Featuring for India at the highest level brings with it a few perks which even the most determined of cricketers have to experience during their career. 

And Rahul Dravid, the former India batsman and legend, had it no different, as the widely acknowledged disciplinary found himself plying trade in the advertising world apart from sweating it out on the field. 

"The first commercial I ever did was for Pepsi. It was a good learning experience. They needed three days of my time and I needed to be in Bombay," he was quoted as saying by The Hindu during the Star Re.Imagine Awards 2019. 

The ever-punctual Rahul would arrive well on time assuming things to be the same way they were (and are) in the sporting arena. Only to get bemused by directors and crews who would invariably be late off the scheduled hour.  

"When you are a cricketer, you are used to the match starting on time. If people say that the match starts at 8 o’clock, it will start at 8 o’clock. But when I am told that the sets (for ad film shooting), starts at 10 o’clock, I am there but the director is not there."

"I am actually receiving people! And I am thinking what’s going on here? I thought that it will start at 10 … then I quickly came to realise that when it comes to shooting ads, time is not really … when they say it’s 10 o’clock, it can be 12."

Rahul amusingly took part in some of the most famous ad campaigns, including the ones with Pepsi, Britannia, Castrol and the yet regular youtubed "Jam Jam Jammy" one for Kissan. 

"Perhaps the hardest to do was the ‘Jam Jam Jammy’ ad. My father worked for Kissan Products for 30-odd years. That’s how I got my nickname ‘Jam’ when I started playing the Ranji Trophy," he said. 

"Javagal Srinath started to call me ‘Jam’ because Kissan was making juices and jam. The shoot for the ad was in Madras in May, and I had to wear all those costumes."

"I remember throwing up halfway through the ad, probably because of the heat. But in the end, it meant a lot to my father. So that’s my favourite ad film."

Quite true to his nature, Rahul quickly began learning things about the world outside cricket and grew in respect for the professionals who would work extremely hard to try and catch people's eyeballs. 

"I came to know how ads are made. Growing up, I [had] seen Kapil Dev in ‘Palmolive Da Jawab Nai’ and Sunil Gavaskar also, and [wondered] whether I will able to do all that. I got the opportunity to see what goes on, the creativity, in putting an ad together," he concluded.