Chp 417. Sex Education

It’s a known fact that young girls are advised by their mothers about sex, menstruation and all things related to that at a very early age, because of the obvious reason. But when it comes to young boys, we all know things are not like that.



The other day I was catching up with an old friend of mine who now has a 12 year old son (and no, my friend is of the same age as I am… Dude just happened to get married off early - Arranged marriage), when the topic moved to sex education. When was he planning to tell his son about the birds and the bees?

His immediately reaction? “Hell no, not now. It’s still way too early!”

…which kinda made me chuckle because by the time I was 12, I pretty much knew everything about the forbidden three lettered word. That’s the “advantage” of being brought up in a boarding school. The age of adolescence clearly overlaps the age of innocence in most hostels.

I was in a hostel from Class 1 in Mizoram. And then when my folks felt I was prepared enough, they moved me to a hostel in Calcutta when I was in Class 3. And class 7 onwards I was in a hostel in Tamil Nadu.

So when I was 12 years old, let’s see, that would be the year 1992. Class 6, St. Thomas Boys’ School, Khidderpore. Yup, that was the year our hostel warden (Aunty Rich) raided my trunk and confiscated my collection of debonair and chastity magazines!

And no, I wasn’t the only one who “peaked early”. A lot of my friends had such magazines back then, hidden between their bed sheets and mattresses. I just happened to be the unfortunate one who got caught. With a dormitory shared by boys of different age groups, facts about sex and the female body parts were frequently passed on from seniors to juniors.

Hehe… I was shitting in my pants when my mom flew down from Mizoram to take me home for the summer vacation. Aunty Rich must have told my mom everything, but my mom never said anything to me. Eventually, I changed schools after that incident. We applied for admission at Montfort Anglo Indian School, Yercaud, down in Tamil Nadu and I nailed the entrance tests.

When I was in class 8 there, one of our subjects for English was Macbeth. Our teacher, Sir Aldrin, was just reading the part:

Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

…when I raised my hand because I had a doubt.

“Yes Kima?” he asked.

“Sir… so far we have learnt that… the Macbeths do not have any children…”

“Yes…?”

“So how could Lady Macbeth lactate if she didn’t have a son or daughter?”

The whole class erupted in laughter and Sir Aldrin asked me immediately, “And how DID you know about that?”

…which put me in a really tight spot because I couldn’t exactly tell how I knew (and of course years later I found out some women can indeed lactate even if they haven’t given birth due to stress, hormonal imbalance or pituitary tumor, but that’s a different story).

And in class 9, Stephen, who was the only Mizo classmate I had, his parents gifted him a book called “Boy’s Talk”, which had everything about sex education, advised from a very religious point of view. As we all went through the book, we just laughed and laughed because we already knew all the things the author was trying to tell in a very calm and understanding tone, lest we get shocked or something…

See, that is hostel life. Our folks do not have to give us uncomfortable lectures about sex because we learn about it from our friends and seniors. Of course we usually started off wrong, like when we all assumed women have four holes, one for poo poo, one for pee pee, one for making baby girl, and one for making baby boy. But then our seniors showed us pictures and videos, enlightening us. And then later, we would return that favour by showing the pics and vids to our juniors. And they in turn became the torch bearer of such dark knowledge. Circle of life indeed.

I’m not saying learning about it that way is a good or bad thing. But a hell lot of us graduated without having any proper sex ed, and yet, we all turned out ok.

So how did you learn about sex (and I am not talking about your Biology classes). When was the first time you became inquisitive about the opposite sex and wanted to know about the things adults do to each other in bed? When did you start questioning your sexuality? Did your folks ask you to sit down because they have something important to tell you? Or did you learn about it from a sleazy magazine or Nancy Friday novel on your own? Or was it a senior from school who enlightened you?

Let me know in the comment section below, I’m mighty interested in knowing about your experience.

I’m also tagging all my regular blog friends and you can blog about your experience in your next post with the tag #myfirstsexEd in the topic name, and put a link back to my post in your post and I will then put up your link on this very post (comon, this habit of tagging blog friends and asking them to write about a particular topic was very popular back in 2005-07).

Remember, it’s all in good fun. Plus it will give you something to write about if you have a case of the writer’s block. Cheers.

Chp 416. What I really do for a living

This is just another of those personal blog updates about me, but I think I have to put it out here because I have come across too many people asking me what exactly do I do for a living when I tell them I’m a copywriter at a digital advertisement agency. And of course I don’t blame anyone for not knowing because the digital industry is still quite new.

