Chp 323. Delhi Journal: The re-visit

Had a great time last week in Delhi! Flew back to Mumbai on Friday and went directly to Lonavala for our “creative department” rendezvous which I’ll blog about later. As of now, I kinda miss the chill Delhi weather.

Since I was sent to Delhi due to work, I cannot blog about what I did there officially. But it was really great meeting the people from our Delhi office. Even though I was alone, I had interacted with some of them over emails before and it was not like we were complete strangers.

Briefing my (Delhi) team on Monday morning before the big client meeting did not feel as odd as I had expected either. The client meeting was a big success and everything went smoothly from there onwards. I guess that is all I can talk about regarding my work.

Our office in Delhi is much bigger than our Mumbai office, and there was a really good view of the Qutb Minar right from the balcony!



I still remember Delhi quite well as I used to be there a couple of years back.

Reaching there last week, I cursed at how difficult it was to travel by auto, but fortunately for me, most of my colleagues in Delhi Webchutney office had a car and I was given a lift wherever I wanted to go

I remember how much of a problem buying booze used to be, and you know what? It still is!

But of course if I complain about why there was just one bloody wine shop at every locality (ok I’m exaggerating a bit here. I think some localities do have two wine shops ) the reply I ALWAYS get was, “Come to Gurgaon and you’ll know!”

Errr… what if I don’t wanna come to Gurgaon? Just kidding. I love Gurgaon Hugz.

The night I reached Delhi, our CEO took me to Turquoise Cottage at Priya complex for a welcome party. Happy hours truly rocked. Buy one, get one free. Happy Hours was till 9:30pm, so at 9:29pm, we ordered a HELL LOT of drinks, and along with their corresponding complimentary drinks, it was enough to last us for the rest of the night.

This practice of ordering a lot of drinks in advance because Happy Hours is about to end isn’t actually allowed in many (if not all) pubs in Mumbai. At the most, they would allow us to order 1 or 2 drinks just when Happy Hours is about to end, and not 10+ drinks. Lolz.



And of course we could smoke right there in the pub itself.

I used to love Delhi because of the cheap beer – around 35 bucks a bottle. But it seemed beer prices went up to 60 bucks a bottle during the Common Wealth Games, and never came down after that! Hence the reason why my friend Biteii is so thin now

Here she is, trying to hide her face.



Yes, I did get to meet one set of friends – Biteii and Jimmy. Trust me, there was no time to meet anybody else! We were working every night till almost midnight. Even on that particular night when we met, we had to make the plans somewhere close to my office in the last minute, and I was late by almost 2 freaking hours! Lolz.

Yeah they had that “if looks could kill” on their faces when I finally turned up. Since we didn’t have time to hang out much as it was already late, Jimmy came back to my place and we did our little catching up there.



Great fun we had. Jimmy being an admin of lawrkhawm.com and me being an admin of misual.com, we were up till 5am talking non-stop about these two websites and how we could get more users using social media apps etc… Yeah, we’re really that boring.

And of course we slept at 5am and got up for work at 8am! Such is the corporate world, my friends

On Friday, I had a final meeting with the clients and went directly to the airport from there.

I am still jealous about how much better Delhi airport is compared to Mumbai. The view from the restaurant is amazing, and a part of me just didn’t want to leave the airport.



One last pic before I bid adieu. Most of us know about the Indigo airlines TV ad right? I really really love their ad.



It’s done by Wieden+Kennedy. Awesome ad. Well, my flight from Delhi to Mumbai was Indigo, and I was just going through their online brochure while sitting in the flight joblessly, when I saw this particular page. I laughed out immediately and my neighbor stared at me strangely!

I don’t know if it’s W+K who did the brochure too, but this is bloody funny and brilliant! Check it out –

Chp 322. Slogans, Advertisements, and Delhi.

Writing captions and slogans for a brand is quite fun, though not that easy sometimes. Here at Webchutney, we have this internal competition among the copywriters now and then to test our writing skills and see who can win a prize for the best copy. Our CD or ACD acts as the judge.

Recently, I just won a brand new set of 10 blank DVDs!



For the competition, we were handed one very abstract picture, and the instruction was – we had to come up with one KILLER headline/punch-line for five REAL products/brands using the image. Time limit: 1 hour.

Here’s the image:



And here are my creations that won me 10 super duper blank DVDs!

(Psst psst… ok I know 10 DVDs aint that big a deal, but like I said, this is just a simple internal competition and it’s more about skills and recognition rather than the prize)

Submission #1


Submission #2


Submission #3


Submission #4


Submission #5


Fun right? (Do excuse my hastily done photoshop art)

Of course we don’t come up with such lines for real companies in the real world (well, at least not for most brands). This competition is an example of copy adjusting to art, although in most ad agencies, the art itself is visualized by the person writing the copy so that both will fuse and blend in perfectly.

