My pictures have inspired friends to book trips to Peru: Ogilvy's Sumanto Chattopadhyay

Business of brands is a tough profession and there are multiple businesses that contribute towards the success of a brand or a campaign. The advertising, marketing and media professionals undergo a really tough job during their daily routine. Since Adgully is at the forefront of reporting about the business of marketing, advertising and media, from today Adgully in association with FOX Traveller is initiating a special section “FOX Traveller DIARY” that will bring out the stories that reflects the lighter side of these thorough professionals who surely go through a grind from Monday to Friday but they surely know how to unwind and how to holiday.

In this inaugural edition we bring you the story of Sumanto Chattopadhyay, ECD, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather. When not making award-winning ads, Chattopadhyay takes up the role of a writer, a model or an actor. It seems his cask of creative juice just doesn’t finish.

It’s believed that creative people are adventurous. They love to travel, to see new things, and to explore the world around. In an exclusive conversation with this creative power-house, Adgully tried to figure out how does he unwind, where does he travel, what are his best travel destinations or for that matter his technique of re-filling his cask of creative juice. Edited excerpts:  

FOX Traveller DIARY (FTD): If there is one place you could keep going back to for a holiday, where would it be?


Sumanto Chattopadhyay (SC): One of my most remarkable holidays has been the recent one in Peru. I explored the Amazon jungle and trekked through the Andes mountains to Machu Picchu, the high altitude Inca citadel. It was the first time I set foot in South America. Now I have an urge to go back and explore all the countries on that continent, one by one.

FTD: Tell us about what made this holiday so special.

SC: Before I went to the Amazon, just the thought of being there would send a shiver through my spine. Speeding down the Tambopata River, the tributary of the mighty Amazon that flows through Peru, I experienced that thrill again, now multiplied manifold.

We made landfall in darkness and walked through dense forest while howler monkeys shrieked ghoulishly from the canopy of branches overhead. We reached Refugio Amazonas, an eco-lodge made of wild cane and palm fronds. Its bedrooms are completely open on one side to nature. Though I was told that the animals do not come inside, I was not entirely reassured as I went to sleep with nothing but a mosquito net between me and the wildlife. What if a jaguar got hungry and decided to come by for a midnight snack?

Over the next few days, we walked through virgin forests by day and by night, observing enormous shiny blue Morpho butterflies, herds of smelly peccaries (also, aptly, called skunk pigs), spectacled caymans waiting surreptitiously in the water for their prey, benign capybaras swimming with their young, turtles lazing in the sun on a dead tree trunk, brilliant macaws flocking at dawn to a clay lick for their daily dose of minerals – everything but a jaguar!

FTD: Which has been the most unique destination that you ever visited?

SC: From the plains of the Amazon basin to the heights of the Andes mountain range, the journey through Peru was one of a kind.

You spend two days in Cusco, which is at 12,000 feet, to acclimatize to the high altitude, before your trek. The minute I landed there I could feel the thinness of the air. They were selling oxygen spray cans at the airport. I picked one up and took puffs from it several times during the next few days.

Cusco was originally an Inca settlement. The conquistadors destroyed its Inca structures and built churches and other European-style buildings over them. The original foundations, however, still remain. A short drive out of town takes you to the Inca ruins at Saqsayhuaman.

After the recommended two days in Cusco, shopping, sightseeing and downing many glasses of Pisco Sour – a Peruvian cocktail (but more about that later!) – we were deemed acclimatized and ready for our trek.

Going to Machu Picchu by the original trail that the Incas built is what makes the experience special. You hike over a high mountain pass, sleep in tents bundled up against the cold, wake up to spectacular views of snow-clad peaks, discover orchids you have never seen before, spot bright-hued Toucans and stop to explore Inca ruins along the way – places that were and are like stages in a sacred journey to Machu Picchu. When you near the final destination, the clouds do a now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t, teasing you awhile before parting to reveal the shining gem of the Inca civilization in all its glory.

Spanish conquistadors plundered and destroyed Inca citadels in search of gold and silver. The Spanish clergy destroyed Inca religious sites to rid the country of its ‘pagan’ influences. But Machu Picchu, shrouded in clouds on a remote mountain peak, was spared because the Spaniards never found it.

FTD: Tell us three good things about travelling.



SC: When you travel you realize that your assumptions about life and the world – which you thought were universal truths – may not be shared by people of other cultures. It makes you question your own beliefs and ends up broadening your mind.

