India, Oct. 7 -- Arattai is Tamil, which translates as chat, but Arattai is a simple yet very fundamental word in Tamil meaning conversation; which is a suitable title to be given to Zoho, an ambitious Made-in-India messaging application. Since WhatsApp has become an almost universal language of communication in the Indian context, Arattai has a very steep hill to climb in its quest to establish a virgin territory in the already saturated field. It is not merely about feature wars, but can a homegrown application make any emotional, cultural appeal to users that have been accustomed to using WhatsApp for many years?

As a privacy-oriented, lightweight app tailored to meet the needs of Indian users, the emergence of Arattai in light of the...