I AM CRISENTA. THIS IS MY STORY!
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Introduction
Crisenta’s journey, thus far, has been nothing short of an interesting one. For those who don’t know her, Crisenta Almeida, nee. Rozario was born in the quaint Shankumugham. Set in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram/Trivandrum, Shankumukham is a quiet yet bustling village. Known for its beautiful beach, this fishing village lives up to the state’s nickname.
Chapter I – Life is beautiful.
For this little girl born to her traditionally aspirational Malayalee parents, a career as a writer was on no one’s list. Her dad wanted to prove something to his older sister. He wanted her to become a medical doctor—a neurosurgeon, if possible. Her mum jumped in on this pipe dream too. It was a good one. And then she could flaunt her doctor daughter too. These were the aspirations instilled into the little girl and she grew up holding them close to the heart. ‘I’ll become a doctor,’ she said, ‘a neurosurgeon!’
Born in Trivandrum and raised in Gujarat’s Rajkot, she was a traditionally bright student. Exceptional in all subjects, she was an A-pluser through and through. No subject scared this second-grade superstar: not Math or Science or English or Moral Science. As she flourished, everyone believed there was no stopping her. ‘Neurosurgery, watch out! Here she comes,’ everyone affirmed.
Chapter II – Hello, complications!
A little before Crisenta turned eight years old, life took an unexpected turn. She was plucked from her cushioned and pampered life in Rajkot (where her parents were at her beck and call) and sent to a boarding school in Mt. Abu, Rajasthan.
Nirmala Convent School, Rajkot, and Sophia High School, Mt. Abu, were like chalk and cheese. NCS was a state board school and a Gujarati-speaking abode. The latter, however, was a sophisticated English-speaking, ICSE land. Crisenta was the star in her previous school with no one to beat her. But in Sophia, she was a fish out of water. She didn’t belong there. Nothing was the same. Nothing felt right.
The former rockstar was reduced to a struggling character. No one knew her or unearthed her talents. She had the voice of a nightingale. Who cared about that when there was so much to make fun of? She was stout, dark and short. And this was only the beginning of her imperfections. In a few days, she and others (teachers included) realised that she couldn’t cope with third-grade Math, Science, Social Studies, Hindi or English. She was terrible at sports too. She couldn’t run, throw or swing. And as if all this wasn’t enough, little Crisenta spoke with a Trivandrum accent interspersed with Kathiyawadi tonalities. Her mother tongue and state tongue had influenced her language beyond repair…
Chapter III – The struggle continues.
The next three years were a struggle. She failed almost every subject in each term examination, barely scraping through in the finals of every year. She was only grateful that she didn’t have to repeat a year.
But things weren’t all bad. They were only almost bad with a bleak ray of light where she shone loud, bright and beautiful. People around her had noticed her voice. She sang like an angel. She had walked her way up the ladder in the school’s church choir, securing her position in the Sopranos—the most versatile voices in a choir.
Apart from the singing, nothing else really was working for her. She was still failing in almost every subject, couldn’t play a sport and continued to speak with a mother tongue influence (MTI). Although all of the Gujarati influence had worn off her speech and she’d begun conversing in fluent spoken English, her Malayaliness was pretty evident in her verbal communication.
There was another good thing, though, barring her stint in music. She had grown to be a loving and kind human being. Everyone adored her and felt bad for her inadequacies. They wished for her to stop failing in her subjects. They wished for her to stop being fat and short too. Her classmates, some teachers and a handful of nuns loved her. Despite how fond of her they’d become, when she spoke, they couldn’t suppress the laughter brimming within. Her MTI made them laugh and her cry.
As she returned to school for her sixth grade, she made it to Mt. Abu straight from Kerala, where her aunt was getting married that summer. She was excited to tell her friends all about the wedding and her experiences. Starting a few days late that year, because of the wedding, everyone wanted to know what kept her away for those 3-4 additional days. They also loved the way she told her stories. Having prepped the setting for the wedding in Trivandrum, she commenced her story. Her dear andy (aunty) had married a handsome ungle (uncle.) She was still on the first line of her story when the group of 7-8 sixth-grade girls broke out in loud laughter. Andy…ungle…they repeated and laughed.
Chapter IV – Struggle meets determination.
Crisenta’s mother tongue had influenced her language beyond repair, or so she thought.
People say that the most beautiful art stems from great pain. While pain or, in Crisenta’s case, humiliation, is not the best thing to happen, sometimes it leads to something beautiful. One may not be able to see it then, but it happens.
The day her friends laughed at her for saying andy and ungle, something ran down Crisenta’s spine. It was not fear or humiliation. It was determination. ‘I will become the best English speaker in my class,’ she vowed. She didn’t know where to begin. She only knew that she must.
Having studied in an ICSE school for the past few years, a dictionary had become a mandatory part of her life. An English class would not be conducted if every desk did not have a small dictionary—not a pocket dictionary but a medium-sized one. Teenage Crisenta thought that if an English class was incomplete with the dictionary, so was her crusade to become the best English speaker.