There are personal interests one can indulge on one’s journeys. Peru, for example, gave me a chance to practice my Spanish, a language I have picked up over the years during stays in Spain and the US. A bonus when you know the local lingo is that your trip becomes that much smoother and richer.

Every trip is also a culinary expedition. Ceviche and alpaca were two dishes I discovered in Peru. Ceviche is South America’s answer to Japanese sushi. It is made of raw fish marinated in citrus juices and flavoured with chilli peppers, coriander and other spices. Some say that Ceviche originates  from a dish eaten by the ancient Incas. I ate it in Astrid y Gastón, Lima’s best eatery – and no. 14 on a rating of the world’s finest restaurants. Gastón Acurio, who owns it, is Peru’s most famous chef. The son of a politician, he went to Europe to study law but jumped ship to go to cooking school. He has reinvented traditional Peruvian dishes in the manner of European-style haute cuisine.

Another food I discovered in Peru is the alpaca steak. I ate this lean, tender, almost sweet meat dish in Cusco. This high-altitude mammal has been a food source from pre-Inca times and is also prized for its fine, warm wool. So while you savour the delicious meat of the alpaca, you can also wear beautiful warm clothing sporting traditional Peruvian designs made from its fleece.

And then there’s the Pisco Sour -- the national drink of Peru. (I wonder what India’s is? Lassi?!) Pisco, the base liquor in this cocktail, is a grape brandy that takes its name from the Peruvian port where it was first manufactured. The brandy has a bite to it, but that gets softened by the ‘sour’ part of the cocktail – which is essentially fresh lime juice with sugar syrup, egg white and Angostura bitters thrown in for good measure.

You can tell how fun-loving Peruvians are from the fact that they have an annual national holiday to celebrate this frothy little cocktail!

FTD: When you travel, what is a ‘must carry’ for you?



SC: My Peru vacation ignited my passion for taking pictures. I was glad I lugged along my Canon DSLR camera. Boating down the Tambopata River, exploring the local market in Cusco, or treking the Andes to Machu Picchu, there were photo opportunities around every corner. (Though, sadly, I did not have the equipment to capture the wildlife – maybe next time!)

FTD: As a traveller, what’s your tip for the others?



SC: My first tip to travelers is to open up to new experiences, new tastes and new cultures.  If you want to eat your native cuisine and watch TV, you might as well stay at home.

If you do a little homework on your destination, perhaps read a novel set in the country you are going to (Peruvian nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s works were an obvious choice for Peru) or enrol yourself in an interesting class – such as Flamenco dancing in Spain or Samurai sword-fighting in Japan – you end up experiencing the country in a much more exciting way.

Try to interact with the local people as much as you can. You discover things through them that guide books won’t tell you. On a recent trip to Prague, I ended up bar-hopping with locals who not only introduced me to some great pubs, but gave me insights into the society, culture and politics of the Czech Republic. I learned, among other things, that they claim to be the heaviest drinkers in Europe and their president’s alcohol-induced antics frequently show up on Youtube!

A different mode of travel can make your holiday more fun as well. I did a bicycle tour of Paris once, rather than the usual boring bus ride. And, for the same reason, I trekked to Machu Picchu, rather than taking the modern short-cut by train and bus. In the end, it’s as much about the journey as the destination.

FTD: How did you develop your particular take on travel?

SC: When I was at Berea College in the US, I had a part-time job as a tour guide. I think that’s what laid the foundations to my approach to travel. The college, nestled among the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky, was founded in 1855. It was the first racially integrated school in the American South and, as such, has a colourful history. There was a time when the college even had to arm and defend itself from attacking racist forces.

I spent a summer walking backwards through the campus, telling the story of Berea to groups of tourists. That’s when I realized that interesting facts and legends about a place can make the experience of it so much more fun.

Once, years later, while attending the advertising festival in Cannes, an Indian TV channel asked me to do a short travel segment on the town and its attractions. So I took a trip on the Cannes toy train with their camera crew, describing the highlights of the place. I went a little overboard – and somebody who saw the show reminded me years later that I described the ad festival as the less exciting event sandwiched between the feature film and porn film festivals that took place in Cannes!
I think I have such an urge to share my travel experiences, I may just end up having my own travel show on TV some day –  a sort of Anthony Bourdain meets Bear Grylls type gig!

