A QUIET FORCE

Bazaar India Editor NANDINI BHALLA chats with Mumbai's (decidedly charming) image-maker and founder of Spice PR, PRABHAT CHOUDHARY, to discuss the nuances of brand building, the meaning of success, the unanticipated shift witnessed by Indian cinema post the pandemic, and more.

- NANDINI BHALLA

We never started out to create Spice PR. The idea was simply to create something we loved, so we combined marketing and movies, and ended up doing PR.

Back then, there was a vacuum in the space and we knew there was ample scope to do things. Fortunately, Aditya Chopra—known to be one of the most difficult persons to meet and approach—was our first client. Having Chopra on board can be purely attributed to providence. It was also a time when Yash Raj Films (YRF) was reinventing itself—we brought the studio format into the industry. The first film was Hum Tum (2004), and, in the same year, there was Salaam Namaste (2005), Dhoom (2004), and Veer-Zaara (2004). We were just surrendering to the experience, and we learnt many things on the job. I wasn’t sure if there was a future here, but we went on. It was pure luck that I got to interact with brilliant minds like Aditya Chopra and Aamir Khan. The idea was to give it our best, and we kept doing that. I think our timing was right because our story coincided with that of new Bollywood. Spice PR started out with three or four people—we are now in our 20th year.”

AN EARLY TRYST WITH BOLLYWOOD 

“One of the first movies that I remember watching was Razia Sultan (1983); it featured a seductive song, Jalta Hai Badan with a nautch girl’s performance. It is an embarrassing anecdote but, as a child, I was intrigued— and vaguely attracted—by the song. Later, I picked up the lyrics, and would sing it too. One day, a few friends asked me to sing a song, and I chose Jalta Hai Badan… my mother was not pleased. Later, as a literature student, I learnt to experience narratives. Literature gives a person the quality to appreciate narratives, and also makes one a good reader...”