So what happens besides Chronicles of Dementia?
By day, of course, I work with Ogilvy & Mather advertising in Mumbai, where I work in their digital division, OgilvyOne Worldwide as a Planning Director. That's a fancy-sounding title for making up really nice words and pie charts to give the illusion that I've done a lot of work. Prior to that, I worked with the awesome guys at Windchimes Communications. I could go on, but there's plenty of fluff on my LinkedIn profile.
I also realise I might have lost half the audience at this stage by mentioning LinkedIn. Sorry. Come back.
By night, of course, I put on my comic-drawing costume, whip out my Wacom drawing tablet and get down to the following.
PaGaLGuY COMICS
I draw comics for the popular MBA forum, PaGaLGuY, basically spoofing MBA and BSchool life, idiosyncrasies and stuff. Recently we started a new series where we look at each MBA career. A complete list of the comics can be found here: http://www.pagalguy.com/news/tag/comics\. This is probably what I'm proudest of, and it wouldn't have been possible without the help of Apurv.
NITI CENTRAL
I always wanted to do political cartoons. NITI gave me the chance, and I totally enjoy it! Thanks, Kanchanda!
CRICINFO
Once in a while, I contribute humour pieces and cartoons (sadly, with very varying degrees of success) with the world's largest single-sport website. Alternatives to tosses | Angry Birds variants for cricket | Honorary degrees for cricketers | Self-help books for cricketers | Occupying the crease | Saurav and Greg to share the commentary box | England Calling | Rested | Types of people who watch the IPL | Yes, Minister
I contributed two series based on cricket puns: First Slip and Second Slip. Both were, well, experiments to say the least.
Me and the legendary Krish Ashok ran a series of remakes of iconic songs with a cricket flavour, that got quite a good reception. Imagine | Wish You Were Here | Stairway to '11 | Choke at the Altar | IPL For You | Ryder's On The Storm | Bite It | Sweep
SPORTSKEEDA
I do a few cricket comics, graphs and the odd serious article for a fantastic site called Sportskeeda (blog for all sports across India). Archives here.
NH7
I do a series for NH7, India's leading indie music website - called Out Of Toon, based on the Indian Indie scene and general mentality towards rock music in India. Archives here. A huge huge hat-tip to paperslut for making this happen. I personally LOVE doing this.
THE YOUTH EXPRESS
It all started with a few articles being contributed. But then my habit of missing deadlines, writing long mails and critiquing others' work made them realize that I'm better off being an editor. I was the Managing Editor for TYX, a new youth magazine based out of Punjab (Link). It started in mid 2011, and while it's currently in a raw stage, we have huge plans and the entire team is verrrrexcited. We ran a very successful national-level writing contest called Scribe Hunt in Feb-Mar 2012. Have stepped down from this role, though, mainly because my new job was quite demanding on time.
A few pieces I've done for them:
Internet phenomena in 2011 | To better audio | Ramu the Chaiwala series | The Hidden Headlines |
SIFY
I do a bunch of things for Sify, including cartoons, graph-based humour, the odd article and the like. Most of the stuff is aggregated here.
CRAZYENGINEERS
For this vibrant community of engineers, I do a series called 'Absolute Zero - Humour at -273.15 °C', based on Engineering college life, gadgets and things. Archives here. It also gives me a chance to utilize some very groanworthy puns I made during my 4 years at GECT.
CREATIVE GRIEF
A small solo project, where I make cartoons about media and advertising in India. Largely in presentation format. I have huge hopes for this one. It's also the first 'dotcom' that I own. Here.
YAHOO! INDIA
A couple of pieces on cricket in 2010, which seem to have had their URLs expired.
Recently, I've been registered as an official blogger, though. Pieces here.
MTV INDIA
MTV Play: Me and Lavanya Mohan write for MTV's Youth Blog here (sadly, the website lost support and the blog and a lot of other features had the plug pulled).
IN.COM
A couple of comics here: Fun new Diwali crackers | How the world sees India
ONE-OFF ARTICLES
1. Faking news: Chronic BSchool fest participant becomes world's richest man.
2. JAMMag humour article - GIGabyte Concert lover but a cheapskate? Here's a handy-dandy guide.
OTHER BLOGS 'N' STUFF
1. Let's Snig Lets: Me and a little gang try to come up with new words of random everyday observations.
2. Sameguy: As the name says. Co-blogger with many other madmen.
3. MICA blogs: Micanvas 2k7 | MIQuotes | Sankalp 2k8 photos
4. Last Minute Productions: The blog of our little Mumbai-based theater group.
SERIOUS STUFF (NO, REALLY!)
1. MICAFaqs: I setup and wrote the official blog for MICA aspirants, with details on the courses, placements, extra-currics as well as external links. Basically everything an aspirant would need to know. This blog is currently handled by my juniors at MICA. This blog was featured on the homepage of the MICA website and has over 40000 hits. Sadly, it was never updated by the successive teams.
2. Business Today article: About MICA, how to get through, etc. Although I'm not very proud of this since it was very badly edited.
3. Paper in Mudra Provoke: I co-authored a paper in Mudra Communications’ newsletter, Provoke, entitled ‘Survival Instincts’, along with Leroy Alvares, President, Tribal DDB India, April 2010
4. MICA Gyaan: I wrote this way back, which seems to have become sort of a de facto reading for MICA aspirants on the site. Never expected it to get so big when I wrote it!
5. MICA article on Advanc'edge: Authored an article for MICA aspirants in the IMS magazine in January 2009 (will upload as soon as I can find my copy!)
6. 6 keep-in-minds for a social media strategy: Wrote this post for my company blog.
GIG REVIEWS / ALBUM REVIEWS
I (used to) write reviews for Indian Indie rock concerts in Bombay. I've written online music magazines like Chordvine and IndianRockMP3. I'll always be thankful to Chordvine for giving me my first break as a writer - good stuff has happened since then. Gigs reviewed / photographed:
Deep Purple Tribute Concert | Them Clones | Motherjane | Junkyard Groove | SWAT concert | Blakc Album launch | Zero reunion gig | Multiple gigs | Blackstratblues | Blackstratblues | Split, Junkyard Groove, Avial | Tripwire, Rosemary, Blakc, Them Clones at SFIT | Blackstratblues | Victor Wooten | Avial
While reviewing gigs and stuff, I've also been incredibly lucky to do some interviews with some legends! So far:
Motherjane | Warren Mendonsa, Part 1 | Warren Mendonsa, Part 2 | Avial | Baiju Dharmajan of Motherjane - his first ever exclusive interview \m/
OTHERS
Vibe Fest website: I wrote all the content for the website. Even though the event never happened and the design is *cough cough*.
OTHER RANDOM SHYTE
I handle lights for a theater group called Last Minute Productions in Mumbai. So far, we've performed at MICA, Kala Ghoda 2010 and 2011, and INHS Asvini.
There you go. Hopefully, you'll like some of this stuff (or at least have refrained from puking). If you like what you see and want to get in touch with me (you know, to hire me for writing, to hunt me down to shoot me, for handing me the Man Booker prize, to ask if I can stop blogging for the benefit of humanity in general, or to just say hi and make franship), do get in touch.
Thanks for reading CoD!