When there is lack of knowledge, it is quite understandable that people end up assuming something else.

I still remember back in 2004 when I got my BE degree in computer science, my friends and family in Mizoram called me up all the time and asked me to fix their broken computers and printers or reinstall Windows for them! Urrmmm… that’s not what we were taught. In fact I’m sure many of the toppers from our batch who got offers from Cisco, Microsoft, Infosys, Wipro etc. wouldn’t even know how to assemble a PC from scratch.

And when I got into IIM-Bangalore in 2005, my dad was utterly disappointed at me for doing a diploma course because the course degree was not even recognized by AICTE. “If you want to get a real MBA degree, I’ll ask one of my old friends to help you get admission in a proper college”, he told me. :) But one good thing about that misconception was, when I dropped out a year later, my dad, who by then had learnt about how prestigious the IIMs actually were, couldn’t reprimand me for quitting because I reminded him “hey, no big deal Pa, it’s just a diploma course” :trollface:

So now, coming to the present… who what do I exactly do?

Using the internet, I arrange escorts for politicians and VIPs in Mumbai, running a brothel of Eastern European and Russian girls. 

Nah, just kidding. :P

No foreigners in my brothel actually, because they’re kinda expensive. My girls are all Indians.

Nah, gotcha again.

I work in a digital ad agency by day, and fantasize about running a brothel by night.

Ok that is the half-truth. :D

I work at webchutney, which I may have mentioned a couple of times in my past posts. I started as a copywriter trainee, to junior copywriter, to copywriter, to senior copywriter all in less than four years. Here are a few myths people have about me that I have to debunk (these are replies to actual questions people have asked me before):

1. No, my work is not about checking if a product or advertisement has violated any copyright laws. I’m a copywriter, not a copyrighter (if ever there was one).

2. No, I do not spend my time copying texts for other people. Copy + Writer = yes, I can see the logic behind your assumption, but no, that is not what I do :)

3. No, the amount of actual writing I do is extremely less. Digital media and Print media are quite different. Print ads are more copy rich and visually rich. Digital ads aren’t like that. When was the last time you ever saw a static digital advertisement filled with text?

4. No, just because I work in a digital agency, I’m not the dude who spams you with junk mails like how to enlarge your penis by a few more inches. :P

5. Yes, some of my past work did involve creating some of the marketing emails you may have received in your inbox or spam folder. But all my clients were high-end, with an exclusive mailing list. If you received a mail from Gokulam & Sons, promoting their computer accessories at 20% discount, then that was not from me. But if you received a mail from, say… Barclays Bank rewarding you with a holiday in Seychelles for spending more than 10,000 credit points, then yeah, it was probably me who created and sent that mail to you. But again, all this is just a very small percentage of my actual work.

6. No, my blogging has nothing to do with my work. In fact most of the top copywriters in our industry do not even blog. I blog purely out of passion (though it really helped me in getting this job because my blog was like a resume).

7. No, I cannot create a website for you. I mean, it will take me some time to do that as I know a little bit of this and that, but that is not my core expertise. In a digital agency, there are three main verticals – the client servicing & business development department (these are the pretty people who deal with clients directly, interact with them and build up relationships or suck up to them, get briefs and feedback etc which they then pass on to the rest of us. They are the poster boys and girls of our company), the tech department (these are the guys who do all the coding and programming and all things geeky, the behind-the-scene guys, the ones who can actually build a site for you, using just one hand), and then there’s the creative department where I belong. We are the freaks and vagabonds of our company, the ones who brainstorm all day and come up with ideas and strategies for a pitch or campaign. Our department consists of copywriters, designers, illustrators, visualizers, animators etc. Creativity is mandatory here.

So I hope things are clear now. And like I said earlier, I do not blame you at all if you don’t know what copywriters do. In fact, when I first joined this company as a copywriter, I didn’t even know what copywriters were supposed to do! [read the hilarious confession here]

And that’s not all. Working in the digital industry, the internet is constantly evolving. Hence we need to constantly change or adapt to the changes. The copy style, the design style, the technology, everyday, something new comes up. I really feel that the work a digital agency copywriter is supposed to do cannot be defined. Hence the reason why my current designation at webchutney is “Creative Trailblazer”. Yeah it’s a made-up designation, because most of the work I do is different from what many mainstream copywriters do. 

