I began as a copywriter. I still am one.

For nearly twenty years I've worked in marketing communication, most of that time at McCann Health, where I rose from copywriter to Senior Creative Director. I currently lead the India creative team at ZS Associates, a global consulting organisation. The campaigns I've led won Cannes Lions, EFFIE India and APAC, Clio Health, IPA Best of Health, and WARC Strategy Awards, among others. I've worked with global clients across India, Europe, and the US, and I've sat on juries at the Webby Awards, Clio Health, and the NY Global Awards.

Healthcare advertising, at its best, is writing about what it means to live in a fragile body. That's where I've spent my professional life.

In parallel, and sometimes in the same breath, I write poems and essays and take photographs.

The poems are in Hindi, Urdu and English. Compressed, recursive, shaped by the ghazal tradition and by Gulzar, Shailendra, and Mary Oliver who remain a touchstone. The essays are in English, long and discursive, arriving slowly at something true, or at least something honest. My first collection of poetry, Meri Gazal Ka Chand, is available here. The photographs are mostly about light. And about time moving through specific, irreplaceable things: a child at a haircut, a dying river at dawn, a partner's face by a window on a quiet afternoon.

These aren't different lives. They're the same life, approached through different materials, in the hope that paying close attention to ordinary things is itself a worthwhile way to spend a life.

I live in Delhi NCR.

For advertising work, writing, photography, or anything else: aloksaini.in@gmail.com