In the mid-eighties, articles appeared in the Bengali media about a young man who grew up in a refugee colony, and then fled prejudice and poverty to make a name for himself as a graphic designer in bohemian Paris. The accompanying photos portrayed a confident smile and a gaudy shirt.

The regional press loved Shombit Sengupta's story — the poor Bengali boy who'd left a troubled West Bengal in 1973 and made good in a foreign land — and he, in turn, clearly understood the power of publicity.

By the mid-nineties, he was among the many pravasis who saw liberalisation as an opportunity and started scouting for business for his quirkily named Shining Emotional Surplus Management and Brand Consulting, famously bagging the Lakme repositioning as his first big break.

A colleague who met him with Paris around the time came back armed with a thick dossier that Sengupta gave him, which included, among the press clippings, a photo of a wine bottle on which the label read "Chateaux Shombit".

Recently, a photo feature of a lavish office in purples, yellows and peacock greens appeared in Inside Outside. This was Shining's India and Asia-Pacific headquarters in Bangalore, set up about a year ago.

Despite all the confident, clumsy eccentricities, Shombit Sengupta had acquired plenty of blue-chip clients in Europe — his CV talks about how "corporate Europe discovered him" — and was making a mark in India. He has bagged such pedigreed clients as Britannia, Marico, Wipro and Jubilant Organosys (nee Vam Organics).

When I met him for tea at The Oberoi, Sengupta — en-route from Lucknow to Bangalore — was ensconced in the coffee shop in a floral shirt and purple windcheater. His earthy manner could not hide a shrewd pair of eyes. He spoke English with a heavy Bengali accent and was engagingly unselfconscious about it.

He was happy to begin with a photo session, saying delightedly, "This jacket has my company logo, so it is good." The warm-up chat establishes that I, too, am Bengali, from Kolkta. He chooses, however, not to conduct the interview in the vernacular.

Indeed, the impression was that Shombit Sengupta was trying to reinvent himself and he was approaching the task with the same robust passion that trademarked his style. He was no longer interested in talking about his past.

When I raised the subject, he fobbed me off — "You know those stories, so many people they ask, so many interviews I have given, I don't want to discuss again and again". No, he was keen to talk about branding and retailing instead, which was emerging as Shining's new area of interest.

Since I knew readers' eyes would glaze over at yet another lecture on these well-worn topics, I asked him why he'd chosen such an unusual name for his company. He thought for second. "You be comfortable," he tells me kindly. "Do you want an elaborate answer or a brief one?" Politeness constrained me to take the first option, and the answer revealed as much about Sengupta as his company.

First, he explained the Shining part. "When I started the company I analysed the world and I saw that it is moving in such a way that the desire level of the people is going up. So the old dogma of the corporation — that you will have a big, big name and people will go — I have understood from the 1980s that this is not happening."

What he also understood was that advertising agencies were inadequate when it came to bridging the gap between corporation and consumer. "They are just dealing with one aspect — the communication." What was more important was getting your processes to relate to the customer.

There is a gap between the strategic consultancy and advertising agency which is, how to bring the end-user connectivity through the corporation. "The end user is always the most important. Then I found that the end-user will always be a shining character — he is like the brightness of the sun, and companies need find out how they can make the end-user so bright."

By now, the omelette that Sengupta had ordered had arrived and my toast and coffee followed. What about Emotional Surplus, I asked. He spears a sprig of broccoli and says, "For that, you will have to give me time, because it is complicated."

In its essence, the explanation involved Rodin and the Eiffel Tower. An ordinary person who viewed a Rodin sculpture admired its beauty but the emotion didn't go beyond that, he explained. But look at the Eiffel Tower, it is so tall, it sways three metres to the right and left, you have to climb up so many steps to get a view of the whole of Paris.

"The gravitation and solidity of the system — that is called the rational surplus. A hundred years have gone and it is still there. At the same time, there is a functional surplus — you can go up and see the whole of Paris.

"So whenever you go back to Paris, you will go back to the Eiffel Tower but you may not go to see again and again a Rodin sculpture. This bonding of going back again and again, this is the emotional content. But this emotional surplus is based on functionality like a mother and child relationship."

How did this tie in with his business? Sengupta explains that a corporation's challenge is to offer the consumer (that shining character) emotional surplus based on functionality to keep him coming back again and again. "You cannot always get bottom-line and topline growth from new customers — 60 to 70 per cent are your existing customers."

Of course, using the same thing again and again can make life boring, so the challenge is bringing "vibrancy to the experience". To provide an example, he jumps up and unplugs what looks like a digital diary.

It's actually a Handspring powered by Palm, a personal digital assistant-cum-cellphone. "Before, I always used to use Motorola. Why I changed? Because, see, the SMS message is so easy to write down. So this becomes a world in your hands. This is all functional surplus."

Satisfied that I had understood, he plugged the phone back in the charger and resumes eating his omelette. I asked him how this thinking translated in organisational terms. "We have a very strong strategy planning unit in which we analyse the consumer on an emotional level. That is the whole objective. You know, there is something called a private garden. If I cannot go inside your private garden I cannot understand who you are and where you come from. We also have a psycho-socio division that audits this."

I change the subject to specifics and ask him about Shining's billings. He's good at not answering questions he doesn't like. "Well you don't know what is the billing of McKinsey," he demurs. What about his India organisation? How big is it? "We have 40 people, but it will go up to 100 by the end of this year," he replies briefly, before explaining the various divisions that exist, including one that specialises in bio-products.

Sensing my question at the last named division, he asks me what lipstick I had in my bag. I said I didn't use lipstick, so he asks a colleague who pulls out a maroon Lakme case. "Oh, that is very old," he says, disappointed. His point was that the design of the new Lakme lipstick case felt like your own skin when you held it.

Did he see himself as a brand? The question disconcerted him. "No, I think I am a good worker. I communicate with people." I explained about the clippings dossier and the wine, but he can't seem to remember all this. "Are you sure?" he asks, and then adds, "No, I don't see myself as a brand, I think Shining is a brand."

Since he's obviously uncomfortable, I try to change the subject, but he goes back to the topic. "I don't think I'm a brand," he repeats thoughtfully.

The discussion is winding down. I ask him how a student of Government Art College, which turned out so many fine artists of repute, had opted for design. "Oh I'm a fine artist. I am very good at drawing and painting," he replied, adding that he wanted his work to be used for functional purposes. What did he like to draw most? He liked to experiment with colour — I teased that it was clear that purple and yellow were favourites.

I signalled for the cheque, but Sengupta insisted on paying. I tried to point out that this was Business Standard protocol. "Never mind, you can write that you paid, but you are like my sister, you came to meet me, how can you pay." Just in case, he'd made a faux pas somewhere, he asks, "How old are you." I tell him, and he looks uncertain. But if he think he should change the relationship from sister to aunt, he doesn't say so as he thanks me profusely for meeting him.