Image plays an important role in advertising. Successful print ads are when people see an image, followed by the headline, and then they go “Ahhhhh! Wow! Nice!”. And of course this can also work in reverse too (they see the line first, followed by the image, and a realization sets in) – It all depends on your strategy and how or where you place the copy.

Image, no matter how “out of context” it may be, will always be noticed by people (even subconsciously).

In my last post [Comon, let’s Carrom Board!], I tried a little experiment to prove this point, and boy was my experiment a success!

I wrote about “Carrom Board” in my entire post. Nothing else but carrom board. And in the photograph, I purposely placed a bottle of Old Monk Rum in the background, though I never mentioned about Old Monk anywhere in the post!



And of course you can see the comments for yourself in that post. Most of the people commented about the Old Monk Rum bottle rather than the post topic itself! Hence proved. The importance of image.

Friends and family that I spoke to on the phone mentioned about the bottle too, and I even had a fight with a certain somebody for displaying the bottle on my blog.

Anyhoo… am off to Delhi this Sunday for an entire week (or even more) due to work. This will be my first official outstation duty and am quite excited about it, but I’ll be going alone (and staying alone in Delhi) so I’m not exactly that comfortable about it. But then, if I can spend 2 months alone with truck drivers in the most inaccessible and noncommercial parts of UP, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa when I was doing my (Sales and Marketing) internship at British Petroleum, then I guess I can face anything

Plus I do know a few people at our Delhi Webchutney office already so it’s not like I will be a complete stranger over there.

Will try coming online during the next one week from our Delhi office, but incase I can’t, then here’s to seeing you all again in a week’s time. Cheers to y’all.

Chp 321. Comon, let’s Carrom Board! :P

The past few weeks, I’ve been taking a break from work every day from 6 to 9pm. I spend that time in the gym burning calories and desperately trying to reduce my rum-belly. Yes, I did take a long sabbatical from the gym but now it’s back to the grind and treadmill.

After my gym session, I’d go for a few rounds of carrom board game in our office! Hehehe, that’s the new recreation our Creative Director introduced two weeks ago, and it became an instant hit. At first most of us were like, “Who the hell plays carrom these days?” But the moment your finger touches that striker and slides across the board pocketing your coin, memories of days long gone and ex-girlfriends now married and fat come rushing back. Nostalgic!

Around 9pm, I stop playing and switch back to work, trying to finish anything that is still pending, and if it’s one of those rare days when there’s no work, then I play Counter Strike with my colleagues (mostly the Tech department guys), making teams and blasting the hell out of each other. Hehehe…

Coming back to the topic. Carrom board.

Carroms was one of my favorite pastimes back in Mizoram. I don’t know about now, but back in the early 90s, every government office (Power & Electric dept., PWD dept. etc.) used to have one. People would spend the afternoon in office playing the game while smoking and eating our local paan and cracking dirty jokes now and then.

Even we had one at home and I used to spend a lot of time playing with family and friends. Pu Manzuala was one of my favorite playing companions, during his Chief Secretary days. He would pass our house on his morning walks and drop in to challenge me for a quick game. I would of course beat his ass every time, but he’ll definitely deny this Ah those days…

When I was sent to a boarding school outside Mizoram and had my first “mass interaction” with non-Mizos, I discovered one thing – We had a completely different style of playing!

While most people in Mizoram use “scissor style”, most other Indians use “middle finger and thumb” style.


[Middle finger and thumb style]


[Scissor style]


Even till now, the number of non-Mizos I’ve come across who use scissor style is just a handful. I still remember back in Tamilnadu, my Engineering classmates actually disallowed me from playing because they thought my style was illegal as they were seeing it for the first time!

Having played for a long time, I think when it comes to “cutting” (angled) shots, people with scissor style can cut much better, whereas when it comes to straight shots, people with “middle finger and thumb” style have better control. In fact, I hardly play direct straight shots even when it’s clearly possible – I always cut it with a little bit of angle.

Although a lot of this is quite basic, here is a good link about how you can improve your carrom technique.

And oh, I was just googling about carroms just now, and guess what your coins (black and white) are officially called? Carrom-men! In Mizo, we call it “sa” which in English literally means “meat”. White is my meat, black is your meat, etc. Not that we are going to eat it literally, but when you pocket your coin, we actually use the verb “ei” which means “to eat”. Eat it, eat that, you ate my meat etc. (Same mizo words apply for chess, checkers, chinese checkers etc.)

Having played carroms at different locations in India with different people, one very important announcement about carroms that you’ll have to remember before playing any game –

Carrom board, being an indoor game, is played with different rules all over the world. It all depends on where you come from. Even though I think there is some International Carrom Board Association or something like that with an official (standard) rules, people follow their own rules. Some of the rules like “half-red”, “covering a queen”, “striker must touch both lines” etc are the same everywhere, but there are a few rules that differ from place to place.

