​I was hired to launch a US cultural phenomenon in India. The category it belonged to didn’t exist here yet!

Everyone in consumer wellness will tell you that a US product launch in India needs eighteen to twenty-four months, a bloated media budget, and a small army. This one didn’t.

In April 2024, Tuhin Jain, who I had worked with once before, brought me into Aspeya (previously called Vectura Fertin Pharma) to set up the digital ecosystem and orchestrate the brand and product launch in India for Neuro, their US nootropic gum. 

A clean remit. 

A single product. 

A new market. 

Straightforward, or so I assumed! 

It took me a few months to figure out that I was playing a much larger game than the one on the brief.

The money I had wasn’t really a full launch budget. It was closer to a seed-level bet. And the product wasn’t really the point. The product was the instrument. What Aspeya was actually testing was whether the consumer wellness category itself could work in India, for Neuro and for other wellness brands they might bring in after. I wasn’t running a product launch. I was running a category diagnostic for a global consumer wellness company deciding how much of its future to bet on India.

Nobody framed it that way at the start. In hindsight, that was probably the best thing that could have happened, because I designed around discipline and learning rather than scale and spectacle.

What we were actually up against

It’s worth being plain about what Neuro is in the US, because it changes how you read everything that follows.

Neuro is not a small product. It’s a cultural phenomenon. The brand is the only company in Shark Tank history to return after rejecting a deal and secure investment on a second appearance. It was the number one product on TikTok Shop in 2025. It has crossed a hundred million pieces sold across more than ten thousand retail stores including Walmart, Target, CVS, and Whole Foods. Joe Rogan has mentioned it more than thirty times across his podcast! Kim Kardashian has mentioned it. Katy Perry has mentioned it. Steve Aoki came on first as an investor and then as a brand ambassador, with a co-created limited edition flavour. There is a real category around it in the US, a community around it, and a cultural conversation around it.

In India in early 2024, none of that existed in any meaningful way.

Nootropics wasn’t a category you could lean on. The term wasn’t recognised at the search volumes that matter for a launch, not by consumers, and honestly not even by the largest ecomm platforms as a catagory in the way you’d need them to correctly set up a product listing or to run a credible keyword-led strategy! 

You can’t SEO your way into a category that isn’t showing up in the data yet. You can’t run keyword campaigns against search volume that isn’t there. You have to build the category around the product at the same time as you’re selling the product, and you have to do that without the budgets of a brand that already owns the category somewhere else.

That is a very different job from “launch a popular American product in India.” The entry was high-risk. And it’s a job that keyword planners and media templates simply cannot do.

What I owned, and what I didn’t

The digital intelligence of the launch sat with me, end to end.

1. I built the strategy across our own D2C website, third-party ecomm marketplaces, and social, treating them not as three separate channels but as one connected system that had to compound on itself. 
2. I led partner selection for D2C and performance, and I built the audience profiling and persona work that the channel mix sat on top of. 
3. I directed creative for assets that had to work across media, the D2C site and the ecomm listings without reshoots (most even made using CGI product 3D rather than commissioning a full product shoot!). 
4. I set up ecomm, planned warehousing and inventory, and set the KPIs that the agencies were then held to down to even purchasing the right domain name! 
5. I owned the feedback loop back into operations for forecasting. Who to target, how, in which markets, and where our first sale would come from, all of it designed as one system rather than five handoffs.

I had trusted partners and agencies running creative execution and social media alongside me, and I’m genuinely grateful they did. None of this was a solo act on the execution side! 

The thesis: digital marketing isn’t a job, it’s a science

I didn’t come into Neuro green. At Tata Consumer Products, leading digital for an FMCG portfolio, I learned how category, pricing, distribution and digital actually work as one system, and how to make a media plan accountable to a P&L instead of to a deck. At Royal Enfield, leading social and content strategy, I learned how to build community and content for a brand with deep cultural equity, where the audience is the brand and you can’t fake your way past them.

I brought all of that together for Neuro.

And this is what crossing categories teaches you, and what I think too many founders and CMOs still miss.

The method of digital marketing is category-agnostic. The application changes but the science doesn’t. Persona sharpening, ritual-cuing, trust architecture, funnel sequencing, creative systems, first-party data design, these are transferable principles. 

What changes between FMCG and consumer wellness is the regulatory overlay, the claims you can make, and the consumer’s default posture toward the category. Everything else is the same physics.

That single reframe is what let me walk into a wellness launch with cross-category instincts and not waste three months relearning how humans behave online.

Four things the industry keeps getting wrong about launches:

First, they over-invest in awareness before they’ve earned the right to it.

I didn’t buy reach in the traditional launch-campaign sense. I went where intent already existed, at the edges of adjacent categories and competing brands. Productivity and energy buyers converted meaningfully better than broader lifestyle segments, even though the latter was a shinier target. Sales first. Awareness as a by-product.

Second, they treat creative as disposable.

One creative system, directed to work across launch comms, product education, performance media, social and CRM, without reshooting assets for every channel. When you can’t afford to waste money, campaigns give way to systems. A line like “Unlock Your Ritual” had to earn its keep on a reel, on a PDP, in a CRM email and in an influencer brief. If it couldn’t, it didn’t ship.

Third, they sequence the funnel wrong.

Most brands plug CRM in after the sale. We mapped the exact moment it would kick in, late enough not to feel intrusive, early enough not to lose the customer. PII capture, D2C education on a deliberately lean website, aggressive ecomm capture and retention were built as one loop rather than four departments handing off to each other. CRM ended up becoming the single most efficient channel in the mix by a wide margin, not because we spent more on it, but because we designed for it from day one.

Fourth, they confuse “digital marketing” with “running ads.”