Apart from brainstorming and coming up with new ideas, I work mainly on copy (the text and content that appear on a site/banner/mailer). I’m also actively involved in strategy building, research marketing, sitemap and wireframe designing, I’ve even designed a couple of websites myself, done video directing & editing for clients, handled their social media accounts (facebook & twitter updates), and even handled the backend maintenance for some of our clients all on my own. And right now, I am working on a game project in the role of a Game Producer, and I have my own gaming team, both here in our Mumbai office and Delhi office. So… yeah… it’s hard to explain what I exactly do in just one word :) Hence – Trailblazer :)

The main point is, at least I have pointed out the things that I DO NOT do. :)

Let me know if you have any questions about my line of work at the comment section below. This is how a simple me makes his humble living here in bustling Mumbai.

And oh, last but not the least, there’s one more myth I wish to debunk – No, I am not making any money from the popular Mizo community site misual.com that we run. Me and all the other admins of misual.com are not taking in even one single paise. We do not have Google ads running, nor are we accepting any advertisements. That is how we decided it should be and that is how it is. Cheers :)

Chp 415. Moving in to a new chapter

Life can be tough sometimes. And I am not talking about the recent North East incidents or communal riots and rumours. Those are depressing and I’ve already talked a lot about them. This post, is a happy happy post :-) For my happy happy readers :-)

Shifting house is a big pain. Staying as a guest at a friend’s place is not a very comfortable feeling either. But sometimes, one needs to go the extra mile to accomplish bigger dreams.

Yeah I’ve been literally “living out of a box” for the past three months now as a guest at the house of the CEO of the company where I work, because I took the drastic step of coming out of my comfort zone and changing my career in search of greener pastures a few months ago.

[My stuff]

Those boxes you see are mine. Unpacked. For three months now. Because I was supposed to work on something else (in Delhi) which eventually didn’t see the light of the day. Long story…

As much as I find the clichéd term “YOLO” stupid, I do believe sometimes we need to take certain risks to find our true calling. So when I got the golden opportunity to switch from advertising to head my own gaming team at our Delhi office, I left my home of 7 years (End of an ERA) to pursue that new career. Regular readers of my blog will know how passionate and crazy I am about gaming. Although I still can’t talk about what exactly happened, let’s just say I flew to Delhi and back like more than 20 times to seal the deal, until a better opportunity came up right here in Mumbai. I took that one instead, and it’s been an awesome rollercoaster ride so far…

And of course, like I mentioned before, shifting is a bitch. I ended up missing our “Class of ‘99” school reunion held at Bangalore because of this. Stephen even flew down all the way from Mizoram to make it for the 13th reunion, but I sadly had to miss it. And then I even ended up missing our “Mumbai Mizo Association Fresher’s Day” because we were busy fixing up our new house.

Here are some photos of the 2BHK duplex apartment where I was staying for the past 3 months, which we aptly named “King’s Landing”. (I know, Game of Thrones much we are)

One of the two bedrooms upstairs…

The staircase that connects the two floors. Dangerous it is! We used to joke about who among us would be the first one to fall, considering how we love our liquor, but ironically, the first person to tumble down the steps was completely sober! Fortunately she was alright, save for a bruised ankle and elbow.

Downstairs, the living room. This is where visitors are entertained; from company CEOs and COOs to a very cute dog named Marley.

This is where I play Mortal Kombat and other games on the PlayStation.

And if you think I don’t move my butt, oh you are so mistaken. 10 minutes of intense table tennis game or gladiator on the “PlayStation Move” and you’ll end up sweating like a pig, completely exhausted.

To show you how intense this game really is, this is me from the front side!

But of course I cannot be a guest forever. And all the happening pubs and discs in Bandra may be just a minimum auto-fare away, but it’s just not a proper apartment, by Mumbai standards (the entrance is quite shady compared to the interiors), and it’s not meant for three people to live in comfortably.

And so we searched for a new 3BHK apartment. Since I was the reason I was “breaking up the home”, I took up the responsibility of looking for such a place. Many places I looked with this broker and that broker, roaming all over Bandra & Khar, until I found the one place I fell in love with. 

My two future roomies then saw the place and they too fell in love with it immediately.

And then the drama began.

We agreed to the initial 90K monthly rental and 4 lakhs deposit, until another interested party came in the picture!

After that, it was like an auction war. Two parties trying to outbid each other, increasing the rental and deposit amount (while suffering a minor heart attack every time we bid). Eventually, we all agreed to a particular amount (which cannot be disclosed for the obvious reason), and so it was up to the landlord to decide who he wants to lease out his apartment to…

And so guess what?