Hence, before playing any game with different people for the first time, it would be in your best interest to discuss all the rules before the first strike. Because people may disagree with your rules during the game, and sometimes that can get quite ugly

First of all, discuss about “fines” with your opponents. In case of a double fine (you managed to pocket your coin and then your striker also goes in a pocket), some people are fined two coins and given one more chance to play, while others play with a rule called “chance” in which, after committing a double fine, they get one more chance (without placing their fines on the table). If they managed to pocket one more coin, then only one fine is placed in the center, but if they miss, then two coins are placed on the table.

Similarly, when there is just the queen and one of your coins left (for confirmation), and by mistake you pocket in your last coin before the queen, then some people simply put that coin back in the center, while others are penalized with 5 coins. I’ve even played with people where the rule was – all your coins are placed back on the table if you commit that particular foul!

Also, it is important to discuss before playing if pocketing is allowed or not. Most people (if not all) from the North East play with pocketing rule, whereas at many places in India, pocketing is prohibited! So if you have your coin behind your strike line, you cannot hit it directly (thumbing), and must rebound the striker from the opposite side to hit that coin of yours.

Like that, there are quite a number of different rules when it comes to carroms. So just make sure you lay out all the rules on the table before you start your match. Some people say World War II was started over a disagreement between Hitler and his Jew friend over whether a queen is worth 5 points or 3 points… Kidding… but quite possible!

Happy striking.

Chp 320. Remembering December 6, 1992.

Ok now that the Ayodhya verdict is finally out after more than 18 years and 18 judges, I think it’s safe to write this post. I could have posted this on September 30th 2010 itself, the day of the verdict, but I didn’t want to read about violence following the next day…

Fortunately, India has grown up. No violence anywhere. Way to go India!

Anyway, this post is not about the verdict or TOI headline. It’s not an opinionated post about Hindu and Muslim sentiments, or even about religion. And frankly speaking, I think many of us are a bit tired of hearing it over and over again everywhere.

In this post, I would like to ask my dear readers about your experience on that fateful day.

I know some of you may have painful memories about that day like losing a loved one or a classmate. If you are one, then I deeply apologize for refreshing your memories and kindly request you to stop reading this post. My intention is not to bring back the pain.

December 6, 1992. I was in Calcutta then. Sixth standard. St. Thomas Boys’ school, Khidderpore. Christmas vacations were still a few days away and everything was as normal as usual. Until “it” happened.

Some of the people whose blogs I currently follow were not even born then! And many of my friends from Mizoram didn’t know how serious it was because Mizoram being a predominant Christian state, didn’t see any of the communal clashes that shook the country and shocked the world.

The next day, December 7, was a Monday. School day.

Khidderpore, being a Muslim dominated area, was one of the worst hit riot areas. We were too young to understand why Hindus and Muslims would hate and kill each other then (I’m not generalizing here), but our hostel wardens somehow managed to tell us that there was a “big problem” going on. There were many rumors that day, like some of the seniors saw chopped heads near the school gate and none of the “darwaans” (watchmen) allowed anybody to climb the school walls to see what’s going on on the streets.

That day, we hostellers had the entire school campus to ourselves because of the curfew. Some of the seniors were huddled in groups and seemed to be talking about serious stuff, but for those of us in junior school, it was actually a day of fun. We played football, basketball, group relay etc, and when we got dirty, surprisingly, none of our wardens scolded us. They were all preoccupied with things we never understood then.

I don’t exactly remember how many days we were “trapped” inside our school, but I remember about the scarcity of food, and how our prefects announced that we would be getting only 3 puris each for lunch etc. And when we weren’t standing in a straight line to enter the refectory (dining hall), none of the prefects punished us!

And then one of the hostel wardens announced in the refectory that all the Mizos were wanted in the warden’s office. Upon reaching there, our Mizo seniors told us to quickly pack our things - only the essentials we needed.

Soon, a convoy of police vehicles entered our school complex. The jeeps had cops (or army personnel) with their finger on the trigger. We (Mizos) were huddled into the prison van along with our luggage. Till now I don’t exactly know what happened. Was there a Mizo IPS officer or somebody high on the police ranking who came and “rescued” all the Mizos from popular schools around Calcutta, or did the Mizoram government play a role in this?

Anyway, we were all taken to “Mizoram House” on Ballygunge road by the police convoy. (A place run by the Govt of Mizoram where Mizos travelling through Calcutta can stay. Cheaper rates, Mizo food, camaraderie etc)

My two elder sisters, who were both studying in La Martiniere’s then, weren’t there in Mizoram House! They had bunked hostel for the weekend and were staying at their friend’s place when the riot happened. Lolz, wrong time to sneak out from hostel! Our LG scolded them nicely much later.