The real work was ground up. How we’d land our first presence. How we’d collect first-party data without bribing for it. What would drive sales versus what would drive education. How we’d find new audiences without paying twice to discover them.

What the consumer actually taught us:

The data surfaced patterns no upfront deck could have predicted. The trust deficit in supplements is real, and the consumer, in India and frankly anywhere else, passes a new wellness product through what we started calling “the Google test” before trying it. That meant we had to populate the digital universe with discoverable, searchable content they could self-validate against.

Mobile-first was an understatement, with nearly all orders coming from mobile and heavily skewed toward iOS users. Peppermint gum buyers turned out to be the gateway SKU, later expanding into other flavours and formats, which changed how we thought about bundling and repeat journeys. Weekday mornings between 7 and 11 AM were the peak purchase window, not weekends.

These aren’t things you find out by guessing. You find them out by designing the launch to find them out. That’s the science.

The part I haven’t said out loud until now

This isn’t a hard job. It’s a trust problem.

Launches get expensive and slow when companies hedge. When they split the strategy across five agencies, second-guess the operator, and optimise for the comfort of the review deck instead of the outcome. When one person with the full stack in their head, strategy, media, creative, CRM, commerce and operations, is trusted to run it as one thing rather than five, the math changes.

On the person who made this possible

Tuhin Jain, who then ran new business expansion for Asia at Aspeya, is an ex-founder himself. He came into this with a founder’s instinct for the India opportunity and, just as importantly, a founder’s agenda to prove the market was worth the company’s belief. That combination is rarer than it sounds. Most corporate sponsors running a market-entry project are hedging, waiting for data to make the case for them. He wasn’t. He had the hunch going in and was looking for the right operator, the right agency and the right partners to deliver against it. I think a lot of what got built in this launch exists because he knew exactly what he was trying to prove, and he was willing to back the people who could help him prove it.

This wasn’t the first time Tuhin and I had worked together. A few years earlier, while I was the digital marketing lead at his startup, one of the leading early-stage consumer brands in India at the time and an early entrant into the country’s discovery of speciality coffee and Nespresso format home brewers when that format was still very nascent, he and I built something from the ground up. That chapter was where I really learned ecommerce. Looking back, that earlier run is probably why he came looking for me again. And looking back is also when I realised how intelligent that call was, both his to bring me back, and mine to say yes! :) 

What I am most grateful for is the faith. Tuhin gave me the kind of rope most operators never get. Key decisions, I got to drive on his behalf.

He understood, sometimes before I did, that the patience this kind of work demands is not the same as the patience a running business demands. Building a category from zero is slower than selling into an existing one. It asks you to hold your nerve when the dashboards look quieter than you’d like. He held his, and let me hold mine.

I will also say honestly that I found myself educating him and the wider network again and again. That tested my patience more than once. But looking back, that was the generous part. He was learning in public alongside me, and he kept backing the call even when the ground was still shifting. Most sponsors won’t do that. The good ones do. The rare ones understand that when you’re launching into a category that doesn’t exist, the operator is doing two jobs at once and needs air cover for both.

In retrospect

After I delivered the project, I moved on to other ventures. The foundational work continues to compound to date. The system was built to keep going whether I stayed or not, and that, more than anything else, is the part I’m proud of. You build systems properly, they keep working. The operator doesn’t always get to see the flowering of what they planted, and that’s okay. That’s the job.

For the founders and CMOs reading this

If your category already exists in the market you’re entering, a keyword plan and a media template can get you some distance. If it doesn’t, none of that will save you. What you need is someone who can build the category and sell the product at the same time, and a sponsor who understands that those two jobs take different kinds of patience.

I take on a small amount of consulting work alongside everything else, mostly because it keeps my mind sharp. So if any of this resonated, or if you just want to think out loud about a launch, a category, or a business you’re trying to build, I’m always happy to trade an hour for a good cup of coffee.

Content Is the Constant. Everything Else Is Just the Vehicle.

You’ve heard most of these before.

Brain rot. Doom-scrolling. Phone zombies. The kids can’t read anymore. They can’t focus. They can’t have real conversations. Social media is making them anxious, lonely, performative. AI is going to kill creativity. ChatGPT is going to kill writing. TikTok is going to kill thinking. Reels are turning audiences into goldfish.

The medium changes. The fear stays the same.

I say, Brain Rot Is the Wrong Conversation

Every generation has had a version of this panic. Television was going to rot the children. Radio was going to make them lazy. The novel was going to corrupt young women. The printing press was going to dilute genuine learning. Even writing itself, when it first appeared, was greeted by Plato as a threat to memory and real understanding. He wasn’t wrong about what would change. He was wrong about what would be lost.

What we’re actually watching, and have always been watching, is civilisation’s oldest impulse, the urge to tell, hear, share, connect, taking the next available shape.

I came up through advertising, brand management, PR, and copywriting. Disciplines that, for all their differences, share one inheritance: you are taught to think about the message before the medium. The form is rented. The substance is what travels. I don’t think I understood the weight of that lesson when I was first taught it. It is something I am only now coming to realise, after years of watching the mediums change around me while the substance underneath kept asking the same questions.

Look at the long arc and the pattern is hard to miss.

We started on cave walls, pressing handprints into rock so a story could outlive its teller. Then we became oral, building entire civilisations out of myth, song, and chant. Then writing meant the story no longer depended on memory. The printing press meant it no longer depended on access. Radio, film, and television gave it sound and movement at scale. The internet collapsed distance. Social and video collapsed time. AI is now beginning to shape the story itself in response to whoever is receiving it.

My generation occupies an unusual seat in this story. We are old enough to have used technology to learn the history of human communication, and young enough to have lived through the most rapid shift in its mediums any generation has ever witnessed. We have used the same tools to study cave paintings and to build chatbots. That is not a small inheritance. It is a vantage point earlier generations did not have, and it should leave us with more humility about what is changing, not less.

