Mukesh Anand

Mukesh Anand (born 11 June, 1971) is a creative director, scriptwriter, lyricist and a poet. Mukesh has been associated with a lot of path-breaking communication campaigns during his stints with some of India’s leading advertising agencies. He is also an award-nominated lyricist. His book of poems – “Tum Kabhi Boodhi Mat Hona” has recently got published. The foreword for his book has been penned by two eminent persons of their respective fields – litterateur Shri Ajit Kumar and screenwriter-director Anurag Kashyap.

Biography

Mukesh’s interest in music, poetry, lyrics, and other performing arts is evident given the ambiance he has grown up with. He recalls accompanying his father to various classical music concerts in his childhood and having been deeply inspired by the divine music of all-time greats like Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Bahadur Khan, Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pt. Godai Maharaj, Pt. Kishen Maharaj, Ustad Lateef Ahmed Khan, Ustad Sabir Khan, Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki, Pt. Ramujee Shashtri, Kedia Bandhu, Ustad Naseer Ahmed Khan, Ustad Iqbal Ahmed Khan, Kishori Amonkar, Mehdi Hassan, Pt. Shankar-Shambhu bandhu et al. The fact that his father was a connoisseur of music and also a part of the several organizing committees only helped as some of the great artistes also used to visit home.

After his schooling, he did his graduation from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. While in college he organized a number of blood and eye donation camps, besides traveling the breadth of the country volunteering for the National Youth Project and engaging with eminent Gandhivadi (before Gandhigiri was born) Dr.Subba Rao. As the student in-charge of National Service Scheme in college, he set-up and led a small team of volunteers who would devote two hours in the evening during the weekend teaching underprivileged children at the Delhi University ridge. This experience came handy later-on in his new-found career.

Career

Starting with some medium-size advertising agencies initially, he joined J Walter Thompson (then HTA), Delhi. After working there for 6 years, he joined RK Swamy BBDO in 2003. In late 2005, he left the agency and was shortlisted for the EU funded media training project in India and Europe. On his return from Europe he joined Heroes Project, (co-chaired by Hollywood actor Richard Gere and Parmeshwar Godrej) in Mumbai as Creative Director in 2006. His role in the organization was to develop communication plan and manage the Project’s advertising campaigns and programming content.

Over the years, Mukesh has scripted and been part of many noteworthy campaigns like Elementary Education (“School Chale Hum”), TB DOTS (“Teen Hafta Bhai” with Vivek Oberoi), and the UNICEF Girl Child Trafficking film (“Lalli”). He has also been an active resource and spokesperson on many development communication issues and has been interviewed by media on many occasions.

In his professional career he feels fortunate to have worked with some of the most creative minds in the business – Pradeep Sarkar, Shantanu Moitra, Ketan Mehta, Pritam, Ram Mohan, Bharatbala, Neeraj Vora, Rajat Dholakia, Parmeshwar Godrej, Richard Gere, etc. - and have got inspired from their focused approach to work, a Sense of Purpose and attention to details.

In October 2009 his first book of poems – ‘Tum Kabhi Boodhi Mat Hona’ - got published. Over the years, he has read a lot of books and specially got inspired by the poetry of Harivansh Rai Bachchan, ‘Ajneya’, Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena, Trilochan, Nagarjuna, Kedarnath Singh, Ghalib, Faiz, Shiv Kumar Batalvi and many others.

In December 2009, Mukesh was appointed as the Principal Consultant at R K Swamy BBDO's Mumbai office.

Awards and honors

One of the songs that Mukesh wrote for ‘Femina Miss India contest’ got nominated in the best lyrics category at the Indian Telly Awards.