So I was in Mizoram House, a small kid, with no elder sisters around. But my cousins and other Mizo seniors treated me well.

I remember how mattresses and sheets were laid everywhere in Mizoram House because it was overcrowded. Food was scarce too. None of us were allowed to venture outside by the LO (Liaison Officer, the guy who runs Mizoram House).

Again, I don’t remember how many days we were stuck in Mizoram House, but I remember how hungry we used to get.

And then came the news on the radio about how curfew (shoot on sight order) was finally relaxed and people were allowed to venture outside for a certain time duration (5 in the evening to 7pm or something like that).

After that, there was another rumor that if you walk outside during curfew time and raise your hands (like the surrender gesture in times of war), the army will not shoot you. And lolz, we actually did that!

I have no freaking idea who spread that rumor (or was it actually true????) but one day, I tagged along with two of my seniors in the morning in search of food during curfew time and when an army convoy suddenly appeared with their guns aimed at us, we all raised our arms and stood still. They didn’t do anything!

Much much later when I flew safely back to Mizoram, my folks had a fit when I told them about that little incident. Hihihi.

Anyway, that day when we defied curfew and raised our arms, we did indeed discover a small alley where some people were making food. There were all different types of people there eating quietly. Nobody gave a flying f*ck if the person next to him was a Hindu, a Muslim or any other. At the end of the day, we were all the same – hungry people. I don’t remember how expensive the food was and I think my seniors paid for my food, but believe me, it was the tastiest most filling food I had in a long time then.

After some time, things got back to normal and I finally met my sisters. We had already booked our flight tickets to Aizawl for the Christmas vacations much before December 6 took place (Tuirial Vayudoot days, lolz) and so we all reached home safely.

Back in Mizoram, none of my friends knew how serious this issue was. When I asked them if no incident took place at all, they told me that a bunch of Muslims from Aizawl mosque (dawrpui) and a bunch of Hindus from Canteen square marched towards each other, and then a bunch of Mizos appeared and told them that if they create a public nuisance, they will beat both of them up. And so they dispersed.

I don’t know whether that’s true, but come to think about it, it’s quite possible. Maybe those of you who were in Mizoram then could shed some more light…

So, if you were in the thick of action during December 6, 1992, what was it? What was your experience on that fateful day and a couple of days that followed later?

And like I mentioned in the beginning – My intention is not to bring back the pain or to create communal tension. Hence the reason why I will be moderating comments for now (and removing the dreaded “Word verification” at the comment section that so many of you hate ).

Peace and love – Kima.

Chp 319. Mistaken Identity at the CWG. TOI #FAIL

I usually do all my ranting on twitter these days. It’s short and effective. But sometimes… I guess 140 characters and a couple of retweets aren’t enough to contain one’s emotion.

Recently, Times of India, which has the largest circulation among all English-language newspapers in the world, across all formats [source] shocked many of us just three days ago with their brazen headline about the Ayodhya Verdict (2 parts to Hindus, 1 part to Muslims) which was condemned by a large part of the Nation and Twitteratis.

While most media houses behaved this time and tried not to sensationalize the verdict just to get higher TRP ratings or subscriptions, TOI did not apologize for their headline and later even said it is “clinically correct”.

Then yesterday, one of India’s proudest moments (after weeks of controversy) took place – the opening ceremony of the XIX Commonwealth Games!

It was absolutely beautiful. Made me proud to be an Indian. And then when the Indian contingent marched in, it was led by Abhinav Bindra proudly carrying our Indian flag. And before him, the signboard holder was wearing our Mizo tradition puanchei dress!!! Wooohooooooooo!

The whole of India and a large majority of worldwide viewer could see the girl dressed in our beautiful Mizo puanchei. Twitter was abuzz with people talking about the Mizo dress. Every Mizo who saw that event almost cried right there on the spot. Such a proud moment it was for us and truly grateful to the organizers for recognizing us at such a grand event.

And then this morning, I woke up, collected the newspaper from outside my door, and was immediately overcome with shock and paralysis when I read the TOI frontpage.



Under the photograph of the Indian contingent lead by Abhinav and the girl wearing the Mizo dress, was the caption: “All the teams were led out by girls wearing saris in different styles, except for the Indian team, which was heralded by a girl in a Naga dress.”

Naga?????????? WTF!!!

Or is this also “clinically correct”, dear editors at TOI?

After all, we look the same as Nagas, speak a language most people would assume are the same even though they are way different from each other, come from a part of the country that many people tend to stereotype and bunch together as one (the same way many of you think all south Indians are madrasis and speak the same language etc)?

To hear about such comments from the common man is one thing. We have grown used to it. But to see that the leading newspaper in the world doesn’t even know its own countrymen, is definitely one of the hardest punches to the groin. Imagine TOI’s millions of subscribers reading about this today.

