Minnie Bahen

Minnie Menon: I only met her in 1994 and thankfully never since. She was my boss of three months at Artig Advertising and those memories are still fresh in the mind.

Minnie looked groomed and though in sarees, you can make out that there was a lot of fashion element and painstaking effort in her make-up. Her hair was a schoolboy cut though it bounced enough in the front as she walked. Minnie was Caucasian fair in complexion, a long face, long nose, eyes bunched close together and the cheeks compressed to resemble a horse’s head. You can spot a light layer of make-up and an international perfume around her. Minnie dressed to expose a bit of cleavage and her footwear were those fancy leather slip-ons that come with high heals.

            Minnie was a terror at work and her tantrums a folklore in Madras Advertising circles. Artig is a second agency of O &M and they really wanted it to be like Contract to JWT. But this agency never took root and we were saddled with very small and insignificant brands. Minnie was married to Mohan Menon, a lifelong O & M executive and he headed their Chennai operations. With that connection, for Minnie the top honchos of Ogilvy were just family friends.  

The office was in Egmore and the driver came in to drop to lunch box at the madam trailed behind. Even at the sight, the office went silent not knowing when the firecrackers would burst. She shouted to hysteria for little of no reason at all. First there was not much work to do but this woman’s antics had us all on our toes. She had a penchant for western names in the office; Chandrasekar became “Clint” and “Harish” became “Harry” and that even gave the agency a lot of style!!! I had given my name as “A S Narayanan” here and even now my ears scorch with her shrill calls so much that never again did I introduce myself to that abridged name to anyone. “Sathyanarayanan” would have surely become ‘Sam” here.

Minnie was a party animal and knew how to hold her drink or dance on the floor. I still remember this 40 year old in “tights’ in body hugging clothes and dance to even nursery rhymes like a rabbit; making faces while circling the partner. Even if she was in such mood, people kept far away and guarded. She would explode anytime. (BTW, why do I get such psychos as my boss all the time?). But she was gifted with a typical Mallu gene; she knew where her anger could work or who would take it. In front of O&M honchos she would be all saccharine. Minnie knew which way the winds blew and aligned her sails to her best advantage. There was no class about her at all except thrusting herself in limelight.

These days I see her pictures in page 3 and she is a socialite almost on the scale of Pameshwar Godrej. Her daughter is Lolo, famous for Mallu gags on television. She is on board of a management school, hops of from parties to parties, has a column in Indian Express, and part of the Chennai glitterati. Not bad for a Mallu in a Tamil land. Not all those fancy dresses and foreign perfume and trinkets ever added an ounce of class and grace though.

Verdict: Rajas

Lesson to be learnt: Just keep away and no benefit will accrue from such a character except a headache and suffer her bloated ego.