Birthdays

I love birthdays.

I think I'm one of the biggest birthday people I know but I love the entire vibe of celebrating life! The vibe of feeling the moment you've entered human life, its intricacies and details! The smell of balloons and the smell of burning candle wax. The awkward look on your face when everyone's singing happy birthday to you! Wine and Toasting, birthday wishes, hugs and kisses, Giving surprises, Baking, huge gift boxes with thick red ribbons, little notes to tell someone how special they are and how glad you are that they were born on that day. Birthdays are the best.

But today,

is my blog's birthday!
It turned 1 :')

This was the place where I started to express- out in the open. I'm not sure how many people like it, hate it or how many lives it impacted but I loved writing here every month. I loved that I could write and there was somebody who'd surely read it. This was the place I created, rambled, stumbled, drew, scribbled and laughed and I thoroughly enjoyed! Sometimes I couldn't write too often and sometimes I couldn't stop writing but this one year was great! I hope next year will be even better and I hope to write some more of what makes you & me happy! I also hope to proof-read what I write before I post it because I'm pretty impatient like that!

Anyhoo, Thank you for reading & appreciating :')

Make sure you sing a birthday song while my blog smiles coyly.

Here's to more writing!

A big slice of the red-velvet birthday cake,
Juie 

The smell of your dreams coming true

I've always associated different things in my life with different smells. 

There is a smell you know? When you know that your dreams are about to come true? When you know things are on your way and the aroma is faint but nearing ?

It is the smell of fall; the smell of a new country and new roads; new people and new emotions; a new studio apartment and leather winter boots; crisp grocery lists and good cooking days; the smell of being alone and missing people back home; the smell of roads and maple trees; of new friends and new struggles; the smell of newly gained knowledge and new textbooks; the smell of the stage and a lot of  good old library books; of a new comforter and a new bed; The smell of a new peculiar wine; the smell that my clothes will absorb being in a new wardrobe; smell of not having the mother around so falling asleep covered in her old soft cotton saree that smells like home; the smell of growing, learning and dreaming all by yourself; the smell of being scared to death and still facing the sunlight; the smell of being out of your comfort zone; 


The smell of getting to know yourself.


Also, the smell of a big bowl of homesick-khichdi you have proudly made for yourself.

Someday you'll smell a similar smell too,
Juie

Sketch-Happy

Homebound Thursday afternoons can be boring.
Especially when Mumbai's getting warm.
So I felt like putting the boredom to some use and went stationary shopping.
I came back with a new sketch book and two of my favorite Stablilo fine liners.

I came back home and decided to make pretty things but inspiration was being a moron.
Saw something like this somewhere and thought it was really pretty and thought of drawing it.


However,
These lines popped up in my head before I drew it :

"I am but made of the Sand and Sea,
The colors of the flowers they color me,
My lips painted crimson by the solar crust.
After all we're made of Fairy dust."

Random Thursday afternoon sketches :')

You should try sketching on Boring Thursday afternoons too.

Gives you unmatched glee :)

A palette full of paints,

Juie

Fab-ruary

Everything about February has been quite fab.

(Except that I haven't written a single post & I broke my iPod.)

I read an awesome book. - The fault in our stars by John Green.

Thats my favorite part: 

Read it before the movie is up! Its coming in Summer '14.

Apart from the book, February has been fab for a lot more things!

The best friend's birthday on a yacht ; Baking cheesecakes ; Sending college applications ; Reading real things ; Teaching little kids Bonsai ; Valentine's Day Lunch; Wine and Dine, GPA-Happiness ; Jitters about college Decisions ; Little shopping trips;  Creating Ad-campaigns and Posters; Stationary Happiness :A new set of 250 Felt pens ; New songs to sing at Karaoke ; A new favorite Cocktail ; Learning to cook ; www.tut.com- notes from the Universe (Please Check it out! It'll make your day) ; Making a clock; Painting pretty things ; Redoing my dreamcatcher ; Winter in summer ; Smiles.

That is what the Mumbai Sky-line looks like from the yacht :

Salty air & Sunshine,

Juie 

Ink-blue finger tips

I wanted to write something.
You know those nights when you're just itching to write? I'm not sure if you know,
But you crave to hear the intensely fast clatter of the keypad as you move your fingers at lightening fast speed or the squeaky high frequency scribble on a sparkling white piece of ruled paper?
Yes that.

Writing is immeasurable happiness to me,

So I thought I'll start writing and see where it takes me,
Because words, they take you traveling. You start at one pole and end at another, and the story in the middle is what manifests on its own.You think you're doing it, but you're really not. That's the thing about wordplay, its insanely mysterious and double-insanely powerful.
This could be really messy because I'm letting my words flow,
But then again,
That's writing to me.

Today I use the keyboard to type words, 

but writing with a blue fountain pen with ink dripping all over my fingers was close to heaven.

The smell of ink is divine. If dawn and dusk had a scent then the smell of ink is the smell of dawn and dusk with a white lily in it.

The shabby ink blue finger tips that last for days is a happy memory of a peaceful hour gone dreaming, rummaging and scribbling. 

Writing is a life within a life. Blue words on white crisp paper take you into a new world where you need nothing but your words to add color, glitter and sparkle to your story. These same simple words have the capability to make us feel things. Deep Human emotions! Two words can make you want to rip somebody's head apart and one word can make a life-long friend.Sometimes half a word is enough to fall in love. Some power isn't it?

