Chp 421. How Mizo am I?

I’m sure if you've been around a lot, away from your comfort zones, your “people”, your “natural habitat and environment”, you must have asked yourself this question at least once, “How [insert the ethnical group you belong to] am I?” Or worse, somebody asked you that question right to your face…

Because if you belong to a particular group or community, society expects you to have some trait or personality of wherever you’re from, no matter how many times you’ve broken away from the stereotypic mould and created your own avatar.

I’m a Mizo. And one of the things that kinda irritate me a bit is when other Mizos say, “Mizo nih chuan…” English Translation: “If you are a Mizo, then you should…”

I hate that line. In fact if I’m with a couple of Mizos and somebody starts their sentence with that particular line, I just shut myself off completely. On one hand, we are complaining about how people generalize us or how we are not given our due recognition, but on the other hand, we are not taking any attempt to assimilate or do whatever we want to do, out of one’s own free will and volition, with no bondage to cultural shackles or societal norms. That choice of freedom is up to every individual… and it is uncomfortable when people look at me differently just because sometimes I am “not very Mizo”.

What does “being Mizo” mean?

That fact that I hate TEA seems to get on the nerves of many Mizos. “Either you’re a 7th Day Adventist or you’re not a Mizo, how can any Mizo hate tea?” is the question I face many times. Why can’t a person just dislike tea? Why do people always try to force me into liking tea so much, just because it is the unofficial State drink of Mizoram? I don’t like tea, and that is the path I have chosen. Live and let live.

I was brought up in Tamil Nadu. So from the time I was small till I graduated from Engineering College, the first thing I always drank in the morning was coffee. Filtered coffee. So I became a coffee lover. An addict. And tea wasn’t appealing to me because of that, even though almost every Mizo drinks tea (except the 7th Day Adventists of course). And as I have pointed out in my blog earlier too, when I say I love Ice Tea, then the first question people ask me is, “How can you love ice tea and hate hot tea??? That doesn’t make any sense!” and again I have to reply, “You like chilled beer? Yeah? Well do you like hot boiling beer too? No? I rest my case.”

Similarly, I’m supposed to like every Mizo dish. If you’re a Mizo and you don’t like the traditional Mizo dishes, then they call you names like a snob and “in ti changkang” and somebody who is ashamed of being a Mizo… 

Seriously??? Questioning one’s patriotism and loyalty over… taste buds?

I love bekang and nghapih and a lot of stinky dishes. But at the same time I am not a big fan of the bitter veggies, which one can find in almost every Mizo cuisine. And I don’t like being forced to like those, because I really can’t. Being a Mizo does not guarantee me to like them. And if I prefer, say, a five course meal at an expensive 5 star restaurant starting with the proper appetizers and wine and ending it with the perfect dessert, instead of our local Mizo cuisine, does that make me a snooty prick? Or even worse, a turncoat to one’s root?

No, for various reasons: One, I’ve been working my ass off every day for the past so many years so that I can afford such food on a regular basis. You reap what you sow. Two, It’s a matter of taste buds. Of course to me the Hotel food tastes better but does that mean I eat only such high-end cuisine or exotic dishes? Hell no, if I want, I am content with just rice and dal with no other side dish. I am that simple. In fact I can survive eating just roadside vada-pavs or samosas for days, so don’t you ever judge me on that.

The thing is, I like variation. I like my food to rotate, you know. And that is why sometimes I think I will never fit in a typical Mizo household, where for breakfast and dinner, we eat the same food every day for the rest of our lives. Like I said, I can manage with Mizo dishes, but I need variations now and then, otherwise life gets too… simple and plain and… a bit boring. I’d like to rotate my breakfast or brunch with poha for one day, upma the other, then dosas and idlis on some days, then sandwiches on other days, followed by puri bhajji or chole bathura, and then maybe a Mizo full course meal, again followed by cornflakes and pancakes or even just bread and jam, and then back to poha again and so on…

Similarly, for lunch or dinner, I can of course have a Mizo meal, but again, I’d like to rotate it now and then with maybe a Chinese meal, an Italian meal, Indian meal with rotis and other bread, or even go for a simple shawarma or pizza and so on. I am a foodie and I love trying out new cuisine, and I have indeed tried out different varieties of food from all across India… That was the way I was brought up, and when one is well past his 30’s, it is indeed very hard to change suddenly and adapt to something else permanently. 