Every one of these shifts was met with the same fear. That something essentially human was being lost. That the previous form was nobler. That the next generation was being damaged by what was holding their attention.

The “kids today” never actually changed. The floor they were standing on did.

This is what I think most marketing conversations get wrong. They start from the platform and work backwards. TikTok strategy. Instagram strategy. AI strategy. Influencer strategy. As if the platform were the thing that mattered, rather than the message it was carrying. As if Gen Z is a different species from the people who once worried that comic books would warp their children.

Platforms are not the work. They are the floor a particular generation happens to be standing on. The work is, and has always been, figuring out what is worth saying, who needs to hear it, and how to make it land in their actual life.

The discomfort people feel about audiences becoming “too digital,” about kids being “addicted to their phones,” about AI “doing the thinking for us,” is the same discomfort that greeted every new medium before this one. It is not a sign that civilisation is decaying. It is a sign that civilisation is, once again, finding a new floor for the same old conversation.

I think we’ll keep building these floors. I think AI is the next one, not the last. And one day, who knows, we may even build the kind of content that lets us reach across whatever distance comes next. Including distances we don’t yet have a name for.

That is the part of the work that keeps me curious. 

Not the platforms. 

The pattern underneath them.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Very soon the Google calendar app is going to enhance itself with this feature.

COVID-19 gave the rise to working around the world remotely, and today it has become the new normal. 

Companies were forced to trust their employees more, employees learnt to focus better, both benefited from this. Of course, everyone had to upgrade their homes to be more connected. To ensure the smooth running of not 'work', but other things, such as their Entertainment devices, Cable, Banking, Grocery Shopping, Workouts, Meditation apps. All from the comfort of their homes.

But of course, as important, it is to stay healthy, safe and alive, it is to be able to earn. Working remotely and with efficiency does exactly that. But, the foundation of progress is defined by our efficiency in communication and transport infrastructure.

And in the absence of transport, when we over-indexed on communication alone, it was all about time management. It ensured we have enough time to communicate as we have to work and deliver a project. Because talking or communicating doesn't alone deliver work. It's the time we spend processing it and applying our learnings and knowledge that does! 

This brings us to the highly efficient Google calendar app. Oh, boy have we all been grateful to it in the lockdown. From businesses to entrepreneurs, to creators alike. It was and still is one of the simplest solutions out there to manage your work, time and efficiency. 

But staying home and working remotely has also meant blocking more time for meetings to work as teams or to deliver projects. With the added hours of commute - that we've now learnt to dedicate to work as well, oftentimes people have started to complain that they have had too many meetings each day and almost no time to actually work.

So while the Google calendar app has helped us find time with others and block our calendars to do so, it has almost not accounted for hours we put aside everything and work. 

"Focus hours" is a concept that ensures you have time on your calendar that can be blocked each day post a meeting or as part of the day you dedicate each day of the week to actually do your work - during your work hours. Others can see this and they can see the agenda of your focus hours as well, but they won't be able to actually block your time in that period unless you allow them to do so exclusively.

The feature is simple, it shows your calendar as 'partially blocked', the reason for it being blocked. It gives better control to the person as it lets them decide who can block their time in these defined hours while ensuring a larger set of people do not actually intrude or break your focus. 

What next for payment apps, appointment booking apps and likes of Urban Company, Google business and Facebook marketplace?

A Covid-19 perspective: Thinking SMB growth and substance 

It's Jun 2021, we’re already in the middle of year 2 of lockdown. Life has not been easy, managing health and well-being has been difficult, keeping small businesses alive has been worse. 

India thrives on mom and pop shops. The jugaad country. The country of a billion-plus population, where everyone has learned to survive and dreams of growth by hard work. We’re conditioned from childhood how government jobs are safe, and how good grades, hard work and consistency will ensure you have a well-settled life and success in any endeavour we apply ourselves. That by saving enough, anyone with even small ideas can turn their dreams into big businesses - by working the grind with consistency of course. 

Covid-19 changed that. Not just for uber drivers and retail shop workers and food delivery agents or business owners, but more severely for the service industry. 

While payment and UPI apps were the next big thing in 2019 when everyone was out and about their one business and the worry of the hour was how to make payment fast, secure and convenient for fickle customers. And let's say an added layer of bookkeeping and making saving easier for everyone from a Kirana store owner to a local salon owner. Once covid hit, properties changed. 

Then with a sudden knee jerk reaction - like a flip switch even - literally overnight - we saw the rise of platforms like zoom, voice and video chats in 2020 and 2021. 

2020 - saw the rise of reels, live streaming and video lead workshops and teaching - Perfect for people who were at home, and were able to channel their energies and drive business growth and reach by using these mediums. We saw people start self-help reels, give workshops online and engage in live sessions. Everything they could do using a simple mobile device and internet from the comfort of their homes - just to ensure that their business stays relevant in the mind of customers. The one hope that remained - this phase was temporary and it was a business revenue hit everyone had to make way for. Nothing else needed to change. 

Come 2021 - We're still in lockdown. We’ve learned to live with ourselves and we're tired of waiting, losing patience. Small business owners are also humans after all. But they're growing sceptical, they can't step out and they can't take the risks they planned as optimistic SMB owners. The virus after all has evolved as well. But 'risk' is something Indian's specialise in taking. 

'Peth paalne ke liye karna padta hai babu' is the undertone of our 'jugaad' mindset after all. 'Calculated risk' is something one never really plans for like an extended vacation. Nor is it that much fun. So what now? 

We're slowly but surely getting vaccinated, and that instils a lot of misplaced encouragement and hope in the SMB owners who have mouths to feed and rents to pay and have waited it out patiently for a year. Once the government imposed lockdowns being to fade, people will risk et all, and open shop, period. 

