Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to read my profile.
I'm a Chartered Accountant by qualification, and a Creative Writer-cum-Ideator by choice. I have been in the creative arena for over a decade and have written, produced and published magazines and niche web contests for American companies like Levi's and IBM. My experience has given me valuable insights into what it is that readers and viewers desire out of an article or a design. I predominantly write for the American Internet audience and also contribute regularly to the Opinions Column of a leading Indian daily newspaper, Bangalore Mirror, published by the media giant Bennett & Coleman.
Okay, now let's get down to the business of writing:
I am a professional full-time writer–designer–ideator working out of home, simply because there's no place like home. Writing to me is an extremely creative and passionate activity – the written word must not only be informative, it must also enthuse the reader, entertain him, make him recommend what he read to others, and make him come back asking some more. Every article MUST contain certain words and sentences that should make a huge impact on its readers. I'm sure many of you have powerful memories of certain words or sentences used in books or in newspaper articles that you've read many years back.
This is the psychology of writing – and this is my goal – To create a powerful article/feature that has its moments, its twists and turns, and dialogues, all calculated to linger in the reader's memory.
My approach to writing goes like this: Research — Reading — Grasping the subject — Writing — Refining — Copy-editing/proof-reading — Submitting.
Oh yes, but there is a limit to how much I can write per day with this approach. According to me, writing more than three–four 500-word quality articles a day turns a writer into a mechanical, uninteresting, article-churning zombie devoid of originality.
That was about writing. Here are my other skill-sets:
- Brainstorming
- Conceptualizing and designing logos, posters and tees
- Conceptualizing informative and entertaining content for websites
- Storyboarding
- Brand building
- Image manipulation
- Spoofing
Please do have a look at my writing and designing samples, which you will find below. If you like what you see, mail me at sunil_tinani@yahoo.com.
Looking forward to doing business with you.
ARTICLE # 1
Racism Is A Silly Point
A letter of un-apology to Andrew Symonds, a "victim" of Indian racism
Hullo Andrew Symonds,
Mate, I've just learnt from the media that Indian cricket fans have called you a monkey and that's kind of pee-ed you off. Yup, calling someone a monkey is disgraceful, and you must be abso-bloody-lutely seething with rage.
There is something you must know about Indians – We are born racists. In our own homes, most women wash their hands whenever they come in accidental physical contact with any part of the household maid's body. It is very common for us to call a dark-skinned person kaalia (black skin) and those who do not have decent physical features, or those who sport an obnoxious attitude, are often referred to as bhangis (scavengers) or Kutas (dogs). There are many more epithets in every Indian language, but I'm sure you get the point.
India is packed with so many communities that only a full-fledged census can determine their numbers. Now, Indians have developed jokes and insults for each community – the Sikh community stars in dumb jokes, the Gujaratis are chided for their bad English pronunciation, the Sindhis for their moneymaking habits, and so on and so forth. In this sense, every single Indian is a racist.
However, there is a flipside to our racism – at best, we can be termed as pacifist racists. Bengalis, Sindhis, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Sikhs, et al., do not take offense at community-centered jokes – they enjoy and encourage such light banter. When our untouchable maids get into some sort of trouble, their employers get together and help them out financially and emotionally. Yes, we are pacifist racists, but we love each other and are in tune with the universal laws of co-existence.
Now, let's talk about you Australians. It is a well-known fact that Australians look down upon Indians settled there and eye them with suspicion. You know well that there are good Indian cricketers waiting for a chance to get into the Australian local and school teams, but are shut out because of your racist approach.
In 2006, racist violence broke out in Australia between the white residents of the city's southern beachside suburbs and the darker Sydney-siders of Middle-Eastern descent who visited the beaches at weekends. Maybe, you too have been a victim of some kind of a racist comment because of your West Indian heritage?