Another situation that makes me contemplate a lot is when I help out my fellow Mizos… being a close knitted society, we of course feel comfortable when we are with other Mizos even if they are strangers. And so, it is very common for one Mizo to help out another Mizo, even if they are meeting for the first time… And when I do that, others call me a good person. The thing is, will I still go that extra mile and help out another stranger if he is not a Mizo? I probably won’t. So does that still make me a good guy then? Probably not.

To me, that is a bit like the faith related question I’d really like to ask some of the Christians I know online (you know, the ones who quote Leviticus 19:28 and brand me a Devil worshipper just because I have tattoos all over my body, but conveniently skip the previous verse Leviticus 19:27 that prohibits man from cutting off his beard and side-burns) the following questions… “Are you NOT committing murder (or rape or burglary etc..) just because the Bible tells us not to do so as it is a SIN… or are you not doing it because it is a wrong thing to do? Because deep down in your heart, in your conscience, in your mind, you know it is bad and wrong?”

But no matter how un-Mizo I may seem to some, a part of me will always forever be Mizo. Because after all, that is who I am. I always talk about our Mizo culture, customs, traditions etc. whenever I am among a group of new people, informing and educating them about who we are and what we do and so on. Because it warms my heart to talk about my roots.

So does “being a Mizo” mean it’s only about the food we eat, or is it more about a higher calling, about how we are proud of our heritage and how seeing other Mizos who excel in different walks of life makes us happy deep down inside? Is “being a Mizo” only about the tea we drink, or is it more about how much we love informing the world about who we are and even going to the extent of scouring the internet everyday just to correct misconceptions people may have about us?

At the end of the day, I think “being a Mizo” means doing whatever you love doing, out of sheer passion, in whatever way you can. To find a connection and bond with other Mizos, which need not be only through traditional cuisines. To feel ashamed when you read the news about another Mizo getting involved in drugs or prostitution. To feel the pain when you see scores of your fellow Mizos fleeing a particular city. To feel elated when you get to know about a Mizo achieving something noteworthy in his/her line of work. To feel a deep kinship every time you come across a Mizo name in the newspaper.

Just the other day, during the ongoing Juniors National Hockey Championship for Girls, Madhya Pradesh thrashed Mizoram 12-1. The top scorer for Madhya Pradesh, who scored a hat-trick, was Ramngaihzuali Ralte, a Mizo. Another Mizo girl Lalruatfeli Hnialum too scored two goals for Madhya Pradesh on that same match. Yes, they just happened to play for a different state and there can be many reasons behind that, maybe they were brought up in MP, maybe they are currently studying there, maybe they have better sports facilities which can help them in their career, it can be anything… but a part of me felt pain. I know it’s not supposed to hurt (maybe) but it did. If, say, for example, Maharasthra beat West Bengal and the best player for Maharasthra happened to be a Bengali, I’m sure not many Bengalis would go, “How could you do that to your own people…” But in my case, it was hard to ignore the disappointment. Maybe it’s because we Mizos are still a very small community and the entire population of Mizoram is less than the population of Andheri East here in Mumbai… Maybe…

Of course I still remember what one of my friends once told me… If we are supposed to act as Indian, as one unit entity as a whole without keeping our ethnocentric roots and respective States first, then why do we keep having these National tournaments and competitions that pitches one State against another?

Hmmm… Food for thought maybe?

