Rohan Monteiro

Posts

I Spent $1300 on Amazon Ads— Here’s what I learned

Writing, requires the wearing of many hats. Its tempting to focus on honing your craft and leaving everything else to the professionals. It was one of those lessons hammered into us during our MBA days — outsource everything that isn’t a core competence and focus on what you are good at. The real world challenge, however is that we still need to find semi-competent sources to outsource the other processes to. Bear in mind, these are still essential processes, they are just not ones where we have an edge and so we tend to rely on those who claim they are good at their jobs. For ‘ Shadows Rising’ I chose one particular agency. In retrospect, I should have done a little more research before selecting them. But on the surface, they seemed good enough and I figured what’s the worst that could happen? Turns out, quite a bit. I worked with them for social media posts and Amazon Ads. I have no real complaints about the social media post aspects — there were challenges but nothing that could

Fantasy Land and people are dicks!!

When I was a kid, something happened that I still remember. Maybe kid is the wrong word — I was in 9th grade, so not exactly small and cuddly but not really an adult either. Was just learning how to deal with the idea that the world is full of all sorts of people. Some could be nice, some could be massive dicks. Case in point, we were at Fantasy Land — an amusement park in Mumbai. My first visit there -I was very excited. There were 5 of us — 2 older aunts and me and my two male cousins My two older cousins did not like the idea of babysitting me — they were a year and 2 years older and decided they would ditch me. I remember being afraid — that I would not find my way back. I had no money, no water, I was thirsty and till today I have no sense of direction. I also remember feeling rejected. I wanted the approval of my older cousins, and here they were, running away. I am not built for anger. I knew even then that if I met them again, I would not be angry with them — maybe I should ha

To be a writer....WRITE!!

Folks, Ive made a copy of this story on Medium. If you like the stark, shiny interface that Medium provides, please head over and read the story here . If you want bleeding cool textures and edgier backgrounds, I dont have it here either , but only because the buddy I normally rely on for layouts and formatting is guzzling pina coladas on a beach in Goa at the moment and wont be back till next month. Onwards to the article... The problem with seeking advice from the internet is that people are all too prepared to give it without any thought to how qualified they actually are to be dishing out said advice. This is especially true for writing. You can master the intricacies of grammar and bend it to your will, yet good sentences will elude you. You can craft vivid and beautiful plots in your mind but they turn into steaming piles of putrid garbage when they are penned down. And there is abysmally poor advice out there that frankly nobody should listen to, even if the writer of

Hickman and the X-men

I've read Hickman's run on the X-men at least 5 times in the past few years. And I have to say, I think it's the best version of the X-Men that has ever been written. To be clear, when I began reading X-men (around 2001), I didnt just start from there. I went back and read every issue from the 1960's when it began all the way till 2001 and beyond. Characters died, then returned, then died again, villains became heroes and villains again (Im looking at you, Magneto), new villains rose, etc etc. Grant Morrisson did something of consequence by revamping the X-Men - his run at that time was new, fresh and original. Yet after that, it stagnated again. Until now. Hickman's Krakoa run and the weird and fascinating lives of Moira Taggert is immensely pleasing .I suspect Im going to hate how it ends, but so far I am amsolutely loving it.

The pursuit of the perfect...desert?

Back in the good old days, when I had more hair on my head than growing out of my ears, there was a girl I dated briefly. She was on a quest to find the perfect coffee. Every weekend, she would visit a different café across Dubai , choose a Cappuccino and pen down her observations in her journal. I had no such interest. Going out to a café became a thing in Mumbai roughly in 1996, when ‘Barista’ started popping up as a trendy chain of outlets across the city. Or maybe that was when I first began venturing out of my sheltered little pod because it was my first year of college. Until then, I hadn’t seen much of the city except a square kilometre around my house in Juhu which included my school, the doctor, the pharmacist, two churches and a graveyard. Basically, everything I might ever need was in that space and I had never ventured outside it. But now, I was in Bandra – the cooler, more hep cousin of all the other suburbs with shorter skirts, tastier food and a lot more entertainm

Shadows Rising #3 -From the Cutting Floor - The Caste System

This is the 3rd in a series of posts written originally as part of 'Curse of the Yaksha' aka 'Shadows Rising' but that were dropped from the final version. This piece is about the caste system in India. The Caste system is a social hierarchy that has been prevalent in India since ancient times (2500 -3000 years), according to some sources . For context, particularly non-Hindu readers, there were four broad categories in the caste system: o Brahmans - Scholars /Sages o Kshatriyas - Warriors o Vaishyas - Farmers, Traders, Merchants o Shudras - Manual Labour Although there are four main castes, thousands of sub-castes further divide India's people. Additionally, there is a separate caste who aren't considered part of the system at all – the Untouchables or Dalits. They are shunned by society and forbidden to live amongst those of high castes. They handle the jobs the rest of the castes refuse to do, such as cleaning latrines, manual scavenging, prostitution,