He asked all six of us for out resumes!

Can you believe that? It’s like going for a job interview…

And so we mailed him our resumes, keeping our fingers crossed…

Lady Luck smiled on us! He was more impressed with our three resumes than the other three!

He flew down from Kuwait (where he’s running his own private company) a few days ago and we met him, laughed to his jokes, and sealed the agreement with his lawyers at the Mumbai Family Court. He was a really sweet guy, and we could understand how he was so concerned about leasing his apartment out to the right set of bachelors, keeping in mind how skeptical most apartment societies are about bachelors here in Mumbai.

[Below: The day we sealed the deal at the Family Court]

And so now, a new chapter has begun. Let’s hope our future will be as bright as our new apartment.

Last but not the least, here is me mentioning my friend Anant Rangaswamy in this blog post. lolz, hope Google catches this “mention” and alerts him. In fact I think I should do this every time I make a new post, hehehe…

G’nite and peace out.

Chp 414. A not so “Happy Independence Day” post

It saddens me to write this piece especially after my last post “The impact of Mary Kom’s bronze, and what it means for the North East” where I was looking forward to the positive changes Mary Kom’s success in the Olympics would bring to us North Easterners.

Instead, today, on our Independence Day, every person from the North East staying outside the North East is living in fear and insecurity, because mobs of “miscreants” are moving around in a systematic fashion, attacking people from the North East and shouting “Sab chinki log ko mat chhodo”.

Chinkis, as we are “lovingly” called by most Indians, or “waiters” as people like gkhamba prefers to call us, are indeed a lovable lot to most Indians. So lovable that we are sometimes recognized as Indians only when somebody from the North East performs well for the country, but otherwise we are just chinkis, chinese, waiters, watchmen, momos, terrorists, outsiders, dog eaters, baby eaters. A laughing stock.

When the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that people uttering the racial slur “chinki” could be jailed, I wrote about the actual reasons behind this law, and how it is more about the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which protects SC and ST people from discriminations and abuses based on one’s origin and background. Yet, most of the people on TOI website, First Post, various blogs and discussion forums like Sharell’s blog, Echo of India etc. were more infatuated with the name itself, slamming it as a ridiculous law.

Well, more than three months have passed since the MHA sent that order out. And how many people have actually been booked under this Act so far?  

Zero.

Now where are all the whiners who whined about how unfair this law is? People from the North East are still being called chinkis everywhere, nothing has changed for them. In fact they are now being ridiculed even more than before because of this “unfair” law. So I guess this is your definition of “fair” huh?

Ah… India.

Yup, the Government loves to act as if it cares about us, but as many people say, at the end of the day, it just needs the North East as a buffer zone against China and Burma.

Forget about how people continue to call North Eastern people chinkis. Now gangs of misinformed Muslims are roaming the streets attacking chinki people. Yup that’s the word they're actually using. One of the attackers caught by the police said smses have been forwarded around, telling them to attack every chinki people they can find for killing their Muslim brothers in Assam and Burma!

I ask you once again, where are all those people who claim the word chinki is just a harmless term?

And this attack on people from the North East -> Sense, it makes none.

There is an ethnic violence in Assam between the Bodos and Bangladeshi immigrants. However unfortunate that incident may be, both sides have suffered a lot. Of course there are arguments and counter-arguments about how some of the Muslims are not illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, while other articles claim the Assamese Muslims too are against the Bangladeshi immigrants, and so on…

See, I am not getting into that topic. This post is not about who is right or wrong over there, as it is a very controversial and sensitive issue.

But when did it ever become a communal clash? Blame the great Indian media for giving it a communal color.

And when did it suddenly become a “Muslims versus North Easterner” issue? What did Mizos, Nagas, Manipuris, Kukis, Khasis etc. ever do to the Muslim community and how are they related in any way to the Bodos or the Burmese?

Every day, I read the newspaper with much anticipation and anxiety. “Another new attack on people from the North East, by people from a minority community”, the newspaper says. Ah, political correctness and semantics. They can be so funny sometimes. Who exactly is the minority here again?

As much as I appreciate the Social Media for bringing me the latest news possible, unfortunately, it is also a great medium to spread rumors. Or are they just rumors? And until that news is confirmed, the only thing a person from the North East can do is quietly panic. “Two Manipuris in Bangalore hacked to death by Muslim mob” – I panicked until the news was discovered to be false. “Tibetan battling for life after being stabbed in Mysore” – I decided not to panic, until I found out it was true. “Muslim cleric in Andhra Pradesh issues fatwa to all chinkis”. Now should I believe that? See, that is the situation we are currently living in.

