Usha ‘unknown’ Bhandarkar

In 1960, the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize. The story of To Kill a Mockingbird is told by Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, daughter of Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends a Black man in the 1930s era.

Atticus Finch is considered one of the greatest characters in fiction, but he is based on Lee’s real-life father, Amasa Coleman Lee.

Scout Finch is ten years old and can’t quite comprehend her father’s impact on society. But the one incident that shatters her image of her father as an old, gentle, almost boring man is when the sheriff asks him to shoot a rabid dog. Atticus does that in one shot, revealing his hidden skill as the best marksman (“One-shot Finch”) in Maycomb County.

What’s the point here?

Picture this. 

Murray Bail is an Australian writer of short stories and fiction who migrated to India and became the National Creative Director of Hindustan Thompson Associates (HTA) in 1968.

In August 1969, he wrote a letter to the staff.

“Ever since Mary Wells became Queen of Advertising, a good number of people have naturally looked for her equivalent in India. Which dame (they wondered) has this class, is a brilliant writer, an innovator, will never say no, is terribly sexy, and tramples over timid men in advertising?”

“Gentlemen, she is here….Timid exec-fruits and dead clients beware.”

Guess who he was referring to?

Usha was then called Usha Shivdasani.

And she was just 25!

Picture this.

A global legend in advertising, after whose name an agency still exists, wrote this in 1976.

“Dear Usha, … I write to congratulate you on becoming the Director of Ogilvy, Benson and Mather. Wonderful news. I am told you are the best copywriter in India. How lucky we are.”

It was signed, David.

David Ogilvy.

Or picture this.

In 2019, the first ever OTT serial on advertising, named Thinkistan, got launched on MX Player.

It was created by an advertising writer named Padmakumar.

In Season One, Mandira Bedi plays Anushka, the agency’s sharp Creative Head. She is a strong yet considerate figure, managing office politics and gender dynamics with quiet professionalism.

Guess who the character is based on?

Padmakumar had worked under Usha Bhandarkar in Lintas in the 90s.

Here’s what Mandira Bedi said: “I am playing the role of a boss who is hard-working, selfrighteous and courageous…she is loved and respected.”

Sounds like a description of someone we all loved and respected :-)?

Or picture this.

In 2023 a partnership of Kyoorius and Indian Creative Women created an award. It grants the winner (must be a woman under 30) an all-expenses-paid trip to Cannes Lions.

Guess the name of the award.

The Usha Award. Named after Usha Bhandarkar.

However famous, Atticus Finch was a fictional character.

Usha Bhandarkar was real.

What is unknown about her is how much of a legend she was in the eyes of industry legends.

“The Mary Wells of India”

“India’s best copywriter.”

“Anushka, ‘the most likeable character I have ever played’, according to Mandira Bedi.

T S Eliot used the phrase “the still point of a turning world” to describe a state of transcendence over the chaos of a linear world.

Thank you, Usha, for transcending the mundane, the banal, the ordinary.

Thank you for teaching us to be still when aiming high.

Love you always.