4 minute read
Mr. Kurkurit
Ruben Rodrigues, popularly known as ‘Mr Kurkurit’, is one of Goa’s most popular food influencers. Currently based at Margao, Ruben's journey as an influencer has been filled with a lot of struggles and trials.
As a child, Ruben had ambitions which were very crazy. He never dreamt of small things. His ambitions were always on the next level. Once, he imagined becoming a king of a palace and fighting the next kingdom. That was his crazy imagination. Then, he also once dreamt of being an astronomer. He also considered the idea of becoming an army officer to fight terrorists. “I never dreamt of being a chef or an influencer but I always wanted to be famous from childhood", he says.
Although he had taken up Science while in Higher Secondary School, Ruben ended up pursuing a BSc course in Hospitality Management and Hotel Administration from IHM Goa Porvorim. After he completed his course, he was confused about what to do next because there are four sections you get in hotel management - Housekeeping, Front Office, F&B and Production, which is cooking. Ruben chose cooking and joined Taj Exotica for 6 months. Over there, he found things to be very tough. So, he left Taj and joined Planet Hollywood. He managed to stick at Planet Hollywood for just 14 days. After that, he came home and cried saying that he can't do it and gave up on Hotel management as a career.
After leaving his job, Ruben took up social media marketing for a short span of 3 months but did not enjoy it all. After that, he decided to focus on his journey as an influencer. He already had a page called 'Masterclass.de.r7' and he managed to gain around 2.5 K followers. But then, he was stuck because he could not see any growth. He was on the verge of giving up on his career as an influencer when he said to himself - why not try something new? So, he made a video on how to make a pineapple sheera with a Konkani voiceover. While preparing the sheera, instead of adding a yellow food colouring, Ruben added a pink food colouring and then said "pink zalo mare" in the video. This dialogue was loved by a lot of people who saw his video, and from there, Ruben realised that he needed to make his content RAW and for anyone who wants to try their hand at cooking. And from there, Ruben Ruben's career as an influencer took off.
A few celebrities who Ruben would like to meet someday include people like Chef Gordon Ramsey as he enjoys watching his videos. He also wishes to meet people like The Rock and influencers like Nick Dizwani and The Golden Balance. When it comes to influencers from India, he would like to someday meet Zingy Zest as he is a big fan of hers and enjoys the content which she creates.
Ruben currently creates content for Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Moj. As of now, he is more focused on Instagram and YouTube. In the future, he plans to be active full-time on all 4 platforms and create content so that he can monetize the content that he creates for these platforms. He also has some crazy content coming up on his YouTube channel. The content is something which no one has ever done in India so far. Apart from this, he may start his own merchandise store from where his fans can purchase 'Mr. Kurkurit' branded merchandise. He also plans to start his own brand under which he would be selling a particular dish and he hopes that all of this works out well.
Ruben's message to all Goan youngsters is that “If you have a dream or an ambition, do not sleep over it. Get up and start working towards achieving it. If I can do it, you can do it too. If a guy like me who was an introvert and was brought up in a village setting in Sanvordem can achieve something like this, then you can do it too. It's all about getting up and working towards achieving your dream.”
After leaving his job, Ruben took up social media marketing for a short span of 3 months but did not enjoy it all. After that, he decided to focus on his journey as an influencer. He already had a page called 'Masterclass.de.r7' and he managed to gain around
