When I met Gerson Da Cunha...

Four years ago, when advertising and theatre veteran Alyque Padamsee passed away, I was looking for less-known stories of the legendary adman. I made several calls to people who could tell me tales of that golden era of advertising and Padamsee’s glorious and glamorous past and the contributions he made to Indian advertising during those years.

My first call was to Gerson Da Cunha, a close friend and colleague of Padamsee’s. At the time, Da Cunha was trying to live a chaos-free life, which basically meant that he didn’t have a smartphone. I sourced his residence landline number and called him. His assistant received my call and said he would discuss the possibility of a meeting with Da Cunha. I was asked to check in an hour later.

When I made the next call, I briefly spoke to the man himself. He said in his distinctive voice and manner, “I would love to talk about my friend Alyque. Meet me tomorrow at 3 pm.”

24 hours later, I was waiting in Da Cunha’s sunlit living room in his South Bombay flat in one of the city’s Art Deco buildings. I use the word Bombay deliberately because this feels like Da Cunha’s Bombay and I was about to take a short trip there. As I waited, through the window I could see young boys playing cricket at the Oval Maidan, which was across the street.

A couple of minutes later, Da Cunha welcomed me with a big smile. Before we started our chat, he told me he would tell me stories of a dear friend and not an adman. His narration of tales about his friend and that era of advertising felt like watching a play. He was, after all, a man of the theatre as much as advertising.

But Gerson Da Cunha, who studied biochemistry and was about 17 years old when India was freed of British rule, started his career as a journalist working with Reuters and later with All India Radio (AIR). He left the profession slightly disillusioned to join advertising, working at agencies like JWT (J Walter Thompson) and Lintas for decades. He spent his time in advertising and in theatre. Da Cunha also devoted his life to social causes. He moved to the US to work with UNICEF. In later years, he devoted much of his time and energies to public causes, to Bombay - the city he loved dearly, and the NGO that he founded, AGNI (Action for Good Governance and Networking in India).

Da Cunha’s advertising life’s highlight is at Lintas, where he spent 25 years, the last 10, from 1969 to 1979, as the agency’s head. He brought with him Alyque Padamsee and later he hired Shyam Benegal. At Lintas, they worked on prized accounts like Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and its iconic brands. At the time it was three separate companies – Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company, United Traders Limited and Levers International Limited.

In an interview with Mumbai Mirror in 2019 he said one of the reasons he moved to Lintas was the closeness to HUL and the other was that at Lintas, “you didn't work in an advertising cocoon. You worked in the bazaar. You met salesmen. You toured the country. Now that is something indispensable”.

During our conversation, he told me stories about the days and nights he spent in newsrooms, green rooms, and of course, script rooms. He requested that I keep a few to myself because “let bygones be bygones”.

While talking about the advertising culture back then, Da Cunha told me they never sat in plush offices and wrote. They went out in the world and absorbed as much as they could of it and the people they met during their travels, which inspired their storytelling, as they call it nowadays.

An hour into the chat, we suddenly heard a few boys who were playing cricket across the street screaming with joy. He grinned and told me a story about this one time when Padamsee came late for the dress rehearsal of Ebrahim Alkazi’s production of William Shakespeare’s Richard III. He came in late because he was busy with a neighbourhood cricket match.

It was an excuse that wasn’t appreciated by a lot of people then, Da Cunha said with a chuckle. He then paused, his eyes moist, and said, “I will miss those days. I will miss my dear friend.”

I left him with his memories and came back to my newsroom with a notebook full of stories.

Da Cunha passed away at 92 years old. His stories and his legacy will live on.

Tributes from the advertising community for Gerson Da Cunha

Prasoon Joshi, CEO and CCO of McCann Worldgroup India and chairman of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific

Though he was out of real day-to-day action in advertising by the time I started into the profession, for my generation of professionals, Gerson was someone who represented the cerebral. He had a much larger horizon of life and things he loved - be it cinema, art or music. He kept curiosity and keen interest alive and made living life like an art form.

I will cherish all my interactions with him deeply, he had so much to impart and that too with generosity.

Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World

Gerson da Cunha was the quintessential advertising man, full of ideas, versatile, witty and with a wonderful command of the written and spoken English language. He was leader of Lintas for many years and original brand builder of many brands, notably many Lever brands. Like most advertising greats of the time, he did not restrict himself to advertising but also made a mark as a theatre personality. I admired his commitment, willingness to give freely of his time and his mastery over the English language. It was always a pleasure to listen to him and I admired his facility of the English language. In later years he devoted his life to public causes, loved his city Bombay and wanted to do a lot for it and did succeed with the NGO that he founded, AGNI. What a man and what a life.

Prabhakar Mundkur, independent brand strategy adviser

I am an ardent admirer of Gerson. I can’t believe he is gone. He was an important pillar of Mumbai, the city that he loved. He launched my musical career by getting me my first gig with HMV for a 45 RPM record in 1968 and then helped me launch my advertising career by taking me into Lintas in 1976. He is one of the most talented people I know. Actor, author, poet, ad man and social activist. They don’t make men like him any more.

Lloyd Mathias, business strategist and an independent director

Gerson Da Cunha was not just an advertising legend, he was also a truly a multidimensional personality passionate about the theatre, arts and the country. His legacy to Lintas was moving it beyond being a Lever-only agency to newer clients – making it into what was later-day Lintas that Alyque Padamsee led to greater glory.

But his other passion theatre and acting was what endeared him to many beyond the advertising profession. Old-timers may also remember him as the news anchor, then called news reader of Bombay Doordarshan in the ’70s.

In the last few decades, his work (comprised) supporting civic causes in Mumbai and founding AGNI, where he used his vast talents to serve society selflessly. The curtain may have dropped but Gerson da Cunha’s legacy will remain.