In the meantime, let me go reheat some of today’s leftover ham and salami pizza garnished with my own stash of bekang and ratuai pickle, and topped with good ‘ol spicy vaihmarcha rawt dip from Mizoram. Yummm!

Bon appétit to you all…

Chp 420. Goal United: Transfer Market

Bwahaha here’s another blog update nobody’s going to read, judging from my previous post, Goal United: Third Division :P

But I just want to put this out here too…

Now that the new season is starting for everybody, most people are trying to buy better players so that they will stand first in their league or not get relegated etc…

My advice? Unless you are planning to be the number 1 in your league and get promoted to the next division, DO NOT buy any players right now!

Because right now, the transfer market is CRAZY!

Everybody wants better players, and so everybody’s trying to outbid each other.

A normal midfielder of age21-23 and strength of around 3.0 was available for around 1 million a few weeks ago. Currently, people are bidding for such players to as high as 3 million!

I have almost 6 million is stash now, still deciding whether to concentrate on infrastructure or buy expensive players. But even if I’m going to buy better players, I will definitely not do it now, seeing all the craziness in the transfer market.

Money is precious, save it.

As mentioned in my previous post, I just got promoted to the third Division and I am currently the weakest player in my new league in terms of team strength and value. My plan right now is to use my existing players and play against the big teams in my league while setting team effort to 125% and 150%. Yesterday was my first league match against a player whose main 11 team strength was 36 (mine is just 30). I won! Lolz.

Yes of course, setting team effort to higher than 100% would mean higher chance of injury to my players, but that’s better than wasting a couple of millions on players who will not be that expensive in the next few weeks. That’s the risk I’m willing to take.

So that is my tip of the day :P

Wait. Hang on. Wait for the transfer market to cool down. Wait for all the other players to exhaust their cash reserves. And then, BANG, swoop in and buy top players at a much cheaper rate!

Cheers :)

Chp 419. Goal United: Third Division!

This post will be a bore to most of you, but I just want to put it out here :)

I’ve been playing Goal United religiously for more than a year now. It’s like a football manager game, but a whole lot more fun and exciting than the average such games.

At Goal United, I get to manage my players, train them, trade them, improve special skills and talents, buy better players, upgrade my stadium, manage my financials and staff upkeep, focus on youth team, arrange my formation depending on who my opponent is, strategize and think two steps ahead of other players, and so on… A day doesn’t go by without me logging in at least once.

I started from Division 5, and was the champion that very season. A season lasts for around three months, and we play 22 matches, twice against every other team in our league. This was the final table position then, when I completed my first season at Division 5. (The name of my team is BoomBoom FC, boom boom as in the sound a cannon makes when it fires. A cannon as in, the gunners, Arsenal FC)



Notice my players, and see how “basic” they were then…



I got promoted to Division 4, where I ended up third that season. Hence I didn’t get any promotion or bonus so I remained at Division 4 for another season. As I continued playing, I was still learning about the game on my own because Goal United, which is also developed by Travian Games,  maker of the popular browser based MMORPG game “Travian” that I used to play many years ago, didn’t have good support and guide. So last season as I played Division 4 again for the second time, I rocked! I almost had a perfect season without drawing or losing a single match, but the guy who was in second place played a very strong team with high effort and bonus cards when we met, and I lost to him at his home stadium by ONE goal :(

But the final outcome was pretty good…



Also, compare my squad now to the squad I once had when I was in division 5 and you will see a vast difference in talent and strength.



Apart from that, I have already mastered a few game tactics like Kick-and-Rush, Counter-attack, Defensive Wall and Offside Trap, thanks to the fact that I login everyday to train my players. I still have to master Pressing, Powerplay and Over the Wings tactics, but all in good time…

Now that I have been promoted to Division 3, I take a look at my current league and realize I am the weakest player! Lolz…



I am so going to get humped, starting tomorrow which is my first match of the new season. But I have around 5.5 million bucks in my savings currently, and I am still undecided whether to invest that in stadium development so that I will have more spectators coming for the match (hence higher income) or should I buy better players who will be strong enough to face the onslaught of these teams in my new league?

