Going Independent on Instagram

[Music]

why did i quit a well-paying job to do

what i love

well i’m an artist a poet but in my job

i couldn’t show it

my alarm clock was an email and my

nightlight was gmail

you see us artists we need to perform to

stay alive give us a script and watch us

thrive

but back then my job was my only jive

us closeted artists we have

responsibilities we are bound

but honestly we are just waiting to be

found

every day i dive into the work grind and

by evening i’d lost my mind

every day i’d cater to every request as

if it was life’s biggest conquest

but finally there came a day where i

refused to sign another nda

until my own feelings saw the light of

day i had a lot to say and time was

slipping away

so i refused to waste another lunch

break and filling out in voices and

drowning my voices

because i’m an artist a poet and i had

to show it

and would my appraisal have been in

rhyme darling you know

i’m worth every dime

thank you i’ve always had a love for the

performance arts ever since i was a

child

but rewind seven years and i was

confronted with that dilemma in my life

where i had to choose which profession i

wanted to adopt to make a living

i loved biology and so i wanted to

pursue medicine and possibly be a

surgeon

but i wasn’t ready to invest seven years

of my life into studying medicine

and eventually i fell in love

with psychology so i got my bachelor’s

degree in psychology and then

specialized

as a clinical hypnotherapy and past life

regression therapist i started treating

clients using hypnotherapy

i loved understanding human behavior and

the human mind

but i had this need to create

i wanted to do more than just client

sessions

so i got my first full-time job as a

content writer

at a content and marketing agency but i

still felt like

i wanted to do more than writing

so i got my next full-time job at a

well-known content and culture company

here i managed some of india’s biggest

comedians and content creators

such as kanangil and kani surka and as

my exposure to the field of content

increased my wings as an artist started

to open

i soon realized that i can tap into my

childhood talents

such as my love for performing and

writing and i started creating spoken

word poetry

i soon published a series of spoken word

poems on

instagram called project speak which

stood for speak

productively engage and know my poems

were based on my life experiences

with issues such as gender roles and

body shaming

and soon thousands of people started

liking and sharing my poetry

my story seemed to resonate with a lot

of people i remember a female sent me a

message saying that

her fiance who she was about to marry

but wasn’t masculine enough

when she saw my poem she realized that

not his masculinity

but his heart is what was going to stay

with them and such responses on the

internet made me realize that

my work was forming an impact and

resonating with people

now let the record show that at this

point i was still in a full-time job

managing multiple artists producing

shows managing brand work

and creating pictures so after my day in

office i’d come home

set up my camera and tripod and film my

poetry

after getting my satisfactory take i sat

color correcting editing

adding subtitles and music to my videos

till three o’clock in the morning

and then in a few hours i went back to

work

six months into my job i realized that i

would thrive much better

as an artist than a someone managing

artists and so i sent a letter

an email to my ceo titled furthering

talent

explaining to them how i thought i would

do much better as an artist than as an

employee

but they rather wanted me as an employee

so i continued working

and got a lavish peris i quit my job

six months later to pursue being an

actor and a content creator full time

during this phase a friend of mine

malika dua who happens to be an actor

suggested that if my life and my heart

thrived when i was performing

then there was no option besides going

to acting school and that’s exactly what

i did

and my training as an actor was life

changing which is not something i say

easily

the acting course was brutal but

incredible

every day i had to unlearn and confront

aspects of my own self that i didn’t

even know existed

and then i had to channelize my emotions

into scenes scripts

and characters it was incredible

but initially i kept getting feedback

that the audience couldn’t see the real

me in a scene that i was playing my idea

of a character learn from society such

as

ideas of masculinity and of dominance

so my acting coach told me to just be

myself to bring myself in the scene

and to bring my version of the character

into a scene rather than a superimposed

idea of the character

and one