A Crowd In Hand

The last time I experienced Delhi winter I thought it was overrated and the 16 of Bangalore was colder than the 4 of Delhi. I accounted this to the wind speed and altitude difference. This time however the winter already seems cold. Maybe because I’ve been living in Delhi for a little over 4 months and pretty much accustomed to the windless oven. Now I see people leaving for home earlier, shops shutting down earlier, the sun shying away faster and a dead silence descending over the night.

  It was the silence of the cold Friday night. I heard a railway horn blow at a distance. The line was about 1200 – 1500 meters away and would’ve been inaudible if it were not winter. It was in this silence that kept me awake. I finally decided to watch the movie Lucia.

 

I think it was August 2013, when I suddenly started seeing all these posts from on FB about how awesome Lucia is and surprisingly, I BMS-ed  it and what do you know! A PVR in one of the malls of Gurgoan was actually showing Lucia. I didn’t have a lot of company to go watch it, I had found zero Kannadigas and my friends of Delhi weren’t really interested. This wouldn’t have happened if you’re in Bangalore. I’ve been dragged and I’ve dragged my friends to movies of the languages we didn’t follow, but it was fun and it happens often in Bangalore.  

Anyway this post isn’t about language. It’s about the concept of crowd funding. The introduction credits of Lucia movie said that it’s the first CrowdFunded Kannada movie. I googled a little later and found a news result dated Nov 12, 2013. It said the first Crowd Funded Malayalam movie with a Tamil/Malayalam cast and a Bengali Director would release soon, cool so Kannada is ahead (yay :P) More googling lead to a Reuterspost about the movie. It says the story writer had made a blog post where he said that he had tried to source the movie but had failed for 3 years. Suddenly out of the blue he got 200,000 rupees into his bank account from a lady in UK. More funding from random strangers followed and that’s when they decided to make a movie out of funds from the crowd. 

This idea is ingenious! Kannada film industry of the ‘Sandalwood’ is known for its low budget or its Tamil/Telugu adaptations; Lucia was so big and radical that people said it brought a paradigm shift. Though it was still a low budget movie, it was very well received. The plot of the movie itself is so delicate and complex. The actors did good and the songs were pretty good too. The movie all in all was good, it was also released in Pakistan; the Tribune even put a review of Lucia. Sadly I still don’t think I would find people who would want to try the movie. (it was released with subtitles ofcourse)

Last year I had authored a white paper dealing crowdsourcing for software testing and since then I had started to appreciate the benefits of using a crowd. I read a bit more about crowd funding and the more I read the more I was interested, this idea is already catching up, crowd funded movies were already famous in the west. The next result said Crowd Funded travelling; a site called Trevolta said it would sponsor trips! The idea is simple; travelers post their travel plans and the company tries to sponsor it, the sponsors may be from simply inspired and passionate travelers or marketers sponsoring for marketing use. Whatever the case, you get to go on a trip free of cost! Why wouldn’t it work?? The idea is relatively new and the site has very less right now, but you can check out their FB page just in case (I know free publicity right? They better fund one of my trips :P :D )

I was thinking hard about how to make use of this idea, maybe I could use CrowdFunding to raise capital for my entrepreneurial ideas too… and that’s when it hit me that this is what we do in India! A Ganesh mela or a Durga Puja pandal or holika dahan all happen with crowdfunding! We call it chanda and now we’re giving it a fancy name, come to think of it, it doesn’t seem so radical or big or new idea at all! And today, we have so much money; Banks, Investors and VC’s and ready to give you all the money if you have an idea, and if not these guys then you can just get money from the crowd! What we need is planning, transparency and proper IT integration and we could use CrowdFunding for anything! So... Go! 

Fashionataion

Hey why don’t you post it on your blog too? I’ll give you a free shirt :P thats the reason for this post :D

A friend of mine just joined hands with one of his friends from his days in the UK to deal in fashion. I didn’t really understand what they meant to do but I had a feeling that they were gonna make an online clothing store and sell cloths. As simple as that. But as it turns out, its not that simple. 

I found out about the real deal of craziness… or lets say freakological obsession with fashion and sense of style was clearly pointing to the fact that they had their heads working on doing something bigger.  My friend asked me to write an seo article that could help route traffic towards their site. It  wasn’t  really that hard, but this was only my second article on fashion. The first one was on nail art! :P

Anyway so as I went on writing I did realize that some of the things I said in the write were actually true! :O I know! That never happens in advertisement articles right? At least not mine! :P So I went ahead and looked at the site.. they really did have designers live on the site.. and I just wondered for a sec if I could get someone to stitch me something that’s exactly my size! :D ok im not that bothered about cloths.. cuz I kinda believed that it’s the ‘who’ more important than the ‘what’ or maybe I said it cuz I just couldn’t find fitting cloths :P (just in case your thinking I’m fat.. im not :P)

Ok so heres the article I wrote for him... I’m posting it here cuz hes my bud and well… yeah also for the free shirt :P 

Fashionation is not a real word, at least not yet. It’s a made up word for fashion and fascination. Fashion in a bird’s eye view can mean a way of life where everything you do or wear intrigues and makes a statement. The general perception of fashion is looking good or using something that can make you look good. A fashionable phone or a fashionable article of clothing is generally perceived to be a good looking merchandise that brings you appreciation. Sadly, that’s probably the worst way of defining fashion. 