But we can be smarter about this. There is a gap that wasn't really there actually, but a place that Paytm's of the world and Gpay's of the world (in coalition with their Google Business listing) can solve for - 'paid risk'. 

Two categories that have already perfected this is medical consultations and dining out - Practo and Zomat's of the world have set them up for success that it's not even occurring. as a problem to them. You can book find a slot in their calendar and book a time to visit a hospital to a restaurant and pay up for consultation for the time booked in case of medical tech - which is post covid ready and actually serves as category operational hygiene. 

If an SMB owner is told that today he can open shop and entertain customers, be it in a custom tailor store or a beauty parlour or a gym instructor for that matter - by ensuring that they book slots, and limit crowd in-store and get users to pay a fee as visitation charge redeemable against product or services in-store - then surely it makes sense for them to indulge in 'paid risk', right? 

If a service can be offered in the shop but with the guarantee of customer visit and purchase, who will not take this risk? 

Yes I know, one can critique that:

1. For paid order pickups from a grocery or Kirana shops  - one can set up an order on call and payment on UPI or Paytm. 

2. For selling clothes and taking custom measurements - one can set up a shop on Amazon or Instagram using Shopify or in some variation of that with a phone call. 

3. For selling home installation, maintenance and repair services, and home beauty and wellness services one can set up usage of urban clap. 

But these are very centric to individuals who sell services and not the business that sells services. Have you seen the verbal war salon aunties unleash in opposition to the usage of beauty services via Urban Company that comes home and do the same thing? 

The problem comes when we acknowledge that there are already existing businesses who need a selling solution right now, we're not planning for an audience that will come into existence to do this: 

Use case: Beauty salon

Step 1: The salon owner is able to list staff and their available timeslots as per various jobs that can be booked in the salon. 

Step 2: Payment against these services can be taken in advance. 

Step 3: Basis time and slot hold - the salon owner can define the working hours for the staff for each day. Keeping the business closed on days there is no business or having them wait for a walk-in customer. 

Step 4: Booking date and time changes can be made in-app, ensuring optimal safety of staff and customers as well as facility and resource management efficiencies. 

Step 5: Bonus if this can be done on their listing page in an app or better yet on their google business listing! (as we usually search for these things in the vicinity) 

Use case: Tailor shop or boutique

Step 1: Tailor shop is able to account for each tailers time and list out available time slots as per various jobs that can be booked in the shop. i.e.: Taking measurements for various new garments, fixing existing garments, rush jobs, elaborate dress planning and measurements, fabric shortlisting etc. 

Step 2: Payment against job type can be taken in advance for a fixed timeslot. 

Step 3: The boutique owner can align pick up dates for finished garments, for checking fittings and rework at time of the first visit and move same basis customer interaction. 

Step 4: Let a chat start between boutique and customer on progress thereon. Additional payment can also be made mid-conversation and job delivery.  

Step 5: Bonus if this can be done on their listing page in an app or better yet on their google business listing! (as we usually search for these things in the vicinity) and also helps travel to the same using google maps. 

Some context why this gap needs to be filled for consumers: 

So business competes with individuals who offer the same jobs. Businesses set benchmarks for hygiene and service quality, and as they do it in a secure vicinity, it is easier for them to sell the fact that their staff is not visiting homes for business that may have explored them to covid. 

Also, not everyone wants to get a Seema aunty at home who only uses Kasmara products to do facials and pedicures because Urban Company complies them to do so terming it as standardisation. 

Who can diversify or expand their existing universe into this space right away?

1. So either like of Urban Company can quickly add this to their portfolio. 
2. Or the likes of Paytm who already offer multiple other similar devices and brand store set-ups. 
3. But overall I think Google business listings or Facebook marketplace can do this pretty well, and to the advantage of SMB businesses - but we all know the larger the giant, the slower it walks.

But in a post covid world as well - this gap evolves SMB businesses to be more digital and eventually spend on digital to get sure shot business and should become a norm in these unregulated service industries in India as well. And if it works here, LATAM, APAC region is an easy implementation of this business case! 

What will serve as a paid risk forsaker for the Indian economy if the lockdown continues this year will surely become a use case for future business starters as hygiene. Who knows how long Covid-19 is here to stay. 

Who know's how long we can only believe people spend on advertising without being able to guarantee return via digital? 

(Unnamed) Book 1 - Story Draft 2

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        Book - 1 - Draft 2

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The island is connected to the mainland from one end, but only by a single lane bridge. 

One car can pass through at a time. 

It’s a beautiful scenery. 

Sea on both sides and an island covered in forest vegetation not too dense to see the shape of the hills on itself. 

The girl beings to settle down in her head. 

She’s going home. To her relatives and her bother. 

She resists the temptation to stay at the island a bit longer. 

It would be cruel to her relatives to keep them waiting. 

They hadn’t ever been mean or bad to her since her father's death. 

They had comforted her and kept her company all these years. 

They were, in fact, better company than her father as she could remember the time she had spent with him after her mother’s death. 

Without her mother, he seemed to have become a silent and more crass individual. 

He loved her deeply but kept her out of harm's way in his own way. 

His death too had been unannounced, a silent stroke took him one night. 

She hadn’t grieved it very much. 

For her, he had passed on a few weeks after her mother’s death. 

As if he had lost interest in family life and socialising after she passed. 

He kept himself busy with his work. 

Running an entire spice empire by himself. 

In fact, his death had been so unannounced that the inheritance papers had also not been altered and reissued. 

It still meant that her now retarded brother would inherit 60% of the family business which she would become a second minority stakeholder after her mother. 

She had a knack for business but relatives kept her out of it. 

They said it was no place for a girl to work among men. 

She wouldn’t be taken seriously. 

