This weekend, one of my batch mate from college came out
with a collection of short stories she has written over the year and compiled
in a book. The book came out as a kindle e-book titled, “Do virgins taste
better and other tales of whimsy”. What
has got me excited is the fact that she has made it to a point where her
thoughts and ideas have been able to reach a larger audience circumventing the vicious
nets and monopolies of publishers. The answer came in the form of Amazon and
its CreateSpace service.
My class had quite a few talents with literary skills to
write books and scripts, very few actually have taken it up as a full time
profession. My roommate in college went into advertising, but had a compilation
of photographs coupled with his feelings behind them expressed as poetry. The
concept was too alien to publishers, and he was reluctant to share excessive
details suspecting foul play. Another of my roommate is journalist who having
extensively travelled in a riot torn UP has inside stories and anecdotes which
no news channel will every carry. The works for both of the above have original
ideas but the flight of expression is yet to find wings. I see the new avenues
in media as a viable options in the days to come.
The story has been similar to many of the upcoming talents
who have the ideas and concepts for a larger stage but find no takers. The
Viral Fever (TVF) Media Labs is a sensation on YouTube as a channel which has a
very steady and loyal bunch of followers. Their popularity is marked by the
fact that a video from TVF crosses 100000 viewers in a day at max. But the origins
of the second largest network of youth entertainment in India lies in the fact
that the concepts presented by its founder, Arunabh Kumar, were rejected by MTV
and other youth channels. By means of YouTube, TVF today has a reach so massive
that online portals like Snapdeal, Common Floor or even movie stars like Shah
Rukh Khan, Parineeti Chopra, Ayushman Khurana, Ranveer Singh have come on their
shows to connect with youth and promote their movies.
There is no doubting the fact that making a film is an
expensive proposition and has a lot more in terms of financial hurdles. But
some like another batch mate of mine, Faraz Ali, have taken up spending their
time, effort and own savings to find a route to achieving things. The
alternative he has found takers has been short film festivals. One of his first
efforts, Mehrooni got a lot of critical acclaim after being shown at the Mumbai
Film Festival and Royal Stag Large Shot films. The encouragement has taken him
to make Makhmal this year which not only had big names like Jackie Shroff and
Shafquat Amanat Ali attached to it, but also got opportunities in film
festivals overseas (Including the New York 30 under 30) as an avenue to
showcase his art to the world.
Another space where alternate media is making an impact is
music. Recently, Vayu, a college junior of mine, launched a music video on YouTube of
a song he had written and had composed almost 8 months ago. Apart from the fact
that he is a lyricist having written for mainstream Bollywood, he had the
desire to write about things he felt close to and ultimately wrote about dope.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?
On the whole, the sphere of media has grown in a big way and
is helping people to bypass the traditional road blocks and monopolies of
publishers, music labels, channels and film producers and distributors. It is
now up for the people with ideas to come up with the best of their own content.
Success may be defined once people get to witness what you have, but a lot more
avenues to help the right talents see the light of day.
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