pareshg.com

I have taken a step forward in blogging. I am blogging since 2011. First, I started with single blog then slowly I made three blogs of different genres. Personal, Cricket (sports) and Marketing. I have added fourth blog in my portfolio now www.pareshg.com. Yes, it is my own website. Now, no blogspot or wordpress or any other website's name in web address of my blog. There is only my name in it. In other words I am a dot com now. I bought my domain and word press web hosting from Big Rock. I decided to go for my own website because in freelancing I was loosing assignments. Companies were not allowing me to write for them because I didn't had my own website. Apart from that, I was looking for a platform to start new blog series.

First thing in the process of making website was to choose the name. I have decided to go for .com rather than .net or .in but a name before that was difficult to decide. pareshgodhwani would have been too long while only paresh would have been too general. I thought of par god first but then there would have been no connection between website and my previous blogs. The reflection of my name was important in website's name. I even thought of paresh wani but it sounds awkward. Paresh's wani sounds perfect. In the end, I came up with a simpler name pareshg. It is short, it has the reflection of my name, it connects with my other blogs and it sounds respectable as well.

Second thing after name was a theme. Word press provided me thousands of themes. I wanted a theme which looks good and give all the information about me including my social media accounts. And luckily I got that theme. I gave the name to the blog PG which is same as of my oldest and first blog. Then I added par god in my tag line which is directly linked to my twitter account. On the top of the page there are links to all of my social media accounts. Then there is a header which includes my blog name and tag line. I got the header image from BlogAdda. It depicts everything which you will find on my table except pepsi. Most importantly it has Six Degrees in it.

After the header, there are my posts. I have made 20 drafts to give you overall idea about the blog. Actually I have completed and published one post out of those 20. This blog is going to be a mixture of my three older blogs (PG, Cricket-ology & Short Stories). I will mix all three genres in it and will try to make it infotainment for you. I know I didn't mention about the link to my blogger blogs. In this blog, the link to my blogger blogs is invisible. It is somewhere around the links to my social media accounts. If you read and follow my blogs regularly then only you will be able to find it. You can comment on this post if you find that link.

Lastly, widgets in this blog is in the sidebar where you will find the one page called blogging badges. Where you will find my badges I have got while blogging. This website is for one year as of now. I will evaluate it at the end of the year and then decide whether I want to go on with it or not. It is an added responsibility for me. I have to maintain four blogs now. I will make sure that none of them is left behind. Hopefully this blog will perform and will give me good ROI. I would like to make it my permanent website in future. Let's see how it performs. Fingers crossed.

Maa and her workload

There is only one person in this world who will care for you like an idiot and that person is your mother. Your mother will always love you irrelevant of situation and condition you are in. You may take her for granted but she will work for you all her life and will make sure that you get everything on time. She will forget her pain to make sure that you get everything ready when you are leaving for work. She will give up her needs and dreams to fulfill yours. Do you even imagine how much work your mother do? Or do you think only you have the workload?

My mother is a house wife and I also used to think that her workload is not that much. She has to do the work sitting at home all day but I realised how tough her work is in 2013. In 2013, my mother went to her sister's house to attend the family function. I was having final exams of MBA so I didn't go with her. Before leaving, she did everything  so that I can go through my exams smoothly. My mother went to aunt's place (her sister's place) for three days. She had washed and ironed the clothes which I was going to wear in those three days. Thanks to her work, couple of my exams went smoothly. The real issue was on the third day. On third day, I had a viva and presentation. So I had to be in formals for that and all the formal clothes were in the wash tub.

The task ahead of me was to wash them. It was the time when I realised how much work my mother do in the house. When she was around, I used to throw clothes where I wanted to. She used pick up those clothes, put them in the machine, wash them and iron them with all the love. I realised her task was not only limited to clothes. Cleaning of the house, food, daily household shopping etc. I realised it is not like 9 to 5 job, her job starts from them moment she gets up in the morning till the moment she go back to sleep at night. In that realisation mode, I was moving in the house and was taking a note that what condition I have done of this house.

I called my mother and told her the situation I am in. She scolded me for wearing the formals when it was not needed. She said, "When will you learn to manage your things." Imagine, a management student was scolded by her mother for mismanagement. Then I asked her how to wash the clothes. She instructed me to fill the half of wash tub with water then put some Ariel in it. Ariel was not around the machine. So she asked to bring out the new packet of it from store room. I picked the new pack of Ariel and put some of it in the water. Then she told me to put my clothes in the wash tub and I did that. After that, I set the timer of 5 minutes and went to prepare for my viva. When the washed clothes came out of the machine there was some different feel in them. All the dirt has gone off them. They were looking fresh and new. I think it was the magic of Ariel.