She doubted that it would have been the case or what her father and mother would have wanted had they still been alive, healthy and living a good life. 

But she didn’t intend to push them. 

They were narrow-minded people yes, but honest as they came. 

They always respected her father and without much interference in the companies profits taken on the business as one of their own. 

She had the luxury to spend on what she may please. 

Jewels, real estate or another business. 

But she had so far kept out of it. 

It was a simple loving family she craved. 

A sense of Home and belongingness. 

And they gave that to her. 

She lived simple and hoped to live out her dreams once she was married. 

Though with age she wanted to do something of her own, taking this trip had been her idea. 

To step out of her shell again and live her life. 

It so coincidentally happens that this young boy, his bother and aunt came only a few weeks before she had to leave. 

It was a promise her father had given 15 - 16 years ago to his childhood friend that he would marry his daughter into their house and convert the friendship into a blood relationship. 

At first, when he showed up, she didn’t know what to expect. 

She didn’t know of the promise. 

But her relatives knew of this. 

Haven’t ever met the father's friend themselves, they had often heard of him mentioning it to them. 

It’s why he didn’t worry too much about his daughter. 

He knew in their house she would settle right in. 

The status of the families matched so to say. 

Something a father hopes, before giving his daughter away in the end. 

So when the boy came, her father must have been smiling from heaven in peace she thought to herself. 

He had immediately become part of the family. 

Both brothers were good looking, outgoing and well mannered. 

Dressed well and showed no interest in the wealth of her family. 

They had come for her. 

A promise had to be fulfilled. 

The more they got along with the rest of the family, the more at ease she herself felt with them. 

The aunt had struck her as off from the first time she met her. 

But relatives can be nosy or overbearing. 

She had seen those of her friends during her graduation days. 

But she was happy. 

The aunt wouldn’t have much say after the marriage anyway. She caught herself thinking in past tense, that must have been a sign. 

The first time she set her eyes on the boy, she felt a connection. 

She wanted to know him. 

And he seemed to have wanted to know her. 

During their days at her house. 

They would talk endlessly about the world around them, their travels and the future ahead. 

She felt her self-come undone when he would ask her to tell him more about herself. 

It was indeed a dream come true. 

His family had been in the business of sugar and cocoa. 

'What a match made in heaven' she thought to her self. 

Sugar and spice did indeed come with all things nice! 

He was a few years elder to her, but the age brought with it experience and patience it seemed. 

Their parents too had passed away, just two years ago. 

A lovely couple who were avid travellers and adventurers themselves, who were taken in a plane crash. 

A year the boys had managed by themselves. 

Lived alone in the mansion by themselves with the help. 

First, they shouldered the burden of keeping the family business running smoothly themselves but soon started to realise that a woman's touch to the place was something they both craved. 

The elder brother was admittingly a ladies man. 

Dating a number of well-known celebs and models over the years in private. 

But promised his younger brother to give up on his old ways of the boy married first. 

The boy agreed to this. 

Their aunt had been put away by their mother after a family tragedy and mental breakdown that had occurred with her years ago. 

She wasn’t fit to live in the same house again the doctor had said. 

It could affect her psychologically. 

And so it had to be done. 

But she had nowhere else to go. 

Half their mother's age but a woman, their intention had been pure to bring her home. 

They needed a mother more than she needed children. 

So she had moved back to the house after 10 years of staying at a special facility in Japan for those who couldn’t cope with the outside world. 

She had the habit of speaking her mind. 

Unable to stop her thoughts at her lips. 

If anyone met her only once. They were rather taken aback, but once the boys explained her behaviour to them briefly, they adjusted to her. 

Only managing to admire her that she didn’t keep any hatred inside of her. 

Peculiarly enough thought it seemed all her clothes were in deep shades of red. 

Suits, saris and even nightgown. 

But one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover she thought to her self. 

When the topic of her travel plans came up, they accepted them willingly. 

While her relatives had advised her on not going for it now given the change in circumstances. 

But the boy's elder bother suggested that the boy go along with her for the trip. 

This has to some extent shocked the relatives but they smoothly pleaded to them saying at least she wouldn’t be alone and out of harm's way given the extend of the trip. 

And the boy and girl and boy would have a chance to know each other better. They would trade their room for a more communal one. 

(Unnamed) Book 1 - Story Draft 1

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       Book - 1 - Draft 1

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- 1. The Setting - 

Big ship, sailing on a cruise. 

The design is unique, it as Bunk cabins allotted as per booking. 

Shiro, Akira, Sonia are in a room in the lower bunks. 

Upper deck looks like a dorm, where sleeper seats look like they have been made of Train compartments, only sown in white and orange leather fabric and ultra luxurious walls and carpeting. 

Rooms come with attached toilets while upper deck comes with common toilets the at the entrance of each compartment or boogie. 

The ship comes loaded with on borad pools and ski jets on the ship itself, yes this is a massive ship. With its own mini ski pool at the centre of the ship. 

The first destination of this cruise ship is a hill side by the sea followed by somewhere beachy like ibiza where everyone is allowed to party either in the ship or off it in the water

The last destination is the South Pole with penguins, snow and automated Shopping Floors. 

Ship cuts through ice then glide on it with wheels/skies that come out at the front and back. 

- 2. How they met - 

The families decided to send the girl and boy on a journey 'before' their marriage 

They have been introduced by family. 

Girls family is very rich and orthodox 

Boys family is away, the boy himself lives in a mansion by the sea. 

They are introduced and they fall in love right away.

Her family is very happy. 

The boy has an elder brother and a huge aunt but there is no ware about outs of the rest of the family. 

Both have decided to take residence in the girls house while the boy and girl have gone on the trip. 

The trip is about three and a half months.

They get on board the ship, bid their relatives goodbye and start this adventure together. 

