TVF-ONE is one of India's most popular online youth entertainment channel. Its founder, Arunabh Kumar an electrical engineer from IIT Kharagpur found it very difficult to enter Bollywood. The article below from Outlook Business talks about how his passion and quick wit got him an entry into the film world
After completing his engineering, he landed back in Mumbai on an assignment with Aerospace Research and Development, an arm of the US Air Force. “Though I loved mathematics and what we were doing, after a point I got bored. I was to leave for Tokyo for a project module but I walked away.” With plans to become a short film maker, he started cold calling production houses for a job as an assistant director, but kept getting shooed off at the reception desk.
“So, I began dressing up in formals and started pitching that I want to understand the technology behind cinema and how visual effect is used in movies,” Kumar says, breaking into uncontrolled laughter.
The attire was for effect but his interest genuine. Lady Luck finally relented and he ran into Vaibhav Misra at Red Chillies Entertainment who was chief assistant director for the then under production Om Shanti Om. Misra was kind enough to give Kumar the time of the day and through Misra he met Farah Khan.
Waiting to meet Farah outside her office was Kumar’s Bud Fox meets Gordon Gekko moment. “It dawned on me that I have to do this if I want to be part of something big. When Farah asked me, ‘You are an IIT engineer, you don’t know anything about film making, what are you gonna do?’ I just blurted out, ‘Ma’am, I will be your slave,’ She then said, ‘Ok, I need some slaves, come on board.’”
This fleeting interaction in the last week of November, 2006 was a major turning point in Kumar’s life. In about eight years, Kumar would be shooting with Farah and the megastar behind it all, Shahrukh Khan.
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