My main aim this season is to NOT get related and go back to division 4. Of course there’s no bloody hell I can win or be in the top 3 this season because of the strength of the other players in my league, but I MUST win a few matches so that I am in the middle order towards the end of this season and NOT in the relegation zone.

My only worry is, two of my best players, Di Cola and Pallotta, both Italians, both defenders, are 28 and 29 years old respectively (every player age by a year every season, and once they turn 30, their skills and talents turn negative, hence younger players are more expensive than older players even if they have the same strength value).



With Di Cola and Pallotta becoming old, I have to buy players for their replacement. I already bought Trevisani, another Italian, for a large sum of money because he’s young and he has a charismatic personality, making him the ideal person to captain my squad but that alone won’t seal the deal. Von Rutkowski is another favorite player of mine, a midfielder who showed courage and leadership in times of trouble, who is slowly approaching his prime, but I have already bought his replacement, the young Korkmaz, who’s so far my most expensive purchase.



My 23-25 years middle order age group is kinda ok… nothing impressive but yeah, they played a huge role in letting me win Division 4 last season. I’m just disappointed that Datta and Sivakumar, two of the only four players remaining from my original team, are improving their strengths at such a slow pace, in spite of start almost every league matches. The only time I rest them is when I have a friendly or practice match.



Finally, my 20-22 years age group, the group that I am proud of the most. Being a hardcore Gooner, I think I have really passed on Wenger’s philosophy by concentrating on the youth. And that paid off handsomely. I have Korkmaz, who was my top scorer last season, and new Polish striker Zakajto who quickly adapted to Indian climate and became a penalty specialist. There’s Yemkov, my reliable goalkeeper transferred from Russia who was the reason why I had the least number of goals conceded last season, and our new captain from Italy, Trevisani. Apart from that, there’s also Saraf and Suchitra, two new players I promoted from my Youth Academy after a long observation. Not much experience, but they faced the old boys with much confidence and courage. These people are going to be the foundation of my team in the long run and I am really proud of them. In fact their overall strength of 15.8 is actually more than the 23-25 age group whose total strength is just 15.6

Ok enough of my team for now. Let’s look at my new league in Division 3.

Like I said, I am currently the weakest in this league, but I have 5.5 million bucks so if I decide to spend it on players, I am sure I can bump up the ladder. At the same time, I studied the squad of the other players, and looking at the strongest guy in my league, I immediately saw this…



Four of his players are already in the negative, five other players are on the borderline, and another five players approaching that borderline. This guy CLEARLY did not plan for the future. So, who knows, anything can happen and I may not get relegated this season after all.

Wish me all the best guys! :)

Also, wishing my Gooner friends Zara, Rha Ralte and Chhana COYG who started playing this game this season (Division 5) and hope they will have a good experience as I did and maybe we’ll all clash in the same division one day :)

Chp 418. Loneliness

 

“Just because I’m not alone, doesn’t mean I’m not lonely”…

That was on the Hallmark card I sent to my “girlfriend” back in School, a girl I just met twice, but somehow, we were a “couple”… I remember that line because I really loved it. Those were the days when we used to write letters on actual paper and put stamps on the envelope and then wait everyday for the mailman to see if she replied or not…

20 years later, she’s probably settled down now with a husband and three kids. But that line kinda made me think a lot. Are we really lonely in today’s world?

The other day, I went with three of my friends to our favorite watering hole at Bandra – Banana Bar. While I was out smoking at the terrace, our regular waiter came up to me and asked, “Sir, can I ask you something?” and I of course said yes. “Sir, the four of you are having such a great time, laughing and all, but you’re all just looking at your phones… it looks very funny from here!” Which made me realize… yes… it must be funny for somebody observing us, and unfortunately, that is how most of us are today.