FTD: What and where has been your best bazaar bargain so far?



SC: In the bazaar in Cusco I bought coca leaves, a delightful stimulant that’s dirt cheap. Chewing these leaves gives you the energy to climb mountains. Literally. In fact, my four day trek through the Andes was fuelled by it.

I first read about the coca leaf in Henri Charrière’s semi-autobiographical novel Papillion. The story is about his captivity and escape from a penal colony in French Guiana. Running for his life, he chews coca leaves to keep going.  I never thought that one day I would be having the stuff myself to keep going!

The coca leaf has been chewed and brewed as tea for centuries in the Andes. In fact, consuming it was considered something of a sacred ritual. They say that one impetus for the spread of the Inca empire was the desire for greater access to the coca growing areas of the country.

Today, coca is commonly taken to prevent altitude sickness and as a pick-me-up. Though the leaf is beneficial to health it is controversial because you can manufacture cocaine from it. While legal in Peru, coca is on a UN list of banned substances. This ban made consuming the stuff feel deliciously subversive!

FTD: Tell us about some ways you have made your journeys fun.

SC: When I was on holiday in Madrid a couple of years ago, I decided to enrol for a short Spanish refresher course. You might think that attending classes is not your idea of a holiday, but these classes were fun. One evening was a cooking class in the home of a Madrid couple . We learned to make various tapas and sangria. After making them we, of course, consumed them. And a good time was had by all. Another class involved watching a hit Spanish comedy and then chatting about it. For yet another class, our teacher took us on a guided tour of the historical part of Madrid, even getting us into a nunnery which one normally can’t enter!

I made friends with my classmates who were a lively bunch from Brazil, Australia, Switzerland, Italy and the US. Now I had a readymade group to explore the city and party with.

On another holiday, in Paris, I participated in a theatre workshop. The location of the workshop itself was fascinating – an abandoned warehouse of the French railways. The place was nicknamed Le Frigo, which is French for The Fridge. It was thus monickered because it used to house vast freezers in which perishable goods were stored. It has been taken over by struggling artists of every conceivable genre. The French authorities got tired of shooing these unauthorized occupants out and let them stay on to form a sort of underground artists’ colony. Covered in layer upon layer of graffiti and filled with dark and mysterious passages and chambers, Le Frigo was a sight to behold. I would never have experienced a place like this on a regular touristy trip, let alone found it. Indeed, it was a challenge to locate it on the first day, with locals scratching their heads when I asked them for directions.

I did eventually find Le Frigo and spent a wonderful week with a director from San Francisco and a group of actors interpreting a short story and then performing it for a small audience. It was a blast! And, as in Madrid, I got a unique perspective on the city through this group of people – which has stayed with me far longer than a regular holiday would have.

FTD: Have you ever been unpleasantly surprised by the food, outside India? Where?



SC: I ate fried guinea pig in Cusco, Peru. It was not my best eating experience. The animal, locally known as Cui, was served with the intestines and they smelled of the stuff that passes through them!

What’s worse, it was served almost whole on the plate without being cut up into unrecognizable parts. It reminded me of Mrs Gordon, a pet guinea pig we had when I was a child. (Mrs Gordon met an untimely end when it was killed by a stray cat.)

FTD: What has been your worst travel moment? 


SC: I was on my way to the US. I flew to London, changed planes, and took off for Washington, DC. Several hours later, the captain announced that we were landing. We assumed, naturally, that we had reached DC. But upon landing, the captain announced that we had returned to Heathrow Airport! He went on to say that New York’s twin towers were down and the Pentagon had been struck. It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

The terror attacks had taken place a few hours into our flight and the captain had been instructed to turn back. We had been kept in the dark about it for two reasons: To avoid panic and because they did not know if there was a hijacker on board our plane as well.

After all, we were on United Airlines – and two of its planes had already been comandeered for the attacks. One crashed into the twin towers and the other into a field in Pennsylvania, after passengers resisted. Its intended target had been the Capitol, Washington, DC. At this point, it was not known how many other United planes might have hijackers on board. Thankfully, neither ours nor any of its other flights did.

I had been on my way to America to act as the Buddha on stage. A play with a message of peace was stopped by this act or terror.

FTD: What is the best souvenir you ever got for anyone?

I think photographs are the best souvenirs. My pictures have inspired friends to book trips to Peru. I can’t help feeling that the Peru tourism board should pay me for being such a great brand ambassador