SANDEEP BABBR

Airguns were Sandeep’s favourite toys as a naughty boy growing up all over India. He’s been schooled in Bombay, Vishakhapatnam, Cochin, Srinagar, and Ambala. He’s shot pesky pigeons and, in the process of learning to cook them, developed his culinary skills and uncovered a passion for good food.

He’s gone fishing in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and ended up being a seafood lover. He’s played the horses and lived off it for a while. Lavishly. He’s worn a Sikh turban and a beard simply because the rules in college didn’t allow it. And sometime in the middle of his self-discovery, Sandeep discovered Advertising.

After having been appointed in Richardson Hindustan as an Marketing Executive, Sandeep moved to the agency side of the business at National Advertising. And spent the next few years moving back and forth, working at Beltek and FSA, and learning all that he needed to be in business for himself.

That finally happened when he started Sabre Communications in 1990. A ‘creative shop’ that was born before the phrase caught on, Sabre had some of the best-known names in the industry working for it as freelancers. The work was good, the money was good, and life was good while it lasted.

After Sabre, Sandeep’s entrepreneurial spirit found refuge in Dhar & Hoon, where, as Director Operations, he again found himself in the company of some of the finest creative people in the business. One of them was Anil Rawat.

One fine day in 2003, the post-D&H Sandeep ran into the post-RKSwamy Anil. Over a cup of tea, they wondered whether it would make sense to go and ask the BJP to let them work on the campaigns for the coming elections.

They only emerged from the BJP communications centre in mid-2004. And having seen what the big agencies could do (or couldn’t do), it only took another cup of tea to decide to formalise their partnership. ‘M’ was born.