I spoke to a Mizo friend of mine in Bangalore regarding this incident of targeting “chinkis”. He asked the same questions I asked earlier, “The Assam issue was never communal. How did it become communal? And if it’s becoming communal, shouldn’t it rather be “Muslims versus Hindus” instead of us being the victims? How did we, most of us Christians, ever get in the middle of this, just because they’re afraid to attack the Hindus?”

Bodos are (mostly) Hindus indeed. But again, that is definitely not the solution. Muslim community leaders are playing a great role in cities like Pune, telling their people to stop this madness. There is a great out-pour of sympathizers from the Muslim community, condemning this violence against people from the North East community. If we put every Muslims in the same bucket as those who are attacking us, then how different are we from those who attack us? Likewise, people in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram etc. have been asked not to retaliate to the Muslims living in those states.

We need a strong voice to reach the Indian masses. And that is exactly what I wrote about in my previous post about Mary Kom. A lot of Indians are educated about the North East, but those are (usually) not the ones who discriminate or attack us. There is a huge class of people who are unaware of us, totally ignorant, and such people are not penetrated by tweets and blog posts like this.

We really need to take a kaleidoscopic view of this situation. Even if this current situation cools down and North Eastern people are no longer targeted, there are still many chances of such a situation flaring up again in the future. What if, say for example, somebody from Meghalaya murders a prominent Hindu swami or a popular politician? Can you confidently say Mizos, Nagas, Manipuris etc. will not face the brunt of the retaliation?

Can you?

Yup, that is the insecurity we will always live in. Happy Independence Day to you all.

Meanwhile, yes, you can continue with your jibes on chinkies because, as you can see for yourself, it is utterly hilarious. </sarcasm> Cheers!

Chp 413. Well done Mary Kom!

(The impact of Mary Kom’s bronze, and what it means for the North East.)

A few hours ago, Mary Kom lost her semi finals bout against home team’s Nicola Adams. I was here at home in Khar West, Mumbai, watching the match with my friends Akshay, Syed, Param, Pooja and Ajay. We actually set the alarm on our phones for 6pm so that we that we wouldn’t miss the fight. In fact we didn’t miss a single fight of hers this Olympics 2012.

She lost, but all of us were bloody proud of her.

I was especially proud of her because she’s from the North East.

I’m not trying to be ethnocentric here. I’m not saying, yay the reason I’m proud of her is because she’s from my region. No.

I’m extremely happy because now more people from India will know about the North East. If you’ve been a regular visitor at sites like TOI, you will be aware of the number of stupid comments and anti-NE hate comments on the comment section. This time, when TOI wrote about how Mary Kom apologized for winning “just” bronze, the comment section was flooded with love for her.

That made me cry with joy.

Like it or not, while most of the underprivileged sections of our society are fighting for rights and justice today, the main battle most people from the North East are fighting today is to be merely recognized as Indians.

Recognition. That is indeed a big issue. A few hours from now, Devendro Singh Laishram from Manipur has his match. I’ll be awake, cheering for him. In fact Manipur has provided a lot of Singhs in various fields like hockey, Sepak takraw, football and various martial arts forms. Unfortunately, from what I have experienced so far, when people see a Singh from Manipur on TV or print media, they assume he is from Punjab or other North Indian states. And again I have to tell them about the people from Manipur. See, that is what we hate. Wrong identification.

When Amitabh Bachchan tweeted about how he’s so proud of Mary Kom from Assam, there was of course a huge uproar from the North East, but I’m active on twitter and I observed right then that most of the people who responded immediately were not from the North East. That was a very positive sign. A trend we need to continue in the future. And he apologized shortly because of the overwhelming responses.

That is what we need – a mass effect from a mass media.

My good friend Anant Rangaswami, editor of First Post, once asked me what I have done for the North East. I told him frankly that when I am not busy working in the advertising industry, I try to blog and write as much as I can about the North East, such that Tehelka magazine once featured me to represent the Indian blogging community in their special edition “The Game changers from 2000-2009”.

His reply? “Good. But is that good enough?”

And he got a point indeed, never mind the ever cynic that he is. Most Tehelka readers are already aware of the North East, and that is not the target we need to educate. They are already educated. 

