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P for Prahlad!

Prahlad Kakkar approaches all his tasks with a passion, and it is this passion that makes him believe the ad world has a big social responsibility, finds ANJANA RAJAN

MAN OF MANY HATS Prahlad Kakkar feels that the ad world should try to change society PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

Ads have a way of entering the brain as few other elements of mass media do. Sometimes touching, sometimes funny, usually smart and always concise, some of them remain with us through a lifetime, though the person behind the ad whose creative genius powered its success, may remain a faceless entity. Not so adman Prahlad Kakkar, he of the characteristic hat. They say he has a large collection of hats. The style, though, seems to remain the same. He is recognised by it, as also by his long unruly locks. Perhaps it's emblematic that the man who wears many hats in the end wears just one. Because the filmmaker, scuba diver, restaurateur, AIDS counsellor reiterates his different kinds of work are not actually different trades, because they all stem from the same source. "Always remember, whatever I do is either an extension of a hobby, something I've grown up with, or a passion."

Some would call it the secret of his success. Kakkar, with all his down-to-earth friendliness, can't escape the label of success now. To be asked to play yourself in a film has got to be the ultimate proof of celebrity. And that is what he does in the recently released Corporate.

How was it to be at the receiving end of the megaphone? Kakkar laughs his contagious laugh. "Well, the director called me up one day and said `Would you like to play yourself?' I said don't be stupid, I'm not getting in front of the camera."

What clinched the deal was the assurance that he would "get to kiss Bipasha Basu". And Kakkar's "half-a-second" scene was in, though, in his self-deprecatory manner, he feels Corporate director Madhur Bhandarkar put his reputation at risk"!

Kakkar, though, has moved on to greater projects. Last heard to be making his own full-length feature film, Bitter Rain, he says his team is actually working on two-three scripts, which he should be ready to talk about in a couple of months, during which time he hopes to arrange the funding.

Restaurant business

Meanwhile, this man who exemplifies living in the present - an "extended present tense" - is opening his third restaurant. While his Sarson da Saga (based on the love story of "Sarson Kaur and Saga Singh") is doing fine business, next on the cards is Sarak Chhap, specialising in street food varieties. The first was over 20 years ago with Jennifer Kapoor at Prithvi theatre. The restaurant business was a natural extension of the wonderful cooking that went on in the office, "where the food was free." When Genesis Films acquired a reputation for being the best restaurant in Mumbai because it was free, it was time to set up a business. The logic resembles how he manages to run his scuba diving school in Lakshadweep. If he were to skip work constantly to lounge around on a beautiful beach, his staff might resent it. But when he explains that his school needs him as it is short of instructors, everyone takes it seriously, he chortles. On a serious note, he points out that his team works with him on all his multifarious projects - now cooking, now landing at the beaches, now making an ad film or two, and, for the past two years, counselling other companies on how best to absorb HIV-positive people in the workforce. There is nothing contradictory in a bunch of dream-sellers making efforts in this direction. Kakkar is convinced that the ad world should be trying to change society, and has the power to do so, though it is not doing enough at present. "Actually it is the mouthpiece of the establishment," says the man who refuses to make ads for fairness creams because they "are retrogressive and reinforce an opinion that is obsolete.

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