GLOBIS
Editorial strategy
Wrote articles on business leadership, strategy, and culture for GLOBIS Europe, leading to audience growth.
What I do
Writing
Features and reportage on health, tech, history, and games.
Editing
I turn rough drafts into pieces people finish.
Filmmaking
Behind the camera, in front of it, and in the edit.
Design
Layouts, infographics, and print editions.
Production
Articles, videos, podcasts, and decks, start to finish.
Strategy
Voice, process, and growth for teams and brands.
Photography
Film, mirrorless, and iPhone. A few frames I'm happy with.
I've written about health, technology, history, economics, culture, videogames, business leadership, and geopolitics, and I go into each one as a beginner. I assume nothing. I put the story and its context in the order that I find most interesting. In text, I write features, news reports, and interviews.
Beyond text, I'm a full-stack multimedia producer. I can be behind the camera or in front of it, edit the video, design or help a designer, and build the website. I make basic animations and write the copy. I also have a bespoke editorial illustration workflow, and I've kept a personal meme archive since 2009.
My work appears in Happiest Health, Madras Courier, The Week, and The Hindu.
Lines I still like
Like a broken circuit in a guitar pedal, a single misfire in the brain can throw off the entire performance.
In many ways, he was the original king of good times.
Paper, the universal right to vote, and the urban legend of the unbreakable 3310. What do these three have in common?
Brands I've worked with
Recent work
GOOGLE NEWS INITIATIVE
AI tools for journalists
Took part in Google News Initiative's all-round training on AI tools for journalists, in Gurgaon.
HAPPIEST HEALTH
Health and wellness journalism
Senior Editor and correspondent for microbiome, tech, and hobbies at Happiest Health.
MADRAS COURIER
Deep-dive features
Helped revitalise a 233-year-old publication. Wrote 200+ features on history, culture, economics, and society. Madras Courier went on to win the WAN-IFRA award for Best Digital Startup (South Asia).
THE WEEK
News reporting
Reported on culture and videogames for the magazine and covered the world & business beats for online, winning Best Newcomer at THE WEEK.
THE HINDU
Newsroom reporting (internship)
Reported and photographed local news at The Hindu as a student intern. First newsroom experience, learning the craft from the ground up.
What people say
Varun is an employer’s dream.
Lowkey one of the best writers out there.
One of our finest writers.
Thanks to you, we increased web traffic by 37%.
Work samples
Pieces I'm happy to put my name on.
Also: I build things
I'm a writer who builds software. AI does a lot of the coding, but I steer the harness. I've followed the AI space since 2016, and I've been an early adopter of almost every tool since GPT-3: text to image, text to video, agentic harnesses, and more.
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Motif Studio
Paste in a story draft and get editorial illustration ideas, ready-to-use image prompts, and a guide to recreating each look by hand in Canva. Writers can think visually without waiting on a designer.
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Motif Logo
Motif's sibling, pointed at logos. Describe a brand and it explores directions across 17 vector design styles.
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Motif Meme
A meme-making tool.
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Jarvis
A private daily assistant for editors. It turns my bookmarked story ideas into one clear task a day, with sources to approach and interview questions ready to send. It runs on my own laptop, so nothing leaves it.
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Vantage
A search engine for a magazine archive. It reads the issue PDFs, splits them into articles, works out who was quoted, and answers plain questions like "children and mental health".
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Bookmark Bhai
A knowledge graph and search engine for my 15,000 Chrome bookmarks.
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Keepers
A wedding photography organiser. It culls shots automatically and develops the RAW files, and the originals are never touched.
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DeTubed
A Chrome extension that removes chosen results from your YouTube feed.
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Instagram gradient remover
A Chrome extension that removes the dark gradient Instagram lays over its video player.
This website
After years of working with tech teams to build and update WordPress, Wix, and Adobe templates, I decided to make my own site with AI. It took several attempts. The result is plain HTML and CSS with no framework, and I add my work through a small app that runs on my own computer.
Let's collaborate on...
- Thought leadership articlesPutting a company's thinking on the page, in its own voice.
- Case studiesWhat the problem was, what was done, and what changed.
- Business content for international readersBusiness writing adapted for readers in another country.
- Feature articlesReported, deeply written journalism. My original craft.
- DocumentariesLongform video with room to breathe.
- ExplainersComplicated topics in a few clear minutes.
- AI documentation projectsTelling the story of new tools while people are still working them out.
- Photo essaysPictures and words carrying the story together.
- InterviewsPrepared conversations with experts and creators.
- MagazinesStart to finish, in print or on screen.
- VlogsShort, personal, story-first video.
- Environmental reportageOn-the-ground stories that matter. I’m drawn to fieldwork.
- Animated shortsScripted animation that explains an idea with some rhythm.
- Multimedia projectsText, video, audio, and design in one story.
- WebsitesStory-led sites and editorial hubs.