Mohsin Hasan Pirzada, Pir Sb.
(November 2009)

A Prince Amongst Us

Mohsin Hasan Pirzada or Pir as he was lovingly called by so many people, who loved and adored him, represented that breed of advertising professionals who chose advertising and not the other way round. After a fine and scholastic career, when he was ready with all that university life could teach him, he turned to this profession and remained loyal to it throughout the rest of his life. He never ever thought of doing anything else. When a trio of louts riding a motorcycle recklessly hit him on the evening of Saturday the 7th November as he crossed a road in a busy part of Lahore, they flung him in the air and brought him down far away from where they impacted with him. Bleeding profusely and unconscious, he was taken by passer bys to a nearby hospital where he lay unattended while the hospital debated, as they do here, whether this was a police case or not. Pir bled for almost two hours till his wife and family were somehow contacted, then shifted urgently to Ittefaq Hospital. Mohsin fought tenaciously but on Thursday night, the Grim Reaper had the last word.

How does one begin to explain what he was? He was born to be an advertising pro but only on his terms. It was a profession that was in his bloodstream and while he savored it passionately, he took the punches and the praise in his usual nonchalant manner, never being impressed by pompous and ignorant clients and never being cowed down by the big occasion. He took many things lying down quietly because at heart he was a peaceful man who wished to stray clear of conflict – though conflict was never too shy of barging into him every now and then. There was no doubt even in those who accosted him that behind that affable smile and the ability to convert the most serious thing into the sum total of its absurdities, there was a man who knew what he was doing. He was one of the very few I know who could create an imaginative campaign in minutes without so much as a brief because he instinctively knew what was required. Often he would run into lesser mortals who without his comprehension and deep understanding of people and this difficult art-science craft were unable to share his insight.

I had barely started my first advertising agency early in the 80s when Pir sauntered in one day, just having returned after a stint in the Gulf but firmly convinced that it was Pakistan where he wished to be. He had already put in time at that great agency, SASA, led by Lal Mian and including such stalwarts as Fakhri, Zaidi, Mirza, Sohail, Sharafat and Anwari among others and at whose table supped the likes of Mahmud Sipra, Zakaria Mohammad and other men and women of exemplary qualities who made Pakistan advertising shine with their brilliance. On my persuasion, Pir joined Midlink whom we always referred to as ‘The Missing Link,’ and seriously toyed with the idea of a monkey as an icon.

He stayed with me till Midlink died on a hot July afternoon in 1997 and I walked out with a bunch of people who refused to stay behind. Pir, wooed relentlessly with one tempting offer and another to remain, dilly-dallied but I think he enjoyed being wooed and was not intending to stay back. Lubna who had walked into the agency in 1987, probably having driven up straight from the Department of Fine Arts, University of Punjab, armed with a degree and a clear focused approach to adopt this strange profession, was the other pillar. We somehow found a lower portion of a house near Lahore’s Café Zouk, but we neither had clients, furniture, equipment or indeed money. Frightened out of our minds, we must have waited but a few hours before the first of our clients walked in and wanted a full page ad. released the next day. We drew the rough layout on a car bonnet, then rushed all over town to lay our hands on a computer and a printer to complete the layout. That was how Headstart began and when my late brother Khalid Hasan remarked that it was the name of an organization that dealt with people with mental disabilities, I meekly concurred, for indeed we were just that.

In a little less than six months, the French streamed in, looking for an agency preferably one that was not too expensive but had a smattering of professionals who owned the business. In us they found both and I remember Mohsin signing the MOU and telling Guillaume, ‘Be gentle. It’s our first time.’ The launch of Nestlé’s foray into a new category, water, was what brought the French to our neck of the woods. They had little or no interest in whatever else we did or could do and after a particularly long and bitter altercation one day, Mohsin who took quite a few below-the-belts from the network’s Vice President and a powerful one indeed, lost his temper. Flinging his chair back that crashed into the wall, he stood up and yelled, ‘Are you calling me a liar? How dare you,’ and stomped off and refused to return. The VP not used to this, particularly from one who seemed quite indifferent which way the rope was swinging, got subdued. Mohsin had made his point. As we struggled through the late 90s and into the new millennium, Mohsin decided that this daily grind was killing the joy of creativity that he enjoyed and the last thing he wanted was to slave for his next meal. So we parted company but remained, as we always had been, close and good friends. The Sunday morning sessions devoted to coffee, gossip, the latest jokes and the latest books at my house gave way to occasional meetings and calls but there was never any doubt of the affection from both sides that settled to feel like a soft and warm blanket on a cold rainy day.