We can update our facebook or twitter statuses and upload pictures and videos from almost anywhere now… keep in touch with old friends while we are with a different group of friends. Share what we are eating with friends or family on facebook, pinterest, instagram, or even create a tumblr or posterous blog for that purpose, making us feel as if our friends are right there with us even if we’re sitting all alone at a restobar.

Hell, even the most private moments like when we are in the loo, we are always connected. I’ve stopped reading the newspapers while I’m sitting on the throne, and instead browse through news sites or take part at discussions forums from my mobile. The other day, my colleague from office sent me a whatsapp message, “Hey, is that you inside the loo?” and I replied immediately by clicking a photo of my legs and rolled-down pants, “Yes”.

And speaking of private moments, there’s this really funny Japanese dude on Instagram that my colleague Emma follows, who updates his followers with pictures of the women he’s currently sleeping with! Lolz. And the caption goes, “Hi. Today I am sleeping with Izanami. She is from my office.” or “Hello my friends. Today I am sleeping with Masuyo, we met at a pub last night. She is a very nice girl.” and you see a photo of him with the particular girl under the blanket waving and smiling cutely at the camera. And don’t be surprised by this, because we already have serial entrepreneurs like Cindy Gallop who are trying to socialize sex and make sex a part of social networking.

Social networking and easy connectivity have really changed our attitude and perception. We have become more impatient. Remember how a few years ago, we would call the girl’s hostel from a local PCO booth and fix a date, and then we would be there at that time and place to meet the other person? If the other person hadn’t shown up yet, we would just wait and wait, patiently. And then mobile phones became affordable for everybody and suddenly we would sms each other “Where are you now? Where are you now?” every goddamn minute if the other person’s running a bit late.

Now, it’s all about GPS. We track each other from our phones to know where the other person is in real-time! What happened to all the patience? And what happened to the feeling of being alone? One look at my Google Latitude and I see my friends everywhere across the city, some moving, some static, some together (if you know what I mean), and some close to where I am, suddenly making me feel like I have company because my close friends are nearby.

When people asked me (back when I was staying by myself), “You live alone?” I would reply, “Yes. But funny thing… I never feel alone.” …which is true because my phone never stops with all the notifications. Man is a social animal, and today’s technology has really bridged the gap between long distance and real-time. Now that I have moved in with two roomies, things are STILL the same. “Somebody just rang the bell, can you please open the door coz I have a freaking hangover” was my tweet to my roommate, separated by just a wall. “Here’s a pic of the breakfast our cook made for us this morning. I’ve uploaded it at Yelp and gave it 4 stars. Are you coming out of your room to take a look?” was another message sent to another roommate.

And even when I am staying all alone in this new house, it just feels like all my friends are right next to me. “Oh you’re watching that movie on hulu? Let’s sync our streaming so we can watch it together” messaged a friend of mine thousands of miles away. And then we would activate our skype just to know we’re watching the movie together, or even take it to the next level by inviting other friends online and having a group video chat with them at G+ Hangout. Sometimes we would even sync our music playlist through last.fm and other such software/devices so we know we are listening to the same stuff, or even host a radio channel for our friends so they can listen to our collection in real-time.

With 4G coming soon, things are even going to be easier and faster than this. Look at the gaming world even now. Most of the games I play from my mobile today are MMOs – Massively Multiplayer Online games, such as MMORPG, MMOFPS, MMORTS etc. I can play many games with my friends or even strangers across the world while I’m staying all alone locked in a dungeon (just a figure of speech because I’m sure there won’t be any signal inside an actual dungeon :P ). Remember 20 years ago when we were writing letters to our sweethearts, the only way we could play video games with our friends was if they were sitting right next to us?

Maybe today’s mushy hallmark e-card should read “Just because I have all these friends on facebook, twitter, G+, whatsapp, BB, instagram, skype, etc… doesn’t mean I am not lonely”.

Now, that would be a killer slogan, tailor stitched for the romantic youth of today.

Cheers.

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 :)