They are happy and the boy seems to be crazy about the girl and her seeming innocence.

They begin holding hands and stealing kisses as frequently as possible, literally every chance they get

After about 3 weeks of sailing, they reach the first destination, a hidden hillside by the sea. 

During their first visit off the ship in the mountains hillside, the boy take the girls hiking. 

They find an old abandoned cottage. 

They both enter and talk about how nice it would be to live in a small house at the edge of nowhere all by themselves. 

The decide to picnic inside the cottage. 

The sun is up and the cottage is warm.

The boy spreads the sheets for them to sit and the girl has wine for the first time. 

They make out and the girl is very happy with how things are going and so it the boy.

- 3. Her story: The things you don't anticipate - 

'It’s like a match made in heaven, they fit each other like a glove 'she thinks. 

They understand each other’s expressions without words and the boy notices everything about the girl. The girl loves his attention to detail. 

The girl feels safe with the boy and when she shared this with him and he’s overjoyed. 

He kisses her all over and then begins to take her clothes off 

The girl is caught off guard but little by little begins to give in.. after all, their marriage is set?

The boy lays the girl down and asks her to relax 

She is tense at first but begins to give in,

Only to realise she’s now completely naked and the boy has backed away looking at her in awe from a distance. 

Then suddenly he pulls her towards himself and begins to devours her like freshly cut fruit. 

The girl is a bit overwhelmed and scared about the pace fo things but he doesn’t let go. 

Waves of a pleasure and fear go through the girl. 

'Is this even happening?' she thinks to her self.

It feels as if he’s another person all of a sudden, his movements become steady and mechanical and without warning or permission, be begins edging towards the third base. 

The girl shrieks and punches the boy in the face while pushing him off and then goes silent thereafter in confusion and shame. 

Fully aware that the boy almost took her modesty, the girl gets afraid of him losing control like this. 

It is only after he begins bleeding at his lip that the boy begins to come back to normal to the person she knows him to be. 

They lay there till evening after this and the girl begins to cry. 

The boy profusely apologises to her and consoles her for loosing control

He goes down on his knees and begs her to forgive his actions 

He says he loves her a lot and in excitement just didn’t realise how far they went but that it was inevitable to happen especially now that they were about to get married.

The girl is taken aback but agrees to him and the logic and eventually quiets down. 

Her mood is off, but later back on the ship, she can’t help herself from thinking about what happen more and more...

The boy begins acting frisky, leaving her alone and vanishing on the ship from time to time to gamble and do drugs. 

Girl, on the other hand, is straight like an arrow, ignoring passing comments and even simple requests to make friends with other fellow passengers on the ship and in her free time likes to explore the various parts of the ship as she’s afraid to get off again alone in fear of being left behind if not raped. 

She trusts the boy very much and always forgives him for going gambling or playing sports with other boys.

She, on the other hand, likes to venture on the ship by herself, explore every nook and cranny and the boy encourages her to do this, since it seems to give the girl a sense of peace after their last ‘encounter’.

Because of this she finds her friends also on the same ship but doesn’t tell the boy for some reason.

They begin to make out often, in different places across the ship. Some in the open and some dangerous. 

Then it happens, the girl realises that she's pregnant.

Thinks the boy will be overwhelmed to know. She finds the right moment and tells him enthusiastically. The boy is filled with joy for one moment but quickly gets very angry and almost goes crazy and says she will have to get operated right away. 

On the ship he means?! 

'WHAT THE FUCK!?!' she thinks

She lies and says that she was testing him but now after seeing a completely new side to the boy is fearful. 

It seems like the boy didn’t want anything to do with the girl and as if the baby was a complication he hadn’t expected on the way. 

She goes to her friends and explains to them the situation and they are equally shocked.

She spends the night with her friends on the ship as she ends up crying and falling asleep in their cabin. 

Wakes up next morning early and runs to the boy 

Boy is nowhere to be found, goes looking for him, finds him gambling at her expense 

He’s blown away a lot of money, leaving her with almost nothing 

She doesn’t say a world, she loves him but now begins the sense that something is wrong with the boy altogether

He hasn’t noticed that she was missing for the entire night?

This puzzles the girl even more but she doesn’t question him...

Instead, she starts to follow him silently across the ship here on.

As it seems the boy is trying to release some sort of tension but not at the expense of he girl.

He gently tells her to explore like she does and says he’s off to play with some of the boys he made friends with.

But she doesn’t follow orders this time. She follows the boy across the ship. Often finding him entering rooms with various women he starts conversations with at random. 

She’s still not expecting him to cheat, thinking he’s scoring drugs, 

One time She follows him and a girl and a bunch of other people into a big room. 

She watches what happens from the window while the group goes inside.

She is correct to the analysis they were all doing drugs 

But shocked seeing what happens next, 

And the boy seems to be the one directing and ordering the group as to how to go about hallucinating.

He isn't part of the hallucinating group, he is simply the orchestrator. 

Chanting harsh words at all the people in the room who seem to be under some kind of trance. 

She gets disgusted and at the same time feels nausea and runs off from the sight. 

Its almost the end of the third month now. 

She’s started to get morning sickness now, gets afraid that the boy will find out she lied about not being pregnant 

Starts getting off the ship and floating around in a big floater by herself there on.

Boy and girl continue to make love in odd places and this makes the girl very sad and disgusted but she doesn’t say a word or show an off expression.

She then tries going through the boy's things to find out more about him and finds odd ornaments which she doesn’t know what to make off. 

They are sharp and seem to be for precise use, but afraid the boy might find her snooping through his things she puts them away and continues to pretend like nothing happen.

She goes over to her friends and tells them about what all she found him doing and what she found in his luggage and they encourage her to leave him and take shelter in their cabin till the trip ends but she passes up in fear.