A few years ago I wrote some of the escapades that I knew of where Pir was the leading character and was reminded gently by editor that I may please stick to fact and not fiction. When I insisted that this was indeed a factual narration, I got disbelief from the other side! Just about most of my funny stories about this quirky profession feature Mohsin in one form or another. And it’s a long, long list. Long before we both joined together, he while at SASA had to make a presentation to one of their large accounts, The Saigol Brothers. All was well other than the small fact that the campaign was miles away from being ready, so Mohsin having run out of excuses arrived at his client’s office, out of breath and excited and informed Malik Sahib, that the campaign was indeed ready. In what only he could pull off, he lunged for the large white cardboard cover that housed the artworks and registering a look of utter horror mumbled that he had forgotten it in the rickshaw! As he shot out of Malik Sahib’s office who was having a coronary by now and rushed down into the chaos that was The Mall, he ran hither and yon and finally returned to tell Malik Sahib that the rickshaw had vaporized and could not be found for love or money. Malik Sahib put an arm around Mohsin and said not to worry, that the campaign could be re-created and he shouldn’t blame himself. The great end to this caper came later when Mohsin indeed did arrive with the ‘new’ campaign but in what I can only describe as life imitates art, actually forgot the campaign in the rickshaw, made this startling discovery in Malik Sahib’s very skeptical office and rushed out again. This time the rickshaw was waiting!

In the early 90s one of our clients insisted we do the post-op work on a commercial we had shot in Lahore at, of all places, the CNN studios in Atlanta. There was no way we could convince our client otherwise. As we circled to land in that city, the home of Coca Cola, one fine summer afternoon, I turned to Pir and said, ‘Mohsin ask for anything in this city but please don’t ask for Pepsi,’ so you can understand that the first thing he did ask was if there was any Pepsi to be had. On our way back, we stopped briefly in New York to stay with my jazz musician friend, the trumpet and flugelhorn player, Jimmy Owens who has played with the likes of Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. One of Jimmy’s most treasured possessions is a trumpet Miles gave him. It hangs on a wall in his living room and is a hallowed object. Mohsin who didn’t give two hoots about jazz, plucked it off the wall as Jimmy in the middle of making us drinks, simply froze. Pir blew the dust off it, gave it a skeptical look and blew into the mouthpiece. A terrible sound came out as Jimmy Owens had a seizure. ‘Hmmm,’ remarked Pir not the least bit rattled. ‘Could never play the damn thing,’ he said, flinging it on the sofa. It remains a miracle why Jimmy Owens didn’t strangle him right there on his sofa.

Our return journey brought us to England where Pir had spent many of his early years. While I took a train to Oxford to spend time with my nephew, Pir took off for Birmingham where a colony of uncles, aunts and various other members of the Pir clan were in happy existence having been there for years and accumulated impressive amounts of money and real estate. In answer to my query, Pir said that he would tell the nephews and uncles to show him the ‘lights of Pind Birmingham’ and go pub crawling like all decent folk. Three days later, he called and said he was on his way to Oxford. ‘But Pir you said you were staying there for at least a week or two.’ ‘Will explain later Chief,’ he said. ‘I did all the family news bit – you know who’s dead, who’s not, who’s where and who’s doing what, he explained. ‘When I asked them to show me some ‘rounak,’ (fun), the uncles went into a huddle and said that we all could troop off to the grand mosque. We can introduce you to the community and you can meet all the Pakistanis you need to meet.’ ‘What about the pubs, some lager?’ Pir asked. ‘Oh we don’t go there. All our social life is at the mosque.’ That’s when Pir decided to hightail it out of that city.

There are countless stories but at least one must be shared. In 1992 or thereabouts, we pitched for the PAF account and almost got killed getting to Chaklala from Lahore on a rainy and treacherous day. This did not impress the gathering of the eagles – almost two dozen of the PAF’s top officers with the Air Chief presiding because we were late by 15 minutes. It was a hostile group of steely-eyed men who started at us as we, our clothes still damp, tried to put our considerable campaign into some order. Clearly we were starting off the wrong foot.

Pir stood up to speak, ran a finger carelessly through his hair and with a theatrical flourish plucked a single sheet of paper from the sheaf in front of him. ‘I have here before me,’ he said in his warm and wonderful tone, ‘a recent survey we have conducted with 100 girls from ten leading women institutions in Lahore on the choice of a marriage partner.’ He paused for what seemed an eternity as the words sank in. ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the most sought after and 10 being the pits,’ he added, ‘the Pakistan Air Force gentlemen ranks at a dismal 9, slightly above the Pakistan Postal Service.’ There was commotion at this verdict. Everyone had sat up, the complacence replaced by disbelief. ‘We did no such survey,’ I hissed to Pir. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I made it up to get their attention.’ ‘Gentlemen,’ he spoke loudly and clearly. There was respectful silence. ‘What you need is Tom Cruise.’ With that he brought the house down.

