Vishal - Storyteller. Screenwriter. Traveler. Gambler. Art Collector. Entrepreneur. Marketer. Flop Dancer. Forever dreaming about the next story.

I am a multiple award-winning marketer with an excellent track record of growing start-ups and organizations exponentially!

He has taken up various leadership roles over the course of his 15+ year long career and has leveraged technology to drive business growth by bringing the consumer insights, the brand and the products together. He is very passionate about content creation, content marketing, digital marketing and its usage to deliver business objectives in efficient and effective manner.

He is a profitability focused leader and a young entrepreneur who has a penchant for using PR as one of the key growth strategies in helping young organizations get scale quickly. He is a strong believer in usage of content to build a brand and has built brands on the strength of their content.

He also has a proven track record of delivering robust business strategy, new product launches, managing brand equity & developing effective go-to-market mix. He has demonstrated significant success in growing niche brands into dominant market positions across geographies in India. He has significant experience in offline campaigns, design, implementation, brand architecture, brand strategies and 360 degree activation.

One of his key strength is structuring unstructured, undefined roles and functions. He is a collaborative and result-oriented people leader whose professional strengths are strategic thinking, analytical rigour, process management and interpersonal skills.

He has multi-faceted experience across diverse industries like FMCG, Art, Advertising, E - Commerce, Food and Technology.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I wish to see different people and different places with different cultures. I wish to see different ideologies. I wish to see different forms of food. I wish to see different art and different creativity. I wish to see different animals and birds. I wish to experience different weather. I wish to meet people of different ages.

Interests

Vishal - Storyteller. Screenwriter. Traveler. Gambler. Art Collector. Entrepreneur. Marketer. Flop Dancer. Forever dreaming about the next story.

• animals
• birds
• writing
• books
• movies
• traveling
• music
• cricket
• soccer
• art
• food
• football
• cultures
• people
• dance
• performance
• installations
• screenplay

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite Music:
Music of all kinds. Big fan of Bollywood Music. Love international music too.

Favorite Movies:
Since a screenplay writer - I am a fan of movies from all across the world. Hollywood Movies, Bollywood movies, Japanese Movies, European Movies.
Types of Movies: Love, Romance, Action, Drama, Comedy, Fiction, Adventure, Music, War

Favorite Books:
Generally read fiction books and simple books. I have written few books of mine that we sell in India.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The Templefjord Return!

In Svalbard, snowmobiling is the best experience – even if you get lost and invisibly drive alone in a storm!

The dream to go to Svalbard was to experience the northern lights, the coldest weather, the polar bears, the walruses, the seals and the lively loneliness. My wife and me, we experienced all of it but only after overcoming something we’d never dreamt of.

It started with the agency forgetting us for a 10-hour Templefjord return ride. Our bad luck could’ve been rectified only via riding a huge snow mobile with a tutor, the only fellow rider. My wife and I were non-drivers and afraid but extremely excited. I gambled to undertake the most exotic unreal challenge that conspired to blind snowmobiling.

The start was easy but staying alive became impossible, quickly. I had to ride on slant slopes. At minus 30 degrees Celsius, there was a risk to drift and drown in the iced sea on the right. Wife didn’t know how to swim; I didn’t know how not to drift and strictly drive on the left. Perilous slopes started the riskiest challenge.

We overcame the risky challenge somehow but we also had to overcome an unseen icy revolution. We had never driven on an ice crossover. The tutor went over the icy part easily. We followed him with obvious ignorance and without slowing down. We revolved for 360 degrees twice to cover 200 meters. The first revolution was scary but in the 2nd one, the ice under our bike was broken but we luckily escaped in minutest seconds.

We reached the end, where we had only one small home to sit in. We saw multiple seals & walruses. We locked ourselves inside for safety & to eat. We heard knocks and the voice of the invisible polar bear, which we desperately wanted to see but we kept quiet to stay alive. The tutor kept his huge rifle ready. After an hour of furious scare, quietness and anticipation, we couldn’t hear anything and that allowed us to move out, to push back.

We shook away some fear but requested that both of us shall sit behind the tutor for riding back. It was unaccepted. We started slowly but we had to rebound through blindness because of extreme negative temperature, an infuriating blowing wind and an unreal sweeping ice storm. The fear of encountering polar bears was simmering. The tutor became unseen. We had zero visibility of the way back, the broken ice, the slopes, the dangerous animals and everything else. We luckily survived.

Unlimited efforts of fighting the climate, giving up fear, moving forward and winning against never experienced moments, kept us alive, made us stronger and got us back.

Teach, Learn, Share

I’ve been a travel lust, a travel writer and a travel photographer ever since I was 12 years old. I wanted to reach out to penguins in South Georgia. I’ve been to multiple places across the world but not to South America.

At an early age, I’ve been an education grasper and the perfect employee for all the organizations I’ve worked with. I’ve been the hard – worker who wanted to roam around the world. I’ve however been somebody who has been travelling to places alongside corporate work.

This travelling and corporate work alongside or something else, somehow led to me getting Brain Tumor/Cancer since the last five months. It is now, when I am getting better, I saw this competition and I thought back to myself about where I wish to be. As an Indian, who has completely travelled inside the country as well as multiple places outside the country, wanted to get to permanent travel, post curing of Brain Cancer. This is something that is becoming relevant now.

What I Can Share with Hosts

1. I can share my multiple travels
2. I can share my various different screenplays
3. I can share about my entrepreneurship
4. I can share Bollywood Music
5. I can share with how to move forward from breaks in life

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Macao, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Singapore, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Switzerland, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, Singapore, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Switzerland