She still believes that’s the boy loves her in his own way even thought something seems to have snapped in him, he means well. 

Was it the pregnancy? Or is he over her now that he’s deflowered her?

She couldn’t understand but she knew something is wrong.

- 4. Gack home - 

They get back from their trip, the end of which seemed like she was alone on the trip by herself. 

She had gone shopping at the South pole and since she was out of money, only managed to buy herself a jumpsuit. 

Her family was going to be disappointed that she didn’t bring back anything for anyone but she couldn’t tell them what had really happen on the trip. 

She was ready put on a happy face for them. 

Maybe this is what all women go through after marriage she thought to herself. 

This must have been why she had often found her own mother crying crying by herself in the past. 

When she was younger and she would ask what it was that bothered her she would never tell her. 

It was always after a quarrel with her father she knew. 

But on what basis she couldn’t tell. 

She felt as if she could related to her mother right now. After all these years. 

These weren’t troubles worth discussing or telling other people she thought. 

They were just worth being absorbed and released through silent tears. Like her mothers. 

On the day the ship got back from the trip. 

The boy woke up the girl with a passionate kiss. 

Apologised for not being himself the last couple of weeks and convinced her that everything would become better here on. 

And he kept repeating it every now and then in their way back. 

'Don’t worry, it will all get better.  Everything will get better. It will end soon.' 

The girl starts getting a bit alarmed by this overly loving behaviour of the boys and also the words he kept repeating.

He takes her on a speed boat to take her to his house. He says, 'Let’s visit my house first. I know we’ve not had any contact with the outside world for three and half months almost, but my mansion is by the sea and has a water entrance. I’d like for you to come to see it before we go back to see your family, my brother and aunt at your place.'

The girl feels some relief seeing his behaviour and agrees to go along. 

She’s all too excited but as they enter the water gates she sees his aunt waiting for them at the water banks. 

The girl gets a bit confused, how come she knew they were coming home? They haven’t had any contact with the outside world in three and a half months traveling by sea? 

As they get closer and closer to the water stairs of the mansion she sees the aunts expression up close. It’s not one purely of joy. 

There is a strange sense of danger in her demure and smile. 

- 5. This is called madness - 

The mansion itself is on a small island which was spread over just a few acres.. it had vast hallways and pillar cast walkways overlooking the sea from one side. While the other side seem to be somehow merging into the hill behind it. 

It seemed as if the the mansion was cut into the mountainous hill and extended inside it. 

It suddenly begins to strike her that the boy has Some sort of control over the people around him. 

And that she too Somehow was under his influence despite so much having past. 

She begins to worry, what’s going to happen next? 

A shiver runs down her spine as they get closer to the stairs in the water... like something bad is going to happen.

Suddenly the girl begins to start looking for ways to escape and all possible escapes she may have at hand. 

And out of nowhere, she jumps into the water. 

This makes the boy howl in anger. 

As if he was already expecting this to happen. 

And instead of helping her out he starts shouting at her. 

One accusation after another. 

About how simple she was. How stupid she was. How backward her family was despite being so rich. 

About her getting pregnant and then trying to hide it. 

This alarms her even more. 

She stars crying in the water and tries to swim away from the boat towards the water stairs. 

As she approaches she sees the aunt headed towards her. 

Her eyes bloodshot red and mumbling something to herself. 

As she gets closer to the banks she realised that his aunt was holding not a chest or a big box but a very large slab above in her hand as if to crush her skull with it. 

The girl suddenly turns course and begins swimming back towards to the boat. 

The boy by now has reached the other end of the stairs himself and suddenly she sees the odd sharp ornament in his hand. 

But instead of charging towards the girl he takes the ornament and clips one of the hands of the aunt! 

This causes the stone to fall on her own body and leg. 

Her head begins to bleed and she falls to the floor. 

He starts screaming at her for her bad behaviour and the aunt begins to cry, begins wiping away the blood like an psychotic obedient child putting up a good show for a parent. 

He leaves her aside and turns back to the girl. 

She’s in the water but frozen still in shock and horror of what she had just seen. 

'What the hell was happening?!", she just couldn’t make any sense. 

Then he looks at he ornament on which the girls eyes and fixated and throws it to a side and lunges at the girl to get her out of the water. 

Hurting the aunt has some how calmed him down and restored his sense of surroundings and reality. 

He pulls her out and hugs her. 

Begins saying he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. 

She was his. And he wouldn’t let anyone else every hurt her.

The girl breaks down hugs the boy feeling hurt, fearful and in utter confusion.

The boy just stands there hugging the girl drenched in water for a while like this.

Some guards and house help show up at this point. 

They see her wet and order for towels and begin to pick up their luggage. 

That’s when she notices that one of the helpers picks up the ornament and puts it back in the bag and for some reason, no one was paying any attention to the aunt despite her having hurt herself. 

Whatever it was, it was her chance to face it next she realises. 

As they walk towards the mansion she realises that there must be about 20 rooms on the ground floor alone facing the sea. 

Was it his house or an abandoned hotel? 

He takes her to one of the rooms, puts her down on the bed and put our some clothes for her to ware. 

Says she should dry herself and he’ll be right back and leaves the room. 

The girl is alarmed and panicked. 

She quickly changes out of the wet clothes only to find that the new clothes laid down for her on her bed aren’t her’s at all? 

She still puts them on, it’s a delicate skin hugging kimono dress. 

She looks around the room and find a phone connection and immediately dials Akira. 

Without a moment to waste as soon as Akira picks up the phone, she begins babbling about being kidnapped and about her life being in danger and then hears footsteps walking towards the door in the lobby so she puts down the phone receiver, but immediately instinctively picks it up again and dials a random number. 

The boy walks in with some food and fruit at this point and sees her holding the phone. 