‘And let’s face it,’ Mohsin added as a parting missile, ‘the only time you guys make the news is when your F-16 hits a wild boar on a runway in Sargodha,’ and as they were still reeling from this assault, he added, ‘or one of your birds goes down.. Gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘where is your USP – your unique selling proposition? Your fighter jets, your ace pilots. Where have you hidden them?’ He picked up a layout carelessly and flashed it towards the Chief. A day earlier, Mahmud Sipra had been quietly sipping his coffee in my office as we were preparing the campaign. He had suddenly shot up from the sofa, grabbed a paper, made a doodle and written a headline. That was what lay now before the Chief. It showed a dozen or so smartly turned out pilots in their flying suits, helmets in hand, arrayed neatly on either side of a gleaming jet facing the camera. The headline was vintage Mahmud Sipra. ‘The F-16 costs US$ 43million. The men are priceless.’

Chaklala experienced a sonic boom that morning without a jet having taken off. What had indeed taken off was the Pakistan Airforce Boardroom, now excited as an adrenalin-charged campaign unrolled on and on before them. We won the account hands down that rainy morning but never released it or for that matter made a single penny from it. PAF had an apology of an in-house charity agency (they still do a couple of decades later). Had we been given the work, they would have had to be terminated. It was not to be.

From Publicis to Midas, then a brief sojourn with Worldcall and back to Midas was Mohsin’s flight path till death took him away so cruelly and so needlessly. To his friends who loved him to distraction, he was always the rascal, the Peter Pan in him always resilient and his irreverence about all things that reeked of authority, an endearing quality in a world full of men without much substance. To people like Lubna who worked with Mohsin non stop for 15 years or more, he was the teacher, the one who opened the doors of advertising to her. ‘He taught me computers saying never to fear them and he taught me to have faith in my belief, my professionalism. Whatever I learnt began with him.’ And that was Pir, always ready to share what he knew, always willing to do one more twist to what he knew best. He taught at colleges, forums and wherever he was called. He always shared what he had learnt, never holding back on nuggets that only a wide scale exposure to this art can provide. All you had to do was ask.

He loved beautiful women but was single mindedly devoted to Guddi, the woman in his life. They had an easy, laid back relationship and were great buddies. He was the same with his two daughters – Ayesha and Sarah and when the grandchildren arrived, who could have asked for a more doting and caring grandfather? Ayesha was his favorite – not that he played favorites but in her he found the same spirit, the take-it-on challenge that was his special signature. They have lost a great father but should take some heart that he was a most unusual man, generous to a fault and always willing to share even if he didn’t have much, which is the real test as we all should know. Books were another passion and he was forever introducing me to his eclectic choice of fiction that he would sniff out. The Hitchhiker’s Guide was one such book that he was immersed in just about all the time.  

He was always a guide to so many who are in the industry and to all new challenges he was more than happy to meet half way. Voiceovers, parts in commercials – young man to grand daddy he managed it all – ‘actor, director and ticket collector,’ as he once put it. But in all this he maintained a healthy contempt for money. It was just paper necessary to pay mundane things like bills and rents. After years of rentals, when he finally built his own home, fate did not let him spend the rest of his days in that home of his. He had been there hardly a few months when tragedy struck. Some years ago, when he turned religious, he gave it the same passionate embrace that he did to just about whatever fell in his path, but while he practiced it with vigor, he never forced his views on any body least of all his friends. We forget those who walk amongst us far too easily. It is my hope and one that I think would be shared by many who knew him, that the industry institutes some awards for its best practitioners. The newly formed AAP – Advertising Association of Pakistan, the one truly representative body of advertising, should honor his memory and others like him – Lal Mian, S.H. Hashmi, Naseer Haider, and Umar Thanvi – I am sure they know the names.

A few months back, Pir’s father – both his parents survive him, called late at night and asked him to hurry over to his house the other end of town. ‘I think my time has come,’ when Pir questioned him. There was nothing Pir could do so he got into his car and soon enough was with Pir the Elder. ‘Pull up a chair son, I don’t have much time.’ Pir obliged but as the long night ticked away there was no sign of Pir Sahib the Elder, making his way off the planet. By 6 am Mohsin had had enough. He gently prized his hand from his father’s and said, ‘Aba Jee I don’t think your time has come yet, so I am going home if you don’t mind. As and when you get a positive call, let me know.’ Pir could pull off stunts like that.

Pir’s time did come but it was no time to go. As we buried him on a half-dry half-rainy afternoon below a polluted and dust laden Lahore sky, one’s heart went out to his loyal and long time wife and best friend Guddi, his two daughters and grandchildren. We cannot bring him back but we do know that he was a prince who walked with us and touched so many lives. As Mahmud Sipra wrote so eloquently from Dubai, ‘a peerless communicator.’ Rest in eternal peace my dear friend and abstain from making any campaigns for the facility you are undoubtedly grabbing with your usual enthusiasm and joy of living.