Maa has always trusted Ariel when it comes to cleaning of clothes and Ariel has stood by it. Ariel simply do magic with the clothes. That day, my mother instructed me about while I washing clothes for the first time but these days Ariel matic comes with those instruction. Moreover it gives brilliant cleaning in just one wash. What else you want from a detergent! I learnt a big lesson that day. After that day, I make sure that I always put my dirty clothes in the wash tub  washing machine. I fill up the water in the wash tub and put Ariel in it whenever I am at home. Seeing me doing this, my brother has also stopped throwing his clothes here and there. Laundry is such a thing in which everyone can be a master. It is not like only mothers can do it well. So I share Maa's load when it comes to laundry and Ariel helps me to do it in an effective manner. As a result, you can see the smile on Maa's face in fresh clothes washed by Ariel.

I am taking part in the #LaundryGoesOddEven Challenge by Ariel India at BlogAdda.

25 years of my life

25 years. Probably more than half of my life is over. Honestly, I don't even want to live a long life in this mean world. If I evaluate my life then I was an average student in my academic life but I ended up being an MBA. As far as my professional life is concerned then I have ten months of experience in automobile industry, nine months of experience in denim industry and since last one and a half year I am working as an accountant in New India Assurance. I am a freelance writer since last one and a half year. In that one and a half year, I have written a book called 6° with 20 odd bloggers & I have been part of India's first coffee table book for bloggers. I am a freelance designer since last eight months and trying to be a social media influencer.

I am good at one more thing apart from these and that thing is cricket. Actually cricket is above everything for me. If you will wake me up from my death bed and ask me to play cricket, I will be ready for it. This was about my professional life. Now let me talk about me as a person. As a person, I am sensitive, strong headed guy. It is a dangerous combination. It makes me blunt and straight forward. So I am on everyone's face. I am very possessive for the people whom I love. Not only that, I am very honest and loyal to them as well. I don't give up on anything easily. I am simple at most of the things. Small things in life matter a lot for me. I believe that life is lived in moments. Though we run behind the materialistic things in life but life is actually lived in moments. All the materialistic things are going to be here only. Only thing we are going to take with us are the moments we lived. The moments we cherished. Signing the first copy of my book was the biggest moment in my life.

Long walk at night with my father, long drive with my mother, calming my brother's nerves in his crucial matches, whacking the ball over the fielder's head, uprooting the middle stump of the batsman, writing 4 blog posts in a day, hang outs with friends are the moments I will always cherish. There will be more such moments in my life and hopefully bigger ones. We show off materialistic things when we meet friends after a long time but the fact is that they were with us when we were nothing. So we should relive and laugh on old memories instead of showing off the materialism. Biggest thing one can donate in this world is smile. And that smile can come through even smallest of the things. I try to donate smiles with whatever I have because life is not fair to everyone and I am blessed that I am leading such a good life.

I am blessed with the best parents in the whole world but they deserve a better son than me. As at times, I take them for granted. Life hasn't been a fairy tale for me. I have been ignored, humiliated, discarded and isolated by my own people. People whom I gave the most importance, whom I considered my family played with my feelings and cheated me. They shown me their true colours when I needed them the most. I have no regrets that I gave them the importance, considered them as family & best friends & valued them. I simply gave them everything I had, it was their decision to ignore me, humiliate me and discard me. And for that there is one rule in life, you reap what you sow. So they will get it back in some or the other way. There will be very few people in this world apart from your parents who will care for you like an idiot. Never let them go. Always make them feel good. Value them and give them the importance they deserve.

I know I know, I should be doing satsang somewhere but I don't want to force people to live my way because they will live my way only in front of me or only to show me. While they will be totally different nature wise. So I will be forcing them to be two faced. Satsang is already making people two faced and I don't want to fall that much for the sake of money. As I am getting older, I am loosing that version of me who finds fun even in the worst situation of life. Anyways, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has part of my life in last 25 years. Each one of you have taught me some or the other thing.

#IPL Collection

I got a good response on my #WT20 collection and that response encouraged me to come up with #IPL collection. I ran a poll on twitter asking people whether I should make #IPL collection or not? And I got this result.

I know IPL has begun and I am late in launching it. Actually I am not late in launching it. I planned to launch in the middle of the season and there is a reason for that. It was an emotional end to #Wt20. West Indies won it. They entertained us, brought smile on our faces with their moves but the way they were treated by their cricket board, it made us emotional. IPL started within few days after #wt20 and people were still in the hangover of #wt20. People were less interested in IPL. Now the tournament is approaching its business end. So I think this is the best time to launch IPL collection.

