Frank pulls off a Full Monty

For a brief interlude, he almost has you believing he could have been Mr Gita, but Frank Simoes was too flamboyant, too larger-than-life to have allowed a spouse "" even his own "" to overshadow him.

Here is the original ad-executive, in his own words, serving himself up on a bed of breasts, make of it what you will.

In this collection of his writings, and part of an unpublished autobiography, he clears phlegm and lets you peep straight into his innards with an insouciance that was typical of the man who coined the "Only Vimal" slogan.

The way Simoes sees himself is as lazy vagrant who flirted with serious intent, drank and ate with gluttonous abandon, and rejoiced in the pleasures of a material world.

Unafraid to confess that he was "filthy rich" and "insufferable", clearly he was blessed with a creative talent and the ability to sell an idea, both of which allowed him to quit the advertising agency he worked with, carrying with him a team en masse to set up his own shop.

In time, he would give in to the pleasures of escaping to Goa in search of the perfect acre where, cleverly avoiding the urgent telegrams from his agency (this at a time before cellphones or liberalised MTNL) he would triumph over deadlines and pressing schedules.

Later still, he would rid himself of the agency as well, to live a life of retirement by the beach, occasionally pulling himself together to write a book or travel piece or snatch of memoir.

This book, posthumously published, is vintage, irreverent Simoes. Don't look for literature because you won't find it here; yet, his sense of observation and the flow of his language make lyrical reading. Still, had Simoes been alive, he would have reason to be disappointed with the book.

Because it spans the better part of his working and retired life, the range of writing moves from the almost naive to the vigilantly sharp, from disappointing cliches to some of the best travel writing from the keys of an Indian writer.

Unfortunately too, the book is limited by the original sources from which most of the writing has been culled.

Hotel magazines need promotional stuff, glossies required him to be superficial, his newspaper columns were altogether more provocative or thoughtful (under that incisive wit), and this melange shares pages together in an uneasy kedgeree.

What might have helped was if each chapter was identified by source, and date, especially since some of the writing was current, or reactive, such as his riposte to Khushwant Singh when the latter wrote a "degrading epiphany" by way of Rajni Patel's obituary.

Or take his rejoinder to the protest against the Tuff ad that featured models Madhu Sapre and Milind Soman in the nude.

With no explanation provided by the book editor, for someone who may have forgotten the controversy it created, or for younger readers, it makes absolutely no connection.

Out of context, these "chapters" are just examples of Simoes writing, whereas explained, they could have been insights into his strength of character and belief.

Similarly, his few editorials are worthy of a serious read, but in a book given largely to the facetious or flighty, they become mere examples of his erudition, but are unlikely to be taken seriously by the reader flipping through the book for Simoes' next morsel of vicarious reading.

Again, his pen portraits, undated, have a sense of incompleteness that an editor could have contextualised into relevance. Alas.

But don't let these minor irritants put you off the brilliant read Simoes provides. If his fiction is perhaps not as powerful as his personal memoirs, it is because Simoes' life was probably stranger than fiction.

"The Personal Narrative" therefore, is perhaps the most powerful chapter in the book because it is his Full Monty, not so much naughty as nude, letting him bare his soul in a read so fast, you are left wondering at the pace of his life.

But this is also Simoes at his most vulnerable, exposing his fears as much as his fight for creative expression, pants down but not unprepared to take on the awesome responsibility of leading from the front.

His journeys into the advertising world, gourmand's paradise or Goa are the icing on the cake. Never before has a lighter hand flown across an Underwood's keys.

But for all that, the touching epilogue by daughter Radhika and introduction by friend Dom Moraes notwithstanding, we would also have liked Mrs Frank to tell it like he was.

FRANK UNEDITED
The Best of Frank Simoes

Lotus/Roli
Pages: 352
Price: Rs 395