I mean, how could a newspaper like TOI get it wrong?

In fact, Mizo Cheraw (bamboo dance) dancers were performing right there at the CWG opening ceremony and everybody was talking about it. Those dancers were wearing the same dress as the girl in the picture.

[Youtube video – one of the girls unfortunately fell down during the event! Ouch!]


See the above dear TOI. Same dress. Same freaking dress. Mizo. Not Naga.

I’ve got nothing against my Naga brothers. But this is about giving credit where it’s due. Or is it about ignorance from TOI’s part? The same ignorance we have faced each and every single day?

Had TOI given more footage to the World Record Cheraw dance event a few months ago, then they would have known what a Mizo dress looks like.

Yes. On March 12 this year, Mizoram held the World Record for the largest dance ensemble in the world. Read more about it with lots of photographs and videos here.

Adjudicators from Guinness Book of World Records came and officially declared about our achievement right there on the spot. Even BBC covered the event. More than 10,000 dancers performed for that event. It was a great moment, not just for Mizoram, but for the whole of India.

Yet, TOI didn’t even publish anything about this grand event.

If only they had at least spared a few precious space on their most widely read newspaper with maybe a photo or two of Cheraw dancers, then they would definitely know that the girl carrying the board yesterday was wearing a Mizo dress. Not Naga.

What can we do about this? As of now, all I can do is write to the editors about it. And blog and tweet about it. Yeah. This is how powerless and insignificant we feel sometimes. The one and only time we Mizos got to be recognized by the rest of our countrymen, and TOI blasted that opportunity to smithereens. Thank you very much TOI.

Here’s to the CWG event and hoping it will be a successful one.

Chp 318. Bye bye Bloglines

So I just took a short Blogging break – for almost a month (not that anyone would have noticed. lolz). And by Blog break, I don’t mean just my blog alone. I stopped visiting all my favorite blogs. A breather, if I may say so. A much needed breather.

There were a couple of things I needed to be serious about when it came to work. And some of the hard work paid off too! Though I’m not allowed to talk about new accounts and projects on my blog, let’s just say my CV got a little bit longer

Came back to the blogging world only to read a shocking news – My favorite RSS feed aggregator bloglines.com is closing down!!!

Today, Ask.com let our users know that we will shut down Bloglines on October 1. Not an easy decision, especially considering our loyal and supportive (not to mention patient) user base, but, ultimately, the right one given business reasons simply too hard to ignore.

I’ve been using bloglines for around 5 years now. Five years may not mean much to most of us, but in terms of online technological progress, that’s a lot. Barely 10 years ago, how many of us even had email ids?

Although many “better” feed aggregators have come up since then, I’m one of those fanatical loyalists when it comes to technology. Unless there’s a really good reason for me to change, I don’t. I’m still using the same yahoo mail id I’ve been using since 1998, and have only recently opened a new gmail account.

I’ll finally be shifting to Google Reader after I export my OPML file from bloglines. With over 1000 feed subscriptions carefully selected through the sands of time, my bloglines feeds are what made me what I am today.

Bloglines was there for me when I was down and depressed, lent me a shoulder to cry on when I learnt one of my favorite speed metal guitarists had passed away, gave me company during troubled times of curfew and “shoot on sight” order, partied with me during spells of uninhibited binge, showered me with hope when I dropped out from B-School, helped me discover new friends, like-minded individuals and even a job, and assisted me in updating the “Zo bloggers latest blog update” section @ misual.com every week.

In fact, had bloglines been a woman, I would have already married it, divorced it, and then remarried it just to renew the wedding vows and find an excuse to go on a second honeymoon.

But alas. Now the time has come to say goodbye.

Bloglines.com. You will always have a special place in my heart.

Here is my special song dedicated to you, bloglines. “Broken” by Seether, featuring Amy Lee.

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away

Oh yeah. Let’s hope Google Reader knows how to mend the broken. [Geek Alert!]




One last screen shot of my bloglines feed before the fat lady sings.



The numbers in bracket are unread blog posts. Yeah, a lot happened during this one month sabbatical! Found out some shocking news about a few blog friends too, but they are way too personal to be mentioned here.

Cheers.

Chp 317. Tweeting for a social cause.

Last Saturday, I took part in my first ever Tweetup. For the uninitiated, tweetups are when people who use twitter “meet up” and discuss “stuff”. It might be a corny word if you’re hearing it for the first time.

According to comScore, twitter has the fastest growth rate among the top social networking sites here in India. It went from 984,000 members to 3,341,000 in the past one year alone – a whopping growth rate of 239%. So you can imagine the potential this medium has.

The tweetup was organized by JaagoRe! who gave us those memorable advertisements about voting and abolishing corruption.





