"I think I am waking observer," he says. "When I'm roaming around, I am seeing what [people] are doing; I see how they climb onto a bus."

Through this attention to small details, Pandey deftly reflects Indian culture in his work, resulting in some of the most entertaining and affecting commercials.

The underlying similarity in Pandey's spots is that he captures the energy, hectic pace and simple beauty of India, while maintaining a truth in his images.

"I like raw images. I like a real look," Pandey says of his style. "It may not actually be real, but I like it to look real.

"The films should look like a backyard production, there should not be any gloss in it. It would make a day in India look quite fake because nothing is glossy here," he continues, citing a hilarious Clio Award-winning campaign for The Times of India out of Enterprise (Lowe) Bombay and "Race" for cricket gear Foursquare as examples.

"Race," out of Ogilvy, Delhi, opens with a team of snakeboat racers paddling down a river to thumping drum-heavy music. Four cricket players lounging on a nearby boat see the spectacle, grab their cricket paddles and challenge the 30-plus member snakeboat team to a race.

In order to capture the intensity of the moment, the spot has a washed-out, gritty quality, a look that Pandey says he achieved in Telecine: "In reality that location is lush green. To get the power of that snakeboat and the drama of the race out, I felt I had to get rid of the green because green is too soft. I desaturated the area around the people and kept only blacks, white and yellows," he says, stating that his intent was to bring out the rich skin tone of the actors.

"Put It Up, Put It Up" for The Times of India is a grainy, observational spot and centers on the activity surrounding a coming dignitary. Quick time-lapse images show a crew frantically putting up a welcome arch, only to take it down seconds after the convoy drives under it. The ludicrously funny voice-over speedily says in an increasing octave, "put it up, put it up, put it up..." until the car passes, then descending, "take it down, take it down, take it down...."

Pandey, who was also responsible for the creative, says that the core idea of the campaign was to portray a day in the life in India: "I wanted to bring out the aspects of what life in India is all about, which is more than just seeing what is happening. It has to by layered. It has to peek into our psyche."

"Paper Pusher," the fifth spot for Times of India, illustrates the mangled bureaucracy of the country. The black and white POV commercial follows a pensioner trying to file some paper work. Set to a voiceover commentary of a football match, the poor citizen is sent from one work-averse bureaucrat to another, incurring penalties along the way until he finally finds the right person for his query and "scores."

The term "it's all in the delivery" aptly applies to this campaign. Pandey's chosen stop-block photography technique relays the busy nature of India, while the voiceover and performances lend the spots a deadpan credibility.