Baichung Bhutia was the poster boy of North East India. But again, Indians who are really into football already know about the North East. Similarly, the Indian rock music scene - Mizo bands like Boomerang, Scavenger Project, IIIrd Sovereign etc are famous in India, but again, such people who love these bands are already aware about the North East. The same thing goes for awesome Shillong bands like Soulmate and their fans.

The people we need to address do not belong to these genres. We need to reach out to the majority mass. The ones who think we are all from Nepal or China.

And that is what Sourabhee Debbarman from Tripura (Indian Idol season 4) did in 2009, becoming the first female Indian Idol winner. Prashant Tamang (Indian Idol season 3), well technically not from the North East, too did us a favour. And then there’s Meiyang Chang (Top 10 finalist Indian Idol season 3). Nah, he’s not even North Eastern, but I am really proud of his achievements and am a fan of his. Shows like these reach the right audience we need to address.

And now, Mary Kom has become the next messenger, the North Eastern messiah.

She appealed to the common man, surprising them about her Indianness and how such a person can be from India. She won the hearts of the people, and the people lovingly called her Magnificent Mary. She built a large fan following and the media wrote about her and her origin everywhere.

I may have been a long time fan of Mary Kom, but I am especially proud of her performance this Olympics and I hope she continues to shine for India and the North East. God bless her.

Things have indeed been better for people from the North East from the time I first started blogging in 2004. We need a change, a revolution, and that is possible only through a few selected gifted people like Mary Kom. Cheers and goodnight to you all.

Chp 412. To pirate or not to pirate: iOS vs Android

When Angry Bird launched on iOS, people paid just under a dollar for the game. But when they launched their Android version, it was completely free because those Rovio guys were smart. They knew that most Android users were just going to download pirated versions of the game on our rooted droids.

So they gave the game to Android for free, WITH advertising on the game screen. I personally didn't bother to download a cracked version that had no advertising as it wasn't a big issue for me, and so didn't most Android users too. The end result? Rovio reaped in almost the same amount of revenue from Android users (via ad clicks) that they made from iOS users who paid for the app. A win-win-win situation for everyone (Rovio got the moolah, Android users didn’t pay any moolah, and iPhone users didn’t give a $hit about 1 dollar).

I know there had been a lot of discussions about how developers prefer iOS over Android because most Android users expect free games or end up pirating or downloading a cracked version of the .apk file blah blah blah, so the developers don't make enough money...  Flurry reported that - “For every dollar of iOS revenue, developers only get 24 cents from Android.” Fair enough. I may be a pirate sometimes (we all are, deep down inside), but working in the creative field, I totally understand how much it sucks not to get credited or paid for an idea I came up with or something I really worked my ass off for.

Peter Farago, VP of Marketing at Flurry even stated the reasons why Android developers don't get paid and how that is killing the platform. And that is true because today, there are still more apps for iOS than Android, definitely better apps, in spite of the fact that Android overtook iOS in Apps Download in UK, Germany and Russia in Feb, 2012, and  soon followed by USA where Android bagged 50% of the US Smartphone market while iOS was reduced to just 30% in April 2012.

Yet, developers still prefer iOS. In fact, according to Flurry Analytics, the first quarter of 2012, 69% of app projects were started on iOS, while Android saw 31% of apps start life on its platform.

But if one really needs to develop a successful Android app, I honestly feel it's important to accept the Android situation instead of avoiding the Platform altogether and do what Rovio did, or what TinyCo did by developing a gaming model that tackled this situation. TinyCo cleverly customized the gameplay of their Android-iOS game “Tiny Village” by targeting players with special offers and incentives at the times they were most statistically likely to drop off. The end result? Android retention and average revenue per paying user was 25 to 40 percent higher than on iOS! [source]

TinyCo’s revenue sheet puts a dent to the popular “myth” that Android users are less likely to pay for in-game features than iOS users. Yes, Android users will definitely pay too if we feel it is really worth it. TinyCo’s monetization method was so effective that Google highlighted TinyCo’s practices in two of their I/O sessions this month and encouraged other developers to follow TinyCo’s lead.

See? TinyCo didn’t complain about how Android users end up pirating their games. They knew about this fact. That is why when I read articles like the one below, I just go, "Seriously? You really didn't see this coming????"

Madfinger: Android piracy forced Dead Trigger to go from paid to free model

Developer Madfinger Games explained today that its game Dead Trigger recently went from $0.99 to free because of the “unbelievably high piracy” it had encountered on Android.