Yup, as you can guess by now, it was not just another ordinary tweetup with discussions about blogging, twitter, music, books etc. It had a specific agenda: “Role of Digital Media for Social Change”.



Location: Zenzi Mills. Opposite Blue Frog. Mumbai.

Being a social change enthusiast, it was exactly the kind of tweetup I’ve been dying to go to.

The panelists consisted of renowned tweeple who had made a name for themselves both in the twitter world and in social activism:

• Netra Parikh @netra – Network queen and Head Admin & Logistics at Pinstorm. A strong “influencer” for social cause related tweets.
  
  
• Dina Mehta @dina – One of the earlier netizens/bloggers in India with over 7K+ followers on twitter, worked on many social causes with various NGOs.
  
  
• Harish Iyer @hiyer – A prolific speaker/writer, an event manager, and one of Mumbai’s most reputed gay rights activist.
  
  
• Priyanka Dalal @priyankawriting – Founder of a Digital Marketing Company DigiWhirl, volunteer at many NGO's and a renowned writer.
  
  
• Mahafreed Irani @mahafreed – Senior correspondent and copy editor at Times of India and one of the more active journalists on twitter.
  
  
• Bhairavi Sagar @BhairaviSagar - Owner/Director of Onion Insights and a volunteer with World without Wars and other NGOs.
  
  
• Chandni Parekh @fundacause - Social psychologist, renowned activist and founder of “Fund A Cause” foundation.
  
  
• Snighdha Manchanda @actionink – Writer, community evangelist, social media consultant and an avid blogger cum activist.

The discussion moderator was Abhishek Thakore @abhishekthakore - A social change entrepreneur who’s been spearheading a youth organization called “The Blue Ribbon” movement for over a decade now.

Apart from Netra and Mahafreed, I also met a couple of people I befriended at the Indiblogger Meet like Harmanjit, Vikrama and Arcopol who’s a journalist at DNA. Definitely felt good to say hi again to people who knew you.

There were around 20 other people who attended this tweetup, and you can see the complete list of attendants at the JaagoRe blog.

This tweetup was truly productive for me in terms of the things I learnt and how people can use twitter and other social media tools to push forward their agenda. There was a good flow of communication from the panelist side, and an equally prolific audience participation from the rest.

All the people who came there had a social cause in mind. Even though people may have different agenda, at the end of the day, they were all just people doing this because they love doing it. Their passion for a social change was undeniably present. From women’s rights and gay rights to environment activist and anti-corruption movement, many were directly involved with youth movements such as the pink chaddi campaign, blank noise project, the wall project etc.

What I have come to realize from the discussion is that, sometimes people may not find that many response to your attempt at making a change, because of the fact that we all have our own priorities when it comes to social change. To one person, education for the poor may be on the top of his list, whereas to the next person that would probably rank fifth and his main priority could actually be an “anti-tobacco drive”.

Therefore it is important to know where one’s interest lies in and how we can combine this with other people’s interest.

I write a lot of articles about racism and discrimination of people from the North East. This may not have much response if I do it by myself, but if I approach activists like Dina, Netra and Snighdha who are vociferous activists of women’s rights & equality, and instead label the movement as “discrimination of women from the North East”, it is bound to gather much more response from the masses because of their social media influence. Influencers can indeed make the impact happen.

One clear recent example would be the #ManipurBlockade incident on twitter. Many people from the North East tweeted about it, but it was only after Gul Panag tweeted about it that many of her 100,000+ followers retweeted and the whole Indian twitterspace was suddenly abuzz with this incident.

People started looking up at Google, Wikipedia, North East news websites and other sources to find out what this was all about (because the media failed to do so, again). Eventually, national newspapers and news channels finally started reporting footage about it to the rest of the country because of the pressure from the netizens. Once the news media (newspaper and TV) started making noise about it, the pressure was then shifted to the GOI who then had to interfere and do something about it. Better late than never I guess.

That’s the power of social media. And believe me, we are still just at the prenatal stage.

There are over 50 million internet users in India now according to Juxt Consult [Download the PDF version here]. Although this is merely 5% of India’s 1 billion population, the rate is growing steadily and many experts predicted that India will have the third largest internet population in the world by 2013.

Coming back to the JaagoRe tweetup –



The session had me taking down mental notes the entire time on how I could replicate their methods on our Mizo society, and how to make social cause movements more effective and productive.

All in all, it was an amazing experience listening to such great people share their thoughts on social movements and activities using digital medium like blogs, twitter, facebook etc. I think one of the best quotes was by Dina who said, “For digital media to succeed as a tool of social change, technology too needs to be humanized and given a heart.” Touché! Personify it. Don’t make your movement cold and inanimate just because you are using technology.