Let me also bend the banana in your head and recall some dingo material written about your team: (i) South African cricketers are called "kaffirs" and "kaffir boetie" (brother of blacks) and other apartheid names when they play on Australian grounds. (ii) The Englishmen are called "Poms" (Prisoner of his Majesty), which is a derogatory word, but has been okay-ed for use even by your cricket board! (iii) Sri Lankans have been at the receiving end by both the cricket spectators and the Australian media.
Waleed Aly, a noted Australian sports writer has this to say about Australian cricketers in the Australian newspaper, The Age: To field on an Australian boundary is traditionally a nightmare for a touring opposition cricketer. For dark-skinned fieldsmen, it regularly crosses that inviolable line that separates good-natured fun from the ethically repugnant.
Do you want to read more? Okay, here's what Malcolm Knox, an eminent sports journalist wrote about you guys when your team once toured India: On a tour to India, I heard two Australian cricketers call the locals "niggers". I saw Australian cricketers coming across Indians sleeping on a railway platform in Jamshedpur and nudging them awake with their feet to take a happy snap.
Finally, let me tell you that the class of a leader always rubs off on his followers, and here's what Lou Rowan, a former Test Umpire has to say about your captain: Ponting is a smart arse and a disaster as leader. The conduct of him and his players is absolutely disgraceful. He has no control over his players. It is an insult to former players and people associated with the game.
So, Symonds, if you want an apology, you must be joking. But, for the record, let me say that you do not look or behave like a monkey. Instead, you come across as a guy who has testosterone sloshing around in your scalp – which explains your hairstyle – and your brains seem to be located in the areas that are activated by testosterone.
We are not racists, you guys are. Don't bother writing back.
ARTICLE # 2
Unethical SEO TechniquesWhen a webmaster begins search engine optimization (SEO) on his website, he must ensure that only ethical SEO methods are used and all SEO techniques that are designed to fool or spam search engines are strictly avoided. There are many SEO firms and link exchange firms existing in the market that employ unethical SEO techniques to popularize a website. Here is a list of unethical methods, also known as black-hat SEO techniques, that are often used:
Keyword spamming: A website can just pump in useless content that is plastered with keywords. When the search engine crawls the web, it will pick up these keywords and may give the website a high ranking. However, search engine algorithms are now more sophisticated and experts opine that keyword density on any page should not exceed 3–4%.
Playing around with text: Many SEO firms that are desperate to show results to their clients plant hidden, keyword-rich text on a web page. Hidden text is a text that is of the same color as the background and hence cannot be seen by anyone on a website. Some SEO firms also use a very small font size so that more keyword-rich text can be contained in a smaller space.
Cloaking: This is a technique by which the search engine spiders are fed with content that is not available on the website that is being indexed.
Redirection: Normally, all SEO firms already own many websites that have been indexed by search engines. Some SEO firms who are out for a fast buck plant a code on these websites in such a crafty manner that when these websites are clicked upon they redirect the hit to their client's website.
Tag spam: Meta-tags are tags present in the html content of a website that carry information about the webpage. Normally, meta-tags are quick-referenced by search engines to index a website. Unscrupulous SEO firms fill up these meta-tags with keywords in order to spam the search engines. Web pages have other tags too (title, description and keyword tags) – and these tags need to be linked to the html programming. So, what SEO firms do is either spam keywords into these tags or provide deceptive titles to the page, which have no relevance to the content – all this to fool the search engines. Then there are image tags too (known as alt tags) – SEO firms use small images and stuff the image tags with keywords.
Backlinks from link farms: Unscrupulous webmasters would purchase backlinks from link exchange firms because backlinks add to a site's popularity. Many link exchange firms own their own link farms that have no meaningful content but carry links of websites who pay them money for building their links.
Unethical SEO can kill a websiteIf a webmaster adopts unethical SEO techniques, then there might be hell to pay. Any webmaster must understand that search engines' algorithms are getting smarter by the day and it will be a matter of time before his website is picked up as a spamming website. And once a website is caught spamming by a search engine, it gets blacklisted and is suspended from the search engine's database. This suspension stays in force until the entire black-hat SEO is erased from the website. And once it is completely erased, the website will have to start afresh in its quest for a higher search engine ranking.