She freezes in fear so he keeps the food down and walks towards her, take the receiver from her hand and puts it to his ear. 

Hello? Then he cuts the phone and presses re-dial. 

The number says it doesn't exist. 

So he looks at her straight in the eyes and asks her who she was dailing to very calmly. 

She said she wanted to phone home but since she had never left without a family member she didn’t remember who or what to dial.

 A lie she realises quite handy at this point in time. 

She’s relieved of her instincts.

He bursts out laughing, pushes her on to the bed behind her and orders her to have some food. 

He says she needs her energy and its circuit she eat right away. 

Then turns his attention to the rest of the room and it’s set up. 

'What does she need her energy for?' 

She can’t imagine what’s coming next only to find the ornament in his back pocket. 

She’s immensity alarmed. 

She needs to get out of here she thinks to herself. 

No one knows she’s out here.

 And begins crying and blurts out “But what do I need my energy for!?” 

To which the boy shoots back a cold look at the girl and beings laughing the next minute. 

He comes over and kisses her on the head. And hold her, looks into her eyes and says she needs her energy for their long journey ahead to her house. 

After all, she jumped into the water for good knows what! (completely disregarding the fact that he injured his aunt at the water stairway.) 

He couldn’t let her look so worked up and exhausted when her parents and family saw her. 

She begins to calm down and he begins to tell her how she’s different. 

How he’s torn into two parts. 

How he’s seen many women before but never had the same connection with them. 

He mentions how her pregnancy scares him. 

He’s very calm and composed about it. 

He said he knows she’s pregnant and that she’s been hiding it. 

He says it’s terrible timing and it would reflect badly on him as her family is so conservative. 

He politely suggests she get an abortion on their way back and that he wouldn’t say a word to anyone about any of this having taken place. 

That since they were to be married shortly it could be their own little secret. 

That he didn’t want to be a father right now and they had all the time and age at their side to plan kids in the future. 

They couldn’t possibly become parents right away. 

There was so much life to be seen he says. 

She brings to sob silently in his arms. 

He says he knows how hard it has been for her in trying to hide it but her body had been giving the indications all along. 

But he didn’t want to show that he was upset about his doing and hence tried everything he possibly could on the ship to maintain a respectable distance from her all this while since Ibiza. 

He confesses to her that he started gambling heavily and got into taking drugs while on the ship (he leaves out the part about orchestrating raves with random men and women and something tells her not to bring it up either). 

Then he pulls away and tells her to eat her food. 

At this point, she calms down and settles on the nearby sofa and begins eating. 

A helper knocks at the door and the boy swiftly moves towards the same as if hoping for the girl not to be able to look at what News or item he bore. 

He lifts the curtain and quietly gestures to the helper ‘no this won’t be needed’, then there is a pause and the helper gives a salutation and moves away. 

As the helper is leaving the aunt turns up at the door.

She’s changed into a new dress, another deep red and has redone her makeup and doesn’t seem to be in any kind of pain. 

She asks the helper to stop and gestures to the boy ‘what’s going on?’ 

And the boy freezes in place and asks the help to keep moving and not to turn back again and asks the aunt to come into the room. 

On seeing the aunts face the girl is a bit nervous and stands up in shock (more than out of respect) and the aunt politely asked her to be seated and be comfortable. 

At this point, the boy goes over to her and asks her to forgive him for what she say happen at the water stairs and give a chance to him the explain what had happen. 

The girl feels as if she has no other choice but tries to be confident and nods to him to go on. 

- 6. Stroaks of bad luck - 

He explains that her aunt had lost her twins right at birth a few years ago. 

And to make things worse, they had been found on the banks of the water where they got off with the skulls of the kids smashed in with a rock. 

This had caused her aunt some serious brain damage from the shock of the matter and eventually, she started believing that she herself had done that to her own new born children. 

The kids were bastards as the man who had fathered the children had no intention of marrying her and when she went to him to have mercy on her, he had sedated her and passed her around to a large group of men, all of whom had taken turns to rape her and left her off outside the mansion by herself whispering to her that it would be best for her to take her own life. Crush her head with a rock. And so on. 

And since then she had attempted doing so a multiple number of times at the banks of the mansion. 

And she believed she did that to her own children who she carried in her womb for 9 months in the end. 

So it had been a coincidence that they found her at the banks almost as if repeating the same thing from past trauma.

But due to her size, no one could possibly take her down so he had managed a method after many failed attempts to put her through alternate shock and bring her back to reality. 

The girl turned to the aunt at this point and the aunt apologised to her in gestures as if almost ready to cry. 

He says he fears pregnant women and small children were at threat around his aunt. 

(But how did she know she thinks to herself) 

The girl settles herself hearing all this and finally gives a sympathetic smile. 

She’s been overworking herself all this while. 

After all, everyone has problems she thinks to herself, thinking of her own younger brother who had gone crazy a few years ago after the death of their mother. 

He was the one to have found her dead. 

If it hadn’t been for her relatives he wouldn’t have survived either. 

Now he would stick around the house, almost like an adrenaline junkie swinging from floor to floor and never taking a conventional route through the doors inside their house. 

He spoke to her sometimes but it never made any sense. 

It seemed to her as if he was always predicting the future or telling alternate truths about other family members.

All lies and dementia of course. 

She was happy again. 

But her guard was up. 

She had seen the ornament with which he had cut his aunt in his back pocket. 

Why did he have it on on his right now? 

But as she had her food and began to normalise she realised that the ornament was no longer in his back pocket. 

'What? But it had just been there?' 

Her gut told her to keep her guard up. 

His aunt was not in the room but the boy had suddenly misplaced the only thing he could use to defend himself?

She didn’t utter a word. 

For now, she was satisfied to an extent with his words and actions. 

It seemed like she would get home safe. 

(To. be continued.)