Madfinger explained that they didn’t launch the game as free to play because they don’t have experience with that model, but that the piracy rates were so high even at $0.99 that they finally decided to give Dead Trigger away for free.

We all know Piracy is like the Greek mythology Hydra. You cut off one head, two will grow in its place. Nobody can stop it. Not SOPA, not PIPA, not ACTA, Megaupload will be back and running soon. As Kim dotCom wrote in his famous letter to Hollywood, instead of fighting the system, maybe its high time people realize they have to adjust to the system. I still believe the future of Android games is about how smart the developer becomes and how he can tackle this piracy issue, instead of just avoiding the platform altogether.

Debates and bricks and bats welcome :)

Chp 411. Wanna see The Dark Knight Rise? :)

Reached Mumbai two days ago from Delhi, only to find out my friends weren’t able to “pre-book” tickets for “The Dark Knight Rises” as all tickets in Mumbai at every Movie theater had been pre-booked till next Thursday!!!

 Man, talk about advance booking.

And so, as the Dark Knight Rises released today, I’m one of the many people sulking at home, trying to ignore the FB status messages and tweets of all my friends who saw it today, talking about how awesome the movie was… Grrrr…

Anyway, for the ladies… I made this pic especially for this occasion. In fact I bought this boxer solely with the intention of taking this exact pic. I already posted it on my Facebook wall and it got 50+ likes so I’m assuming its ok to put it here too, hehehe….



Yeah I know, I had to blur out my face because I know how some of you guys are going to turn this around at me one day :P

By the way, today there was a tragic incident of a gunman opening fire at The Dark Knight premiere in Colorado. Around 14 people died so far. Truly a tragedy.

Batman US cinema shooting: 12 dead in Colorado

At least 12 people have been killed and dozens wounded in a shooting at a midnight cinema showing of the new Batman film near Denver, Colorado.

Witnesses said a man wearing a gas mask opened fire after tossing a tear gas canister in the auditorium as movie-goers watched The Dark Knight Rises.

Right now, every site you go online is talking about the shooting incident and the victims… May their souls rest in peace. :(

To  end this short post and cheer you up a bit, here is my favorite scene from Batman… nopes, not any of the latest Batman series… I’m talking about the 1960’s *KAPOW*, *BAMMM* Batman. This is one of my favorite scenes, about the AWESOME deduction power of Batman, Robin and the rest. It will surely crack you up…

…and here’s another one I just can’t stop laughing to. Batman having a conversation with Bruce Wayne :)

Cheers and a happy weekend :)

Chp 410. Yes, I am F.I.N.E (almost)

I kept my word and went for a full body checkup yesterday at Lilavati Hospital, Bandra.

The place was truly awesome. As I mentioned before, this was my first health checkup, and also the first time I was inside Lilavati hospital. The place was crawling with private security guards everywhere, after all, it is THE place where Bollywood’s top stars, P3 celebs and other famous Mumbaikars like Amitabh  Bachchan, Lara Dutta, Bal Thackeray and Salman Khan rush to, whenever they have a serious case of the hiccups.

There were all sorts of hospital staff in different uniforms roaming everywhere, like clockwork. In fact I think there were more employees than sick people.

When I reported myself at the health check-up division on the second floor, I was immediately assigned a very cute and charming assistant “M”, who took me from one test section to the other seamlessly. Whenever I came out from a test lab, she was always there near the door smiling at me and ready to take me to my next test, making sure I didn’t get lost in that huge maze of a hospital.

I was given this badge to wear the entire day…



After submitting my stool and urine samples (Don’t ask me how I finally got them! I am strictly following the US military policy here – “Don’t ask, don’t tell”), one of the docs extracted around five test tubes of blood from me.

After all the post-fast tests were done, I could finally break my 12+ hours fasting and “M” took me to the special breakfast buffet room meant only for health check-up patients.





Hehe, I ate like there was no tomorrow. I never expected such soft idlis to be served in a hospital “canteen”. The idli, dipped in awesome coconut chutney, literally melted in my mouth. It was far better than the ones we get at popular South Indian restaurants like Banana Leaf or Café Madras.

Overall, the treatment and service I got was definitely 5 star.

