Manish Patel: Peon turns award-winning copywriter
By siliconindia   |   Saturday, 12 December 2009, 17:05 IST
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Manish Patel: Peon turns award-winning copywriter
Mumbai: Over the years you might have heard of many fairy tale stories, when a boy from a poor background reaches the pinnacle of success through his sheer will power and hard work. We bring you one such story of Manish Patel who got the job of an office boy with a Mumbai-based ad agency and is today an award-winning script writer. According to a press release launched by Publicis Ambience, The 27-year-old had joined the company at the age of 18 as an office boy, anxious to support his household. "I was like a dying man desperate for oxygen. I was looking for something in admin but that's not how it worked out," Patel says. Two weeks on the job, however, and Patel says even his circumstances couldn't force him to work at a position below what he had expected. "I was ready to quit when someone from Admin happened to go on leave and I took his place for two months," he says. His employers noted his enthusiasm and commitment and were forced to reconsider his post. Seven months later, Patel found himself in a job that took care of the office library. Here, he got curious about a breed of people who would touch up faces, go out for smokes and think together. "I want to learn this magic," he says, and approached the creative director, who lent him a helping hand along his way. After three years of hard work and patiently working on feedback from various supportive creative heads, Patel was convinced that he was cut out for creative work and even freelanced with small time clients, outside of work, during his tenure as the library-in-charge. "I was like an unused chair, gathering dust in a corner for 15 years. Then someone takes a piece of cloth, dusts it, and it smiles. Like that, I felt my brain smiled. I got the freedom to think," Patel said. Two year ago, Patel bagged Silver Radio Lion award at Cannes for his script that promotes a recruitment consultant firm. But what is truly fascinating is not about the award itself, but about Patel's journey to the Silver Radio Lion. "It took me seven years to write those lines", says Patel. Commenting on Patel's win, Aniruddha Banerjee, President and COO of Publicis Ambience said: "This is indeed a real life fairy-tale. We are very proud of Patel and his achievements. It goes to show how highly Publicis values its talents and that we give opportunities to promising people who are willing to prove themselves. Manish is an excellent example of this." Reflecting upon his journey, Patel adds that: "The metropolis does not wait for those who lags behind. When you see other people moving as fast, you have no choice but to pick yourself up, or they take you with them."

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