%20(3).png)
A specialist’s journey from the early years to the heights of success always makes for an inspiring story. For instance, how did the renowned Dr Devi Shetty develop his remarkable heart surgery skills? How did Dr Abdul Kalam, a poor boy from a small fishing village, transform himself into a specialist in integrated guided missile development? How did a simple village boy like Srinivasa Ramanujan with no formal training in mathematics go on to specialize in advanced mathematical analysis, dazzling scholars at Cambridge with path-breaking concepts like the Ramanujan Prime and the Ramanujan Theta Function?
In today’s post, we follow in the footsteps of an amazing actor who has specialised extensively in character roles, redefining the very concept of what character acting is all about. In the early days of Hindi cinema, character acting roles were stereotypical – the hapless father of the heroine, the arrogant father of the hero, the friendly family doctor, the faithful friend of the hero and so on. Boman Irani has successfully shattered these stereotypes with incredibly differentiated roles like Dr Asthana (Munna Bhai MBBS), Professor Virus (3 Idiots) and Farokh Sethna (Being Cyrus).
Boman Irani began his working life as a young waiter at the Taj Hotel in Bombay, but this was just a brief stint. He left to join the family’s bakery business, manning the counter at their wafer shop in Byculla – a shop called ‘Golden Wafers’. Both these jobs gave Boman a unique opportunity to observe customers at close range. Boman says: “I observed every customer very minutely and picked up some quirk or the other”. Later he used his observations to add a variety of dimensions to the characters that he played. In fact, Naseeruddin Shah once pointed out to Boman that the wafer shop was probably the best acting school for him (Boman).
As Boman Irani’s own story indicates, the making of a Specialist usually begins with small steps. P Mark Mustard Oil (for which Boman Irani is the brand ambassador) too started out as a typical SME product with a distinctly rural slant. In the years that followed, the brand broke away from its “commodity” identity and emerged as a first mover in its segment. Going from strength to strength, the brand expanded its market presence, its distribution footprint and its portfolio. It went on to pioneer the advent of mustard oil in mainstream media – transforming its regional character by reaching out to Pan-India audiences through a series of television and print campaigns.
Over the years, P Mark never wavered from its single-minded focus on mustard oil. Its in-house R&D facilities worked tirelessly to develop value-added products and innovative variants. The brand’s stringent quality management initiatives received recognition both in India and abroad; it received the National Quality Award from the Government of India and the International Star for Quality Award from BID, Spain.
The relationship between Brand P Mark and its brand ambassador is a perfectly matched partnership between the ‘Acting Specialist’ and ‘The Mustard Specialist’. This is probably the reason why this relationship has endured – becoming stronger with each passing year.
