Advertising. Branding. Television. Films. Books. Academia. I've never stayed in one lane. Turns out, they were all going to the same place.
I’m based in Mumbai. I call New Delhi my second home. I have a farmhouse in Alibag that acts as my escape home. And sometimes, I’m in the window seat of an airplane
I run a design studio called Sane Difference
I have built an app where fiction helps make sense of life. It’s called Storysurf
I have built an app that’s a playground for creativity for adults who forgot they are creative. It’s called Gonecase
I have taught communication, visualisation, writing, branding at XIC for 17 years
I have been a screenwriter in the past for Greater Elephant and Yash Raj’s Bank Chor
I am an author of the bestseller, ‘Welcome to Advertising. Now, Get Lost’
I love to read and make time for it.
I love to eat and make plans for it.
I love to travel and make money for it.
I love to play the piano though I suck at it.
I love life because what’s not to love?
As a kid, I did nothing. It's incredibly hard. Try it. I did not read. I did not write. I did not practice anything. I did not participate in any competitions. I scored what I had to. I studied as much as I needed to.For a tiny kid, I fought a lot. So, I thought I'll become a WWE superstar of a rare South Asian descent. I played a lot of sport. So, for a brief while, I thought I'll become a sportsman. Lol. I had told my mom to find me something that did not require studying. I was good at drawing and painting. So, my mom found me JJ Institute of of Applied Art. I got in, but, I graduated as a writer.My dad figured he needed to work through his 60s. Childhood was magical. But, I Wanted to Grow up.
I worked throughout my youth. At 15, I interned as a stock broker just out of curiousity of what it means when they say 'market has fallen'. At 16, I worked as a cartoonist in JAM magazine. Through 17, 18 & 19, I worked for The Orchid writing internal comms - event posters, emailers, invites and other things I believed everyone read. I also worked as a designer at a design firm where the founder regularly got homemade biryani and paayaa. In 2006, at 22, I graduated from India's top design and art school. But, as a writer. I went on to work in Contract advertising, MTV, wrote for Landor, Clay, EuMo, India Today, DNA, Arre, Flipkart, Cleartrip, Natures Basket - the list is longer than the years I spent doing it.Youth's great. I do not want to stay there.
Over the years, I tried so many things, did so many things and became so many things that I became a river of many of my own tributaries. Still meandering, still flowing, but with some direction. Through all of it: books, cinema, digital, advertising, television and teaching, I realised I was doing only one thing: telling stories. Adulting's Fun. It Never Ends.
Look Ma, I won.
I have been incredibly lucky to get opportunities disguised as briefs that took my work to juries across the world and I won too. As a freelancer, it is impossible to win awards (not because they are so expensive to enter, but because there is no way for a single person entity to enter). I am lucky enough that design houses and agencies that require no validation continue to spend money to enter these awards.
These are the awards I have won & am aware of.
20 PromaxBDAs - Golds, Silvers and Bronzes - for excellence in promos in Television. I won these for MTV and Nickelodeon.
Jury Award, Best Film, South Asian International Film Festival, New York
1 GoaFest & 1 Cannes- Nokia PDD Night Offs - a one-of-its-kind (mainly because nobody made a show like this again for how commercially unviable it was) digital reality show shot across 3 cities.
1 Cannes for Bring on the Night as Branded Content - it was a show I co-wrote for MTV and Star World.
1 Cannes Bronze for Cleartrip 'Or Travel' Campaign
3 Kyoorius Blue Elephants - for work done on Hongs Kitchen & Asian Paints.
16 Kyoorius Baby Blue Elephants for Passport Campaign, Cleartrip
Stevie, Gold for 'Best Social Media Handle, Instagram', Cleartrip.
2 E4M - Exchange for Media - One Silver & One Gold - for campaigns executed at Cleartrip as Creative Head.
CAG Cub Copywriter of the Year (I miss being a cub).
Of course, my mom doesn't care for any of these. All she wants to know is if I will be home for lunch on Sunday.
