By Ashish K. Mishra, Livemint
Vinayak Sharma pushed open the door to his room. It was dark inside, except for a little, muddled light filtering through, from window panes, covered with newspapers which had begun to fray. A cooler had been inserted, none too professionally, in the bottom half of the window. Vinayak lunged towards his bed, hurriedly plugging his Apple iPhone 5S to a power bank. It needed charging. Urgently. But there was no electricity—power had been out since early morning. No light in the room. No fan. No cooler. Outside, the temperature in Jodhpur, Rajasthan’s scorching, dry sun, was already uncomfortable at 27°C and climbing—and it was not even 11 in the morning. Inside, it was all quiet. Except for the deep breathing of Vinayak’s roommate, still sleeping on another bed, two steps from him.
But Vinayak’s mind was elsewhere. Nothing bothered him—the heat, the stuffiness. He was in a hurry. Already running late, by 30 minutes, he was worried and irritated—how could a new iPhone hang in just one month of use? Anyway, it was working now. Vinayak tapped on the Twitter application on his phone, the light from the screen making his sharp, bespectacled face glow in the darkness and began typing:
The most convenient city to city option is here with @BlaBlaCar yes I’m right 😛 #BlaBlaWithGul
— Vinayak Sharma (@VinayakSharma19) April 6, 2016
Tap. Typing again…
10: 54 AM
Watch @GulPanag carpools here Mumbai to pune! @BlaBlaCar #BlaBlaWithGul
— Vinayak Sharma (@VinayakSharma19) April 6, 2016
Tap.
He then retweeted BlaBlaCar’s tweet: 10:55 AM
We’re very excited for @GulPanag #first rideshare. Watch out this space to get live updates tomorrow #BlaBlaWithGul► https://t.co/UnmDvkWEVu
— BlaBlaCarIN (@BlaBlaCarIN) April 5, 2016
Next, he replied to the same tweet: 10:55 AM
@BlaBlaCarIN @GulPanag
Tuned to your handle 😉 #BlaBlaWithGul— Vinayak Sharma (@VinayakSharma19) April 6, 2016
Typing once again…
10: 55 AM
Carpool is great way to travel i must say 😉 #BlaBlaWithGul @BlaBlaCar
— Vinayak Sharma (@VinayakSharma19) April 6, 2016
He stopped, for a few seconds.
Next, he searched for @Saavn on the Twitter search box and went to the company’s official Twitter page.
He retweeted @Saavn’s tweet:
@chocolatygirl25 @Saavn
But I’m so excited that I can’t wait anymore 😀 #SaavnOG— Vinayak Sharma (@VinayakSharma19) April 6, 2016
<Read the series of tweets here.>
He stopped. Job done. Like always, he had followed instructions to the T.
He began scrolling through his timeline to check what his friends were saying. Well, pretty much the same thing. Everyone was super excited about Saavn and BlaBlaCar. With so much excitement flying around, #SaavnOG was the No.1 trending topic on Twitter in India. #BlaBlaWithGul was No.2. Vinayak was happy with the outcome.
It was 6 April 2016. Three minutes past 11 in the morning.
A little bird told me…
Vinayak joined Twitter in December 2011. Ever since, he has tweeted more than 69,000 times. The first few years he rarely said anything because he didn’t own a smartphone and because he was busy with school. He became super-active only after September 2014. Today, he follows 517 people and has 22,900 followers. He loves the micro-blogging network and spends close to five hours on it every day. Some days, more. Some days tweeting till late in the night. Tweeting stuff out into the world. Between 1 April and 11 April, he participated in several trending conversations happening in our world.
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Read the whole article on Mint here, and its follow up story ‘A Twitter Influencer? No more’.
Copyright (C) 2016, LiveMint. Excerpted with permission.