*removing the curtains*

IPL Collection

*curtains on the floor*

Freecultr

I have designed only one tee on freecultr. It is a general tee showing the cricket ground. The background of that tee is like lush green outfield of the ground. Thinking behind this tee was that we often go to watch live matches in stadiums and other local grounds but we don't find the right clothes for that purpose. I mean if we are going for international matches then we get the tees of the team whon we are supporting but what if we are going for domestic tournaments or local tournaments? We don't get the tees of those teams. So here is the tee satisfy the purpose of watching any type of cricket match.

PosterGully

On PosterGully, I picked up a squad of players whom I wanted to see on my products. Squad consists of Indian players mostly. There are some foreign players as well. Here I am going to disclose only foreign players as captains do in their first IPL match of the season. So the foreign players in my IPL collection are Warner, AB DeVilliers, Williamson, Miller, Malinga & Morgan. I wanted to design the collection in this way during #Wt20 only but things didn't work out at that time.

This collection is bigger than previous one. There is more variery in this collection. I have put many more players in this collection and mostly Indian. So you will get your favorite player easily. And considering the variety of products on postergully, you can decorate your house with this collection. This is not a boys centric collection. I know girls also love cricket so there are equal no. of products for girls in this collection. In the beginning of the paragraph, I only used bigger and not bigger and better. I want you to decide whether this collection is better than #Wt20 collection or not.

Best products of #Wt20 Collection

The Wedding Photographer

I am a blogger and blogging has given me the tag of writer. With the help of blogging, I became the co author of six degrees - game of blogs. I have written that book with twenty three other bloggers. As the title suggests, it was a game of blogs in which bloggers of India were divided into thirty teams. We were given the characters. We had to web a story around them. It was played in three rounds. Every round lasted for one month. Every month ten blog posts were submitted by each team. After the third round my team (By Lines) won as we wrote the best story. I became an author as top three stories were published in a book called six degrees.

Now, I want to go to the next level. I want to write a book on my own. I know it is very different and difficult from writing a blog. To write well, you have to read a lot. So I read a lot. I am not an avid reader. So I complete only those stories which has the capability to hold me till the end. I prefer debut writers because I learn a lot from them. There are some top publication houses in this country which can give your debut novel a dream start. Thus I pick up the books from those publishers mostly. Next book in my reading list is The Wedding Photographer. Penguin Books India (one of the top publishers in India) is launching another fresh and talented debut author Sakshama Puri Dhariwal. 

Sakshama Puri Dhariwal was born in Delhi and brought up in the era of 1990s' Bollywood era. She has done an MBA in marketing from S.P. Jain, Mumbai and spent several years as a brand manager in industry-leading companies like Snapdeal, Hindustan Times and Tata Teleservices. Sakshama has worked on marketing campaigns that have won awards at Cannes, Effies and Goafest. She reads romance novels the way most people eat chocolate-fast, often and constantly craving more. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and their netflix subscription. Sakshama is making a fantastic debut with wedding, love, photography, scandal and cricket.

The story revolves around two characters Risha Kohli and Arjun Khanna. Risha Kohli, a journalist lands next to handsome young real estate tycoon, Arjun Khanna on a seventeen-hour-long flight. Risha has been moonlighting as a wedding photographer and her next assignment is Arjun's sister's wedding: the most talked about social event of the year! Arjun doesn't trust journalists and suspects that this smart, sexy and incredibly spunky girl is only using their mutual attraction as a ploy to invade his privacy for a newspaper scoop. And Risha, unaware of Arjun's personal demons, is worried that this irresistible boy's unnerving behaviour will jeopardize her biggest professional gig so far. What follows is a rollercoaster of snarky quips, sizzling chemistry and simmering drama amidst a big fat punjabi wedding.

The plot of the story is very interesting and I feel it will hold me till the end.

Moreover writer has included cricket in this story so it will be a perfect summer read for me. It will be available in stores from May 1 but I have pre ordered it on amazon.

IndiPR

IndiBlogger. One of the best blogging websites in India. It has taken blogging to the next level in this country. IndiBlogger is a forum which brings digital marketers of the country under one digital roof. IndiBlogger connect companies with bloggers. Companies are using blogging as a marketing tool for a long time now but they didn't had an access to these many bloggers earlier. Moreover India is going through digital revolution. Internet is a trending tool for infotainment (information + entertainment) these days. So if you want to launch a new product or start up a new business today, you need digital marketers to create a buzz about it on internet.

Normally celebrities appoint PR to promote themselves as a brand but here IndiBlogger is offering a PR to companies. It is called IndiPR. And this PR promotes business, products and services. Businesses of various sizes, including start ups, can now promote themselves via IndiPR. Actually, PR in IndiPR stands for Press Release. When any product or service is launched in the market, a press release is usually the first order of business. IndiPR is launched to make it extremely simple for business to get their Press Releases published by top bloggers. The press releases will be published by relevant influencers in less than 72 hours.

