FAREWELL, PRADEEP SARKAR

NOTED FILMMAKER PRADEEP SARKAR PASSED AWAY RECENTLY. DEVESH SHARMA BRIEFLY PROFILES HIS LIFE AND CAREER

- DEVESH SHARMA

Pradeep Sarkar was born in Kolkata but went to Delhi to pursue higher education. He graduated from Delhi College of Art with a gold medal in 1979 and started working for the ad agency Tulika. Later, he moved on to bigger and better agencies and afterwards formed his own agency. He wasn’t just one of the most sought after ad filmmakers, he also made a name for himself making music videos. Videos directed by him, be it Shubha Mudgal’s Ab ke saawan, Euphoria’s Dhoom pichak dhoom and Maaeri, Sultan Khan’s Piya Basanti and Bhupen Hazarika’s Ganga are still talked about today as being the benchmarks of visual storytelling. He was able to tell a story in limited time in the music videos, his training in ad films, where one has to communicate the idea in 30 seconds or less, must have helped him tremendously in such assignments.