 

 As I’m writing this article in the wake of a new online clothing store that I saw over the weekend, let’s stick to cloths as fashion. Clothing is probably the biggest way of looking fashionable, and over centuries, people have been expressing themselves by creating and wearing different kinds of cloths. This idea of expression of feelings, thoughts and ideas through dressing cracked open a whole new world of designers and trend makers across the globe. Today as we make way for a world of freedom and expression, we see more and more people taking up this creative way of expressing and adding the much required glamour and valor to the cause.

The biggest dread of all fashion enthusiasts is keeping up with fashion. Being aware of where to find what and when to do what is another major road bump. Just the other day, my friend visiting Bangalore for the first time asked me ‘who’s cloths are hot in Bangalore this winter?’ I fell face first at that. I had no idea of the designers in Bangalore, I always bought from sites or stores that had decent looking cloths. I Looked up a few regular sites online, but couldn’t find anything that tells me who’s selling what. That’s when I stumbled upon www.mydesignersales.com

 

mydesignersales is the online store of a Bangalore based Clothing and Fashion Corporation called United Fashion Mart. The firm itself deals in the manufacture and sales of apparels and accessories with zeal for spreading awareness and tasteful sense of fashion across masses. mydesignersales being the online store makes access to fashion more reachable and affordable to all.  Plus Being in Bangalore, it’s only a matter of time before there are free reigning fashion stylists running amok on the streets!

mydesignersales takes a whole new approach to selling cloths online. It’s like an online version of a boutique where you can get to personally see, meet and socialize with your designers online. mydesignersales has a list of the top selling fashion stylists from different cities across India, or maybe even the world. Going to Delhi for a week? Buy the top selling designs of Delhi in Bangalore and blend in to the Delhi crowd! Try! Designers like Julie Kagti, Anu Nagappa and Arjun Agarwal are some of the top selling labels on mydesignersales. 

Apart from giving you the advantage of meeting your designer, if you’re really really nice and of course ready to pay a little, you can even place requests and get your own designs loaded onto the website! That’s definitely got to be a first! mydesignersales clearly has a lot of new things to offer. In the end, making people express themselves and reflect their personalities using the powers of fashion is what these FashionFreaks aim at. That’s why they say, each time you visit mydesignersales, you’re assured of fashionation! ;)

That was it! Buy clothes from my frn y’all :D 

Oh btw.. if you think Im good at seo then.. you can mail me.. I write for free shirts all the time :P

Forebite 2011

930 PM, and no calls yet. We had decided to welcome the New Year together. Old friends, some on the verge of making new bonds, some ready to run on the mystic untrodden roads, and of course one lost and brimmed with self pity. All of us knew that the eve of 2011 would be the last New Year’s Eve we would spend together. Maybe that was going to make it special. Or would it? It’s crossed 930. The food of dinner buffets would’ve long gone cold and dancers at dance parties already high on booze. Maybe the second part a plus, but apprehension gripped me as I began to think that they might’ve forgotten me or thought of leaving me behind. Fear of impending grief is worse than grief itself.   

The minute hand had just completed a full circle when the phone finally rang.

‘It’s an adult party, you sure you wanna join?’

The voice on the other side teased.

‘Come on dude! We grew up together, only because I don’t drink or smoke doesn’t mean I’m not an adult’

I reversed playfully, glad that they had not forgotten me. Maybe the fact that I was a full foot shorter and weighed 30 kilos less made him think I was still a kid, well that’ll have to stay with me for now or maybe forever, but it’s not something that deserves attention right now.

‘Where are we going?’

Came out a little too wary than it sounded in my head.

‘No idea. All pubs are full… maybe we’ll go to some dhaba or drink and puke on the streets. You just come down, we’re waiting outside.’

Sure, anarchy in numbers seems so much more rewarding than safety in solitude.

The crammed ’96 Maruti 800 took us on several straights and circles, thumbs down each dhaba. Close to midnight was when my nose first wrinkled. Bottles were raised and music played loud.

‘Happy New Year!’

 Shouted the first one to lose his head.

 ‘There’s still 10 minutes left Akshay, just sit down.’ I said, finding myself useful for the first time.

More ‘male bonding’ followed and it was finally time for the countdown… I kicked and yelled at the already half asleep males and promptly started counting down.

Happy New Year!! I shouted... Again... Happy New Year!! Excited and slightly embarrassed at being the only one to shout I turned around expecting to see 4 sleeping logs, only to find that my half asleep friends had found a reason to stay awake and laugh their throats out. Joining in, I laughed a bit and cursed them for not welcoming 2011. Only after laughing for a few more minutes did one of them say that 2011 had descended an hour ago and I was late and began laughing again. With no reason to hold back, I joined them with a hearty laugh.

Though the year crept upon me undetected, it brought joy and laughter. Maybe that’s all that matters. The dates, goals or targets I met this year don’t significantly matter… When i turn around to look at 2011, All I would remember is the time spent with loved ones, places I went, smiles and laughs I had, and these I will treasure as the best of 2011.