Another topic that really interested me that day was about “Armchair Activism”. Many of us are armchair activists. We support social movements from the sweet comfort of our home hidden behind our computer screens (and sometimes fake ids). How many of us actually convert that to the real world by going out there in person and protesting and fighting for our belief or rights? Or is being an armchair activist enough to make a difference?

For example, hypothetically speaking, I may write tons of articles about cruelty to stray dogs, but have never even set foot outside my home to take care of stray dogs. Is doing that enough? Or maybe my articles are touching somebody else who in turn is actually doing something to help stray dogs in the real world. Are armchair activists true activists? I’ll leave this up to you all to debate upon, my friends.

The tweetup ended with a short presentation by Ankit Nandwani, who volunteered with Open Space (through JaagoRe website) and launched a popular Anti-terrorism campaign in Pune called “Tranquility: Trigger Your Conscience!” This was followed by a screening of the winner of “Save Gaia 2010” short film award called “Life Drops” by director Ajit Sawant based on saving water. A really touching film indeed.

We left after that, each with a really cute JaagoRe mug as memento. And oh, the food was trés delicious too! Yummmm…

Looking forward to another great tweetup session like this. Thank you JaagoRe for such an amazing time.

Chp 316. Of guile and betrayal.

Looks like this week is going to be a bad one. It’s been raining nonstop since yesterday. And yesterday when I reached office (completely drenched) there was one really shocking news lying in store for me – somebody that I’ve trusted for the past two years, was wanted by the cops!

ZAF Club is one of the more renowned gyms in and around Mumbai. I even blogged about becoming a member of this gym before, and that I would reduce my tummy in three months. One of those silly things you say when you’re pumped up with testosterone, I guess.

The membership fee is at a discounted rate of just 12 thousand per annum for people in our office since we share the same building, which is like a really good bargain for us considering this is Mumbai (everything high priced) and that it is really convenient because it’s just one floor below our office.

Every morning, for the past two years, I would pass the gym reception and a smiling Dr. Shilpa was always there to greet me. We soon became friends and she would counsel me on the food that I should eat and avoid, a personalized healthy diet plan etc etc. Eventually, I enrolled in the gym.

And now she is wanted by the cops, and I am one of the many victims of her charm and charisma.

You see, when I enrolled and paid her the 12K, she didn’t give me a receipt.


I didn’t ask her for a receipt because I’ve known her so well and we both work in the same building. Plus I got my membership card immediately including a registration on the electronic fingerprint lock.

Yeah I know what you’re thinking. I’m a big sucker right? How could anyone pay 12K without taking any receipt?

Well, at least I know I’m not the only sucker in town. Seems she’s been pulling this scam off for a long time now – befriending people and earning their trust, and then pocketing their membership fees without entering it in the books. That was her modus operandi. Unofficial gossips in the massage room say she’s pocketed more than 80 lakhs!!!!

Whoah. Easy money.

It seems the gym management started suspecting something was wrong when more and more people started turning up at the gym while there weren’t that many members registered.

Yesterday, all of us who didn’t get a receipt from Dr. Shilpa had to submit our membership cards for police investigation. This morning I spoke to the gym management and they assured me I will get my membership card back and nothing will happen to my account.

I’m still trying to get over the shock. Dr. Shilpa would be the last person I’d suspect to do something like this. I guess looks can be that deceiving sometimes. Damn you – magnetic personality.

Chp 315. My new Samsung Galaxy S Android

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life an Android phone.”

- Charles Darwin (with a little modification)


Two weeks I’ve been using my new phone now, and I still can’t get over how utterly amazing the phone is. Samsung Galaxy S. Currently running on Android 2.1 OS with 16GB internal memory, 32GB expandable and 1 freaking GHz processor!

A year ago, none of us would have guessed a mere phone could come up with this kinda config. And its 4" super AMOLED display guarantees that it has the best screen display in the entire phone market (currently).



29K. Bloody expensive. But totally worth it. Sure I've been eating plain roti and dal every day since I bought this phone, but believe me, I do not regret it. And there were times when my friends made fun of me because I did not have balance on my prepaid card. Lolz. A 29 thousand bucks phone with less than 1 rupee talktime balance is not something you come across every day

I did a lot of research before buying this phone. Although I wanted to get the 12K range of droids because phones never last long in my hands, my mind was secretly fixed on the Galaxy S, HTC Desire and BlackBerry Bold2, which all fall in the same price range.

I wanted a Bberry because most of the people in my office have one. Cheaper than the Galaxy S, sporting a Bberry kinda makes you a part of an elitist club, supposedly. But eventually I didn’t opt for it because I am not the kind who needs to stay connected all the time. Push mail feature didn’t appeal to me that much and I’m not that active on social networking sites. If you DM me or @Mizohican me on twitter, I won’t feel bad seeing your tweet 2-3 days later and replying only then. Plus all the people I know on BBM would be people I know professionally and not people I would want to chat with free of cost from anywhere across the globe. And data encryption is the least of my worries.

