of a tree grow in one direction and cannot grow any more on the other. Due to this, there were stron...

The recent victory by TVK, led by Joseph Vijay, the superstar, made me look Tamil Nadu politics from the lens of a curious strategist.  Tamil Nadu has a long standing love affair with Cinema Politics. It's a state that has managed to convert reel power, superstardom to a political machinery for governance. And it has a track record of 6 decades. Vijay isn't an aberration, he is the norm proving the fundamental system. But as a strategist, I felt that this state doesn't elect politicians but archetypes and characters who are required for the story of the times.   Each of these people become successful when their party's manifesto resonates and aligns with the unmet needs of the voters and resolves the cultural contradiction of the times. Their archetypes truly shine when all of these align. Let's start with Karunanidhi .  He came to power as a highly educated, intellectual and powerful orator, script writer and the architect of pushing the Dravidian philosophy to the...

Here's a prime example of simple questions absolutely stumping you: "Can you explain the the difference between feeling and emotion?" That's a question I was asked by a carpentry teacher with whom I have had several philosophic discussions. But this one was different, it felt different.  My mind felt that it knew what the answer was but somehow, deep down, I wasn't happy with what I shared. I intuitively and almost instinctively felt that emotion had a higher weightage or bore a deeper meaning in our lives, than feeling. So my response was that feeling was how we reacted to our surroundings as a response to any physical, mental or physiological changes, and emotion was our enhanced sensorial and conscious mind acting upon those reactions. So, I told him that feelings came first and emotion later. But I also felt that emotions could be unconscious and in our banter, strangely felt that even feeling could be unconscious - especially when we don't know what we ar...