On Childhood, Storytelling and Making People Fall in Love
“Madhura Swapnangalekum Jayalakshmi…”
This. This jingle right here.
This is what got me into storytelling.
Let’s time-travel back to 2005, alright? I was a 5-year-old boy at the time from a small village called Thanneermukkom in the district of Alleppey. My parents used to take me to movies every week in the neighbouring town, and we made sure that we would reach the theatre on time. My
passion for films and filmmaking started from there. Every time we used to go to the movies, we made sure that we would reach there at least 10 minutes before the movie started-well, at least most of the time. But yeah, reaching 10 minutes before the movie started meant that the advertisements were inevitable. But for me, that was one of the best parts about going to the movies. Advertisements used to be super innovative then, and watching them on a big screen meant that it was experienced to its total capacity.
“Madhura Swapnangalekum Jayalakshmi” was the jingle to a famous advertisement by Jayalakshmi Silks. Before the movie started, that was one of the advertisements that they used to play at the theatre. Whenever they used to play this particular advertisement, I would always get
astonished. There was something about the ad that was very catchy-maybe it was the catchy jingle, the colours they used, or maybe the production design of the entire thing. I never understood what exactly made me attracted to it.
Years passed, and one day while I was going through the internet, I stumbled upon this advertisement again. It was old, and the quality was terrible, but it brought back so many memories. When I was going through the comments section of that video, I saw how this particular advertisement impacted the lives of many people. I read a comment from one particular person who went for sound design because this advertisement influenced him so much. He explained how the soundscape of the particular advertisement was designed in a way that was completely new to Malayali audiences. This was fascinating for me because it made me think how a 1–1.5 minute-long advertisement could change the life of an ordinary person forever.
This is when I realized that storytelling is where my true passion lies. Here at Mavericks, I wish to do the same, to tell stories through different mediums and to make people fall in love with those stories.
(Fun fact- To this day, the Jayalakshmi Silks play this particular advertisement on TV at their
Main Showroom. It seems like they love it a little too much)