But mainly, I had a horrible experience browsing through blogs and discussion forums using a BlackBerry, and those ARE the places where I spend at least 70% of my online leisure time. Hence it is really important to know the kinda person you are and the things you do online before selecting a particular smart phone.

The HTC Desire was a strong contention though. It wasn’t until the very last minute that I finally decided to go for the Galaxy S. I had one of my closest pals from Engg college days advice me on which one to go for. He was my tech guru back then, who seemed to know everything about… tech. When he says buy this, we don’t ask why. We ask how many.

This is the first time I didn’t take his advice. Really sorry Paul Johny. He advised me to go for the HTC Desire rather than Galaxy S. But Desire wasn’t launched in India then, and I really couldn’t wait any longer for my dream phone.

Now apparently the HTC Desire is available in India for 27.5 thousand only, cheaper than the Galaxy S. [Source: Chhanga, who made fun of me when I lost my phone and then ironically lost HIS mobile phone a few days later. Poetic justice. Bwahahahaha.]

So coming back to this topic… from the time I’ve bought this phone, I’ve been spending all my time downloading tons and tons of free games and apps from the Android Market. In fact my girlfriend asked me if I love my phone more than her. Damn, I really shouldn’t have hesitated to answer a question like that.

Now our love story is pretty much like this


[source: Cyanide & Happiness]

But of course, to make everything alright again, all I’ll have to do is show her this mashable.com link: iPhone Owners Have the Most Sex Partners [STUDY] reported by OkCupid.com. According to this “study”, iPhone users have the most sex partners, followed by Blackberry users. Android users come last in this study, so to all the girlfriends out there -> make sure your boyfriend buys an Android phone. Geek FTW!



Yeah one of those rare moments when you can show off for not scoring

Browsing through sites is amazing with this phone. It’s fast, and automatically switches to Wi-Fi from gprs when it detects one (something that my previous phone refused to do). Like the iPhone, expanding and minimizing a homepage can be done smoothly by parting your fingers on the screen, and the view changes immediately depending on the angle you hold the phone. The best part is that I get a clear view even under direct sunlight because of its AMOLED screen, something that most phones cannot do.




[Don’t mind the bad quality pics above. They’re taken from a BlackBerry.]

The video quality is crispy clear too. The video cam comes with HD video recording and watching a movie on this phone (which can take any format like avi, mp4, wmv, etc.) is a new experience altogether. Amazing I tell you.

It also comes with a 5MP camera, but frankly speaking, I am not the type who goes for a good quality camera on mobile phones, so this is not really a plus point for me. When I go out with friends, there’s always somebody with a digicam. If you’re the one with a good cam, chances are, you will appear the least in all the photographs because you’re busy clicking the cam. Better to be in a pic than take one aye? There’s no flash on the cam, but like I said, I don’t care.

Apart from that, there are loads of apps in my phone, like access to over 50,000 E-Books by Tolstoy, Homer, Conan Doyle, Dan Brown, Nabokov, Kamasutra, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Margaret Mitchell, complete Twilight series, Nora Roberts etc etc (stop drooling Jerusha, Aduhi, Kukui, Mesjay etc), thousands of free games guaranteed to keep you occupied throughout the day, dog whistle that actually works (yes, I tried it), GPS map that’s accurate like hell, various android based SNS clients for facebook, twitter, last.fm, orkut, blogger, wordpress, skype etc etc. iPod styled music player, sms and call faker (love this!), feature to sync my phonebook with my contact list from Facebook, Orkut, gmail, yahoo, outlook etc and merge similar accounts together, and even a “road sms” app, where you can type your sms and see the ground you’re walking on at the same time at the background, so that you don’t fall into a manhole while smsing! Lolzzz!

It also has FM, listed by TECHIrony as one of the advantages Samsung Galaxy S has over iPhone4. Well, to me, this is quite trivial but they had made quite an interesting comparison nonetheless. Click here to view their study. Below is their comparison.



According to “Bright Hub!” [Android Market vs iPhone App Store] the iPhone Store has over 200,000 applications and games, while the Android Market has roughly over 50,000. But Android is slowly (and surely) catching up, with more and more phone companies manufacturing Android based phones.

Mashable, in their post 6 Free Android Apps That Will Make You Drop Your iPhone also mentioned about how much easier it is to customize android phones, and listed out six outstanding free Android apps you MUST install.

This is the future my friends. Putting an i before your name is no longer cool. Bye bye iKim. Hello Kim-droid. You can now even install the open source Android OS to a closed source iPhone! Lolz! PC World: How to Install Android on Your iPhone Cheers everyone. Happy droiding.


Ps. If you’re an android user, what are your top 5 free apps on your phone?