The gaming industry is one of the most thriving industries, while our country is steadily developing itself as an esport hub but it’s not just what it seems to be.
Many streamers or gamers struggle for years to get to the limelight and today we have a very own gamer from Assam’s Guwahati -the gateway of the northeast.
Santosh Sarma, a budding Indian YouTuber who goes by the gaming name INSANO shares his journey with the team of ‘The North-Eastern Chronicle’. Being a student of class 11, he shares how is passionate about gaming and aspires to make it big in the Esports world.
While speaking to ‘The North-Eastern Chronicle’, Santosh says he is “a random boy from Assam, Guwahati.” During the lockdown last year, he was spending his time gaming; when the thought of streaming on YouTube emerged.
He thought he was performing well in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)/Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), online video games which inspired him to take his “shaukh (hobby)” to the platform of YouTube.
Well, it isn’t easy to convince Indian parents because society conceive gaming industry to be, to that he shares how his parents reacted to his gaming like any other “typical Indian family” and they said, “kya karaha hai yeh sab (what are you going to do with all this)”.
They were not supportive and “did not like my (his) work” when he first started his channel, but as he gradually grew, they started to “see the numbers”, a reference to his subscribers. He had grown on YouTube to have 460 subscribers and aspires to reach 1000 at the earliest, so his work is monetized.
He further says, “I have a fixed time” for gaming, about 2-3 hours and that his mother is now supportive but also wants him to focus well on his studies.
When it comes to setbacks he says people including his friends would mock and tease him for wanting to start a streaming account, saying “arey noob kya karega, kaun dekhega tereko [you’re a noob, what will you do, who will watch you]”.
Additionally, because his board exams (the previous year) were unsure of happening, he could not give his all to gaming and people would pressure him to focus on his exams and not stream on YouTube, “tu boards de na, tu padhai kar, yeh sab chor. Isme kuch faida nahi hai. Yeh Assam hai, yaha isse kuch faida nahi hoga. Our society is backward. [You give your boards and study. Let this (streaming) go.
There is no benefit you could yield out of it, especially because it’s a small state like Assam]”. He felt demotivated, but persisted in continuing his hobby, by “ignoring” his non-supporters. Presently, he says “People who would tease me, now want to play with me, on my stream”.
But as they say, one good friend who sees and knows our potential can make us reach heights and that was Sania for him, his best friend, who always motivated and supported him to pursue what he wanted to.
Santosh plans on taking his streams on platforms like “Twitch, Facebook, and Loco” as well when he reaches “500 subscribers, 40 more to go”. While the support that his subscribers have shown to him over such a short period is “so overwhelming” to him.
If given a chance to change something about YouTube, Santosh says he would like to change the report policy, where when, 100-200 people report a video, without checking what violations the video has committed, YouTube terminates it.
He wishes that YouTube could “send a proper email to the creator,” for them to correct and edit the violation and re-upload the video. This, he says is “a global problem for creators”.
He envisions himself in the coming years as “a proper Esport player, and a good gaming creator from the state of Assam” and wishes to attach himself to a gaming organization. He dearly aspires to be part of the SouL Esports Team.
Santosh departs by asserting, “Gaming is not a Crime”. He explains, “People in our society treat gaming as a crime, they say things like bhai game khetoe tu to kya karahi hai”. He feels, his “relatives and family” take gaming to be a crime, by the manner they are opinionated about it.
He further says that they say certain things about gaming “that buzz in his ears” for a long time. Additionally, he opines that parents’ guidance helps children use electronic devices wisely, and play the right games well.