And words, they make you feel so vulnerable and vulnerable is so damn scary but so beautiful! Where you let it all out and place it messily on a piece of paper. This is me, all of me, nothing more, nothing less. Nobody else could bring out that kind of unconditional vulnerability.

But these words, little buggers made of alphabets, they've got double standards too,
They make you feel vulnerable yet extremely powerful. They help you communicate and sometimes they help you stay away from communication. They help you love and hate, they help you imagine and ideate. Little love letters, novels, a thesis on archeology. Emotions, history and philosophy. They're all but words. Nothing more nothing less.

After all,
It all starts with ink blue finger tips and a whole lot of happiness.

Pajamas or Killer Pants?

Aren't we lost sometimes in this extremely convoluted world?
Don't we feel really little sometimes?
Like tiny humans in this big world of lots of  choices?
Between all the big dreams and all the humongous desires, between practicality and idealism, between people and between things, amongst feelings floating deep inside?
Its funny how we get lost so often,
In the midst of what we have and what we really want, whether its love, money, success or fame? Or maybe we're just greedy (Insert cuss word).

I had to make the decision too,
Between I-am-floating-in-soft-cotton-clouds-and-I-dont-think-Im-wearing-anything-oh-my-god-this-feels-so-Liiiiiiberating Pajamas, and tight black pants with a sexy golden zipper and cutesy pockets. I did not know what I wanted to be.
I felt like lounging around reading a good old smelling book in a grey sweatshirt and those dream pajamas.
But then, I also wanted to strut around wearing those killer pants with a sparkling cocktail in one hand and a Chanel Bag in the other.

& Then I thought, who am I?

Okay, this was just about clothes. Such a silly thing. Go on, I can hear the snigger.

But don't we feel like this often?
About really crucial choices in our life. The tug of war between simplicity and fanciness. Two sides of the same coin?
Choosing between a cup of skimmed milk coffee and a caramel frappuccino topped with a thick payer of cream swirls? Choosing between a small job that pays a big buck and a big job that hardly pays? Choosing between soul searching and clothes hunting ? Choosing between saying the truth and hurting feelings or saying a lie and creating sparkles? and obviously between Pajamas and Bodycon dresses?

 Is it really the choices in life that makes us?




Too Sombre for the first post of the year. Blame it on the hormones ;)

PS - I bought both the Pajamas and the Killer black Pants. Complicated beings.

Human Marketing

I've never posted a Marketing specific post before. I wrote this today for an essay to a prospective university and just after that I watched a mind boggling video!

Felt like sharing,

Describe a major trend in the marketing communications industry that will change the way organizations communicate.

In my opinion Marketing has become ubiquitous in today’s age. Everyone from a freelancer to the biggest of global organizations need to market themselves. It has become an indispensible part of any product or service. Due to this nature there is a lot of competition due to the sudden influx of products and services, organizations, companies, advertisements, media sources and overload of information. In the marketing communication industry new ideas spread like wildfire and turn into ideas that everybody uses. For example the use of advertising on Facebook started full fledgedly in 2008 and by 2013 it is a concept that the smallest of businesses use. Nothing stays unique for long in marketing, as the success for one company becomes an observation for another who ends up using the same strategy.

In this time there is a severe need to cut through the mediocrity and come out with a marketing communication trend that is as ever changing as the subject itself.  I think that trend is the trend of Context Marketing. Although content marketing has existed in the field since a long time in the future content marketing will evolve concentrating more on context marketing. It won’t just be about delivering information through various medias but it will also aim to target exactly the right context that the customer needs.

For example, a Youtube advertisement will not be a general mundane advertisement but will concentrate on exactly what problems its potential customer is facing and will attempt to solve just those problems. There will be personal handwritten notes, applications will talk to you knowing who you are! It is already visible in breakthrough ideas. Siri, concentrates on just who you are and addresses you by your name, answers just your questions and gives you exactly what you need. Once in a while it also sings a song or cracks a joke for you. Instagram, facebook they access your location. Foursquare provides you restaurant just based on where you are. Vodafone, India’s leading telecommunications network calls customers and comes home to receive payments just to save customers the trouble of depositing it in a payment box just 5 minutes away from their house. Big brands send birthday letters with fat discounts. Insurance companies send anniversary cakes with the picture of the couple printed on it. All of this is nothing but targeting the right context.

 Context is nothing but the amalgamation of content and the consumer. In today’s time of information overload the precision can only be created using content in the right context marketing. Everything will become more personal and it will build long lasting relationships, as the information will be more focused just to the right type of consumer looking for just what the information is providing. Communication will also become more idiosyncratic in terms of its company. In today’s time there is a lot of overlap of information but the use of context marketing will lead to unique information about each product offering something very different than another. It will be original, it will contain information, facts and figures, feelings and perceptions and innovative ideas. There will be an influx of contextual information, design, presentation and participation. It will also lead to the realization of why people make certain consumer choices. Everything will lead to context. What the consumer is doing when exposed to the information, what thoughts he’s thinking, what is his lifestyle and what are his needs. Intricacies of every consumer will be focused on to ensure maximum productivity and there will be more use of real time conversation and real relationships. 

It will be the generation of human marketing.

 & This my friends, is the Father of Context Marketing :

WATCH!

http://www.godvine.com/What-This-Airline-Did-for-Its-Passengers-Will-Make-You-Tear-Up-So-Heartwarming-4378.html

Almost Merry Christmas!