Tiny tales — a tall order

In 2013, Anuj Gosalia thought of starting a page where he would write short fiction within 140 characters. More than ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ (often attributed to Hemingway) Anuj’s inspiration was Twitter and its restriction of 140 characters. Within a year and a half, the idea had a proper shape and form under the title Terribly Tiny Tales, which soon went on to become a social network phenomenon in India. Soon he roped in his friend Chintan Ruparel and the duo tied up with several consumer brands and as the cliché goes, there was no looking back.

True to their ethos of short and crisp writing, the duo’s journey of success started from a “matchbox” to a garage to a room big enough to hold an 18 team member that the TTT comprises of today.

After making a mark with Terribly Tiny Tales, the team diversified to make short films under the title Terribly Tiny Talkies, a short film project that will make its debut in what has been Bollywood’s Academy Awards — Filmfare. The awards function will introduce a special short film category this year, and nominated for it are TTT’s projects. “The question that struck us was, ‘why limit ourselves to only words?’ We have a bank of solid ideas and thought of taking a step further and to create videos with a similar ethos of telling good stories. That’s when we thought of starting with Terribly Tiny Talkies,” explains Anuj. Short films, he agrees is becoming a favourable format for viewers. “With companies like Large Short Films and Pocket Films, it’s clear that there’s a demand for short films,” he adds.

Five of their short films have been selected at the Filmfare Awards, which is opening its doors to short format films from this year. “I know Filmfare might have negative connotations. But I have never been quite a film festival person,” says Chintan adding, “But the bigger problem was, we couldn’t send our film to festivals since they were already released (on YouTube). The duo is clear about its goals though. They don’t shy away from the mainstream. “We want to tell good stories and now we also show them. And it’s high time that short films are also seen by the viewers as a part of mainstream,” Chintan says.

The reason TTT has been a successful enterprise is because the founders were clear about the fact that they wanted to make money — it wasn’t blind passion. “We brought our own expertise to form the content driven start up but also attracted a lot of brands. We tied up with a lot of brands. We tell stories and we share the spirit of the brand instead of product placement. I think, this is the best form of advertising,” says Anuj. “Everybody wants to act in short films and direct short films, but nobody wants to produce them. We are trying to bridge that gulf,” says Chintan.

On their YouTube channel, TTT has 16 videos with more than 45,000 subscribers and close to 5,00,000 views on their most popular film. With an anthology of the best of Terribly Tiny Tales to be published by Penguin in the pipeline and more interesting short films in the making, the duo seems to have hit the right chord. “Currently, we have roped in a chief writer, Sharanya Rajgopal, who has worked on some of our scripts. We are currently looking out for someone who could take up the responsibilities of production and distribution,” says Chintan.

When asked if there was one tiny tale that would define their journey so far, Anuj says, it is yet to be written.

Founders of Terribly Tiny Tales, Anuj Gosalia and Chintan Ruparel.