Defining Moments - Kiran Khalap: "I have lived my life in reverse"

chlorophyll's co-founder discusses the key moments that shaped his career

A school teacher who became a copywriter, brand consultant, travel writer, author and founded a communications company, Kiran Khalap shares a few defining moments in his career.

Most Indians opt for sanyasa ashram at the end of their career. I did so in the beginning. I experienced a sense of freedom when I was 18 because of J Krishnamurti, the philosopher and I decided to work for his cause of education.

Three decades ago, I was a teacher and a housemaster for four years in an experimental school in Varanasi. I learnt from my students, fellow teachers and the greatest minds of the 20th century who held discussions with Krishnamurti then - Buddhist scholars, Western physicists, Hindu pandits, writers, artists and music composers.

During the first phase of my working life I learnt not to push the river, as the phrase goes: to flow with events, to discount success, to understand that ambition brought frustration. I also learnt to define my identity not through what I did but through how I evolved in my humanness.

The second phase of my working life comprises my career in advertising. The four defining moments there relate to four strikingly different people.

Cossy Rosario: In 1983, Rosario was a whimsical, but eternally positive copy analyst in Lintas and I was a trainee copywriter. In just my third month there, he opened my eyes to the complex science of advertising.

My left brain feasted on cognitive-affective-behavioural models, high-leverage attributes, and tools to generate over 50 propositions inside one hour. It was a dramatic change from the sharp-as-a-balloon fuzziness that I was subjected to till then.

Alyque Padamsee: Besides being a high-profile CEO, the hyperactive Alyque was the only creative director who had trained in film making in London. He taught me script-crafting first by hand holding me (1984-86) and later (1989), by sending me to Lintas Sydney for training. It taught me production disciplines that were far ahead of the times.

Usha Bhandarkar: Ever so cool and laidback, she taught me to teach creative disciplines to management graduates and stand up to clients despite my being a relatively junior writer in Lintas. In trusting me she taught me to trust others.

Ram Ray: He was the true Renaissance Man, from Kolkata. Ray urged me to take over as CEO of Clarion despite my inexperience in management. In doing so, he reaffirmed his own generosity of spirit and made me the only chief creative officer and chief executive officer ever in that agency. If at all there is a wound on my heart, it is related to the last role. I never really fulfilled the expectations of my colleagues as CEO of Clarion.

Since 1999, chlorophyll has been the third phase of my work life. It's a brand I have attempted to create in a self-referential mode. chlorophyll was made possible by a man called Madan Bahal, who like the rest of the giants in my life, trusted me unquestioningly. Today, my new role as consultant to the Nandan Nilekani-led Unique Identity Authority of India is a new challenge, a new level of learning.

Where does that leave me vis-a-vis the future? There is a beautiful quote by Teilhard de Chardin, the French philosopher and priest, who was also a paleontologist and geologist: "To create is to unite." That's what I will be pursuing - uniting people and ideas and sections of my identity within myself.