Customers, if they find out, will also get put off by the website and may decide to take their business elsewhere. The conclusion is that though unethical SEO may deliver short-term results, in the long run it is bound to prove disastrous. The trick to succeed is to stick to honest and ethical, white-hat SEO techniques – these will pay off in the longer run.
ARTICLE # 3
How I Overcame Procrastination
"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday". – Don Marquis
Well, with that quote Don Marquis certainly hit the nail on the skull as far as I was concerned. But that was a short while ago when I was considered the king of procrastinators. I am a changed guy now, but I'll tell you what – read how I changed, and maybe that could be of some help to procrastinators around the world.
Before I begin snitching on my lazy life, let me first describe procrastination – procrastination is the habit of doing something today that ought to have been done day-before yesterday. Yes, simply speaking, procrastination is the art of keeping on postponing tasks. Now, let's move on to my story:
Once upon a time, specifically three months back, my routine went something like this –loitering on the couch sipping cups of coffee instead of attending to my daily rest room rituals; bunking exercise, thinking I would catch up on it tomorrow; delaying writing checks that needed immediate attention; faffing around on the couch and staying up late nights watching the TV instead of catching up on my sleep; pushing important tasks such as filing my tax returns till the last date, and so on.
The consequences kept adding up and my slips started showing – my colleagues lost their respect for me as I was fatigued during work hours; my children began treating me as a part of furniture; my friends began avoiding me as I had not bothered to catch up with them for old time's sake, and every time I gazed into my wife's eyes, I could read "shape up or ship out" loud and clear. The only guy who loved me was Bud, our dog, but that was not good enough.
From a fun-loving human being, procrastination turned me into a lazy dog and from lazy dog I was turning into a sloth pig. I had to do something to shake off my procrastination and restore my self-confidence. I knew my path to salvation lied in my self-determination, but I needed some help. I took my wife into confidence and laid bare my soul, and from there on began my journey of redemption – my wife would now be my guide and mentor and she would help me shrug off my procrastination.
As I look back, I realize that shaking off procrastination is not as difficult as it seems. Here are some of the measures I resorted to – and here's what I did:
First of all, I had to steel my mind – If I had to do it, I had to do it now. This sort of became a chant and, though I was a slow starter, I began by immediately attending to important tasks and slowly got a grip on myself.
I started thinking positively. I trashed all the negative feelings I had nursed about my boss, my friends, my colleagues and even my wife, and I painted everybody with the color of sunlight and my whole thinking process changed for the better. The cobwebs in my mind cleared and I began looking at people and things in a new perspective.
Thinking positive gradually pushed away all the self-defeating thoughts that used to lurk in my mind. "Can't" became "can; "Shall not" turned into "Will do", and things began changing because I began getting initial positive feedback from my family members!
Gradually, I began planning for tasks and began enjoying the process too! Okay, there was my wife around to goad me on, and my children were looking at their dad in a new light and that somehow gave me the strength to carry on with my anti-procrastination drive.
Okay, I'll be lying if I say that the transformation was magical, because it wasn't. To begin with, I had to break down important tasks into small do-able pieces and then attend to them. But, with time, I found I could manage monstrous tasks in a snap.
Well, I did try out a little meditation and found it had a calming influence on me. Believe me, a calming influence can give you the inner strength to go about your work without anyone's help or interference.
This is the gist of how I went about busting my procrastination. Today, the sun shines brightly on me as I command the respect of my colleagues and friends and the love of my family.
And, now, if you will excuse me – I'm off to plan my next month's budget and helping my lovely daughter with her school project work. I began my story with a quote and will now end it with one:
"Someday is not a day of the week". – Author Unknown
Good luck!