The process of IndiPR is very simple for business. Business only needs to upload their press release on IndiPR.com. Then 'Automated Influencer Targeting Engine' or 'AITE' will proceed to accept the applications from bloggers. After accepting the applications, AITE will automatically shorlist the bloggers on the basis of internal ratings and rakings. Then the shortlisted bloggers will do their research and publish their articles. And you can do this with a starting budget of just USD 150. Through IndiPR.com top influential bloggers will create a buzz about your product, service or start up on the internet. Imagine, your product or service going viral on internet in this digital era. It will be a win win situation for your business.

Identifying and targeting influencers is a cumbersome process. You as a marketer spend lot of time in trying to identify and contact influencers. With IndiPR.com, you don't have to worry about all this because the system just needs your press release. Everything else will be done by system on its own. As I said earlier it is a win win situation for your business. Not only business it is equally good for influencers. It will help influencers to generate fresh and new content everyday. In future IndiPR.com will carry more than just press releases. Influencers will be able to get creative assignments, get invitations to attend the trendiest launch events etc. In short, IndiPR is a great platform for both Businesses as well as influencers. I (as a citizen of this digital world) think it will take digital marketing to the next level.

#WT20 collection

First quarter of my online business has ended. If I evaluate it, then It has been a pretty slow start to my business. I am designing and selling products on the websites like freecultr & postergully. And these websites (Freecultr & PosterGully) are already competing with the shopping websites like flipkart, snapdeal, myntra, jabong & amazon. Moreover freecultr and postergully are brands and as brands, they are competing with the brands like Puma, Nike, adidas, UCB, Reebok, USPA etc. This is the competition on bigger level. If I talk about internal competition, then there are more than 13000 designers on freecultr and some 4000 designers on postergully. Considering the competition and my qualification in designing and art, I should be grateful that atleast I have got a start but there are lot of fellow designers whose qualification in art and design is similar to me. Most of them are performing much better than me. If they can do it then why can't I?

I am a Marketing gradute and considering my earnings of first quarter, I must say that I have failed as a marketer and I accept this brutal defeat gracefully. I begin my second quarter this month and hopefully I will grow my business in this quarter. Along with the second quarter, the season of cricket has also begun. So this month, I have designed the products keeping #WT20 in mind. Big brands and designers come out with winter collection or summer collection but here I present The #WT20 collection.

Freecultr

I have put five designs on freecultr this month and only one of them is on cricket. Three out of five designs are in blue shade because two of them are the older ones. I have made changes in them. Remember the two tictactoe tees in my collection? I have made changes in them. Earlier X and Os were spreaded on 75% of the tee but now they are spreaded all over the tee. Third tee in blue is an illustration which shows that a spaceship has just landed on the planet. Apart from them there is one pink tee on which I have applied texture. From the first time I have played with texture. I hope it has come out well. Fifth one is designed keeping t20 cricket in mind. T20 cricket is all about aggression and the aggression ends with agony. Thus fifth tee is expressing agony in grey shade. Now the important notice. You can buy these designer tees for children as well. Earlier tees on freecultr were only for men & women but now they have started producing same for children ageing 5 to 14.

PosterGully

On postergully, I have played with #WT20's logo, have made my own logo and have picked some players who are going to make an impact in #WT20. I have designed many products around these three things. Actually it is the variety of products which completes my #WT20 collection.

Clothing

In clothing there are Men's tees Women's tees and unisex tank tops. You would have seen lot of tees with variety of players on it but I bet you these tops are different. This collection is more vibrant amd colourful. I have made two variants of most of the designs in this collection and it just adds few more colours to the collection. You want to know which players I have chosen? Well, see them in the pic below.

Tech Stuff

In tech stuff, there are mobile cases, mousepads & laptop skins. In this there are no two variants or something but they will make your gadget look awesome. And it is not like that it is made only for #WT20. Most of them is designed in such a way that it will look good on your gadget even after #WT20.

Wall Arts & other products

In this there are posters, premium glass frames, wall clocks, cushion covers, coffee mugs, accessory boxes, coasters, notebooks etc. and these products completes my collection. If you are a cricketmaniac then you can decor your whole house or your room from this collection.

I am working on this collection since february. I had lot of ideas but either they were not clicking or they were not coming out the way I wanted. As it is a collection made on the theme of cricket, I needed players names, logos, flags, sketches etc but there were lot of copyright issues around them. Thus it was the most challenging collection for me as a designer. I was about to launch it in the first week of March but I was not satisfied with it. So I worked on it for few more days and finally it came out the way I wanted. It is not that this collection is only made for #WT20. I have named it #WT20 collection only because I am launching it at the time of #WT20. Most of the designs in this collection will look classy always. Whether it is mugs, t-shirts, laptop skins or anything. You can freely express your adulation for the players or the game with this collection. So explore it and start flaunting your love for the game.