Today, I went to collect my report. Yes my heart was pumping a bit more than usual, as I tried to convince myself that I was ready to expect the worst…

The doctor grinded me for a few minutes. I truthfully told her about my current lifestyle, and I could sense a hint of disdain in her tone…

And so here are my results – My lungs, kidneys, heart and liver are perfectly fine!!! Wooohoooooooo! My liver’s SGOT and SGPT readings were 27 and 31 respectively, well within the same zone, which completely shocked my cousin Dr. Mash. :)

The BAD NEWS though is, I have high BP – 140/100, which is probably because of my incessant smoking and heavy alcohol intake. And I also have slightly high cholesterol and blood sugar level (I’m almost near the borderline between normal and high, but fortunately on the normal side).

She recommended me to take three more tests whenever I’m free – PPBS, B12 and D3, to check for diabetes (though she assured me it may not be), but first and foremost, she told me to quit smoking. I am really thinking about doing this.





So apart from all that, she prescribed medicines only for my High BP, which I’m gonna start taking from today itself, and to monitor my BP daily. Also, I have to start doing something physical as she said the only reason why my body hasn’t suffered more is because I used to be physically very active for a long time.

I am really glad I took this test (which I’ve been dreading for a very long time) and it feels like a huge burden has been lifted off my back. Tonight, we party to celebrate this!!! Well, just tonight, after that, I swear I’m gonna go easy on the partying and alcohol. I hope all of you take a complete health check too.

The only song playing in my head right now is this…



Yeah, time to celebrate!!! :)

And oh, on a parting note… you wanna know what the most difficult task in the whole wide world is?

THIS :



Cheers :)

Chp 409. Woohoo… Four years in Webchutney!

My my… it feels just like yesterday when I wrote my “Just completed three years at Webchutney” post this same time last year!

And with a few senior people (in terms of duration) leaving last year, I am now in the Top 10-15 list of employees who have worked the longest here at Webchutney, India’s leading digital agency. In fact, in our Mumbai office, only five people have worked longer than me. And trust me, in our highly competitive industry, people move on (or asked to move on) from one company to the other very quickly.

I don’t know about people working in other digital ad agencies, but for me, these past four years had been magical. I joined this company in 2008. That year, we were adjudged the number 1 digital agency in India! Then in 2009 we retained our title again, becoming the undisputed number 1 digital agency again.

But we could see our competitors drawing closer and closer. In 2010, we were knocked down to third position! That was indeed a dark time for many of us.

In 2011, the year when I blogged about completing three years here, we pulled up our sockets and worked extra hard, fought for bigger pitches and slept more nights in office trying to meet crazy deadlines that truly mind-fucked us.

Two months ago, the verdict came out, and YES we retained our title and were declared the number 1 digital agency in India for 2011!!!

And yes, party we did! Me being the shameless creative trailblazer, I was present in both the Delhi Office party and the Mumbai Office Party. Hehehe…

This year had been especially awesome for me because, apart from working on many new accounts and coming up with awesome ideas and campaigns (the usual things that we always do), I discovered that I was a bit more versatile than I thought I was :)

For the first time, I worked on a digital + TV production house campaign for one of my clients! It was a totally new experience for me as we’re not a mainline ad agency and the only TV shoot experience I had before was as a copywriter where I was more of a spectator, not getting involved in the scripting or directing. But I believed I could pull this one off, and I had a lot of moral support from my awesome bosses. And so I spent weeks in the brain-storming room and Studio with the clients and production crew, planning for the shots that we required for the digital campaign.

Plus the client was awesome. More than an agency-client relationship, we became friends through the course of the project. And the best part was, the director was very open to my suggestions. Telling the extremely cute model “K” what to do and how to act or move got me high a bit, lolz. The director knew very well that when it comes to TV shots, that is his expertise, but I know how things will pan out and how consumers will react when it comes to the digital world because that is my domain.

I can’t mention the name of the client (or model) yet because the campaign hasn’t officially launch yet. Until then, I’ll leave these photos taken on that day.





















The other big project not related to digital advertising that I’m currently working on for the past two months is mobile gaming! Other than that I cannot say anything else for now as things are not “officially official” yet.

Yup, that’s the reason why I’ve been going up to Delhi and back at least 20 times the past two months.

I am itching to blog about all my experiences, but don’t want to until things are confirmed. Will be in Delhi again next week, so hoping to catch up with all my Delhi friends again then, except, it’s awesomely 27°C here in Mumbai while it’s freaking 43°C in Delhi! Aaaarghhh.

Anyhoo, this is my rant for today about completing four years in this awesome place. Now you see how this is related to my previous post? Yup, these past four years had taken a heavy toll on my health. Will be going for my medical check-up this week. Until then, take care y’all.