She started distancing herself from social group hangouts. There were only two or three places you could find her if you were looking for her. The deserted staircase near the needleclass room, the basketball court steps when it was deserted or the angular, internal corner hidden from the naked eye at one end of the playground—opposite to the Teacher’s cottage. And what would you catch her doing? She’d be reading the dictionary.
But how do you become a better English speaker by reading the dictionary? Does it not simply tell you the meanings of words? No! Crisenta learned this the hard and personal way. Her current successful research skill has its beginning in this activity with the dictionary. The first word she looked up when she first picked up her greatest tool was ‘aunt.’ A weird, illegible scribble before the meaning of the word caught her eye. What the hell was ‘/ɑːnt/,’ she wondered. So she decided to start reading the dictionary from the cover to find out how to read this unknown script. Within the first few pages, she had stumbled upon the page that gave pronunciations of each of those weird, illegible scribbles. This was her Eureka moment!
Thus, began her journey to fixing her MTI and speaking English like an absolute pro. By the final exams of the sixth grade, Crisenta had obtained the highest marks in English in her class, more than the overall topper too. Her vocabulary had evolved greatly and she had secured the perfect score for her English oral exams. Miss Vinita, her seventh-grade English teacher, who had heard about her growth in the past year from her colleague who taught sixth-grade English, couldn’t believe what she was reading and hearing. Wasn’t this the same Crisenta who spoke, wrote and read mediocrely only a year ago?
Her classmates, teachers, school principal, boarding school warden and other nuns couldn’t stop praising her. Despite her struggle with all other subjects, her recurring achievements in English made her happy. She was now penning poems and writing short stories. She was in love with the language.
Chapter V – The writer emerges.
A stupid (but brave) decision by Crisenta brought her back to Rajkot at the end of her seventh grade. She was back in Nirmala Convent School where her journey had begun. Although she was still struggling with the other subjects, it wasn’t that bad. She was an ICSE student in an SSC school. Things were a lot simpler. Certain things that she had learned in fifth-grade ISCE were only showing up in the ninth and tenth grades of Gujarat’s SSC syllabus. Social studies and moral science had become child’s play. The fan following she experienced for her near-perfect English articulation was nothing like she would ever have imagined. She was speaking with a flair. She’d mastered English grammar and was writing impeccably. She was extremely creative and her poems were deep even at 13. And she was the undisputed winner of every debate, extempore, group discussion, writing and singing competition.
The elders in her community told her that she must become a journalist and a news reader. Her language was worthy of TV life.
Her natural choice for higher secondary studies was Arts. She went to Ahmedabad and pursued Arts at Mt. Carmel High School. Then, she opted for a BA in English Literature from Christ College, Rajkot, where she was introduced to Phonetics. Those weird scribbles finally made sense. And although, she knew nothing about Phonetics before the first day of her undergraduate studies, she was reading phonetic transcriptions since she was 11 years old. In only a few days, she perfected the science of transcribing words without a reference. She no longer needed that page of her dictionary to read a transcription fluently. In fact, she obtained a perfect score for her FYBA viva when she read an entire page of a transcribed passage that she had never read before. The reading was fluent with the right accents, intonations and modulations.
She then opted for an MA in International Journalism from Brunel University, London. Following this, she did her second Master’s in Linguistics from Queen Mary, University of London (the world’s #1 programme for Linguistics that year.)
In between both her MA programmes, Crisenta commenced her professional journey as a writer. She was a copywriter with a small advertising agency in Mumbai. It’s been 24 years since she first picked up the pen to write her first piece of art. Professionally, she has been writing copy and content for over 13 years now, having serviced domestic and international brands.
And someday, she might be a doctor too. A PhD is not off her list yet.
Chapter VI – Crisenta—the writer
I have been writing professionally since early 2010. I have worked on 1000+ projects in these 13 years. And as I have written across multiple copy genres, it is impossible to capture my entire writing journey here.
However, here are some of the top content/copy genres:
- Copywriting
- Blogs
- Articles
- Books
- Video/podcast scripts
- Brochures
- Corporate decks
- Medical content
- Academic content
- Website copy
- Social media copy
- Wikipedia pages
Additionally, I have also lent my voice to VO projects and have been a podcaster.
I’ve also worked with 200+ brands over the past decade. A few of these are as follows:
- NTT India (social media copy)
- Mahindra (coffee table book)
- TVS Singapore (website copy)
- Gayo [Swedish aviation brand] (end-to-end website building including copy and branding)
- HAU [Norwegian airport] (roll-up poster copy and design)
- Titan+, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Levi’s (product descriptions and cataloguing)
- Smith & Jones (video script & voice-over)
Crisenta’s passion and love for writing are only growing with time. There is no stopping her.
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I AM CRISENTA. THIS IS MY STORY!
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I, Crisenta Almeida, am a copywriter and content writer. I have been writing professionally for over 13 years. Feel free to touch base for all your creative, technical and academic writing requirements. Here are some ways to reach me.
Call: +917045014013 | Whatsapp: +917045014013 | Email: crisenta@contentgarrage.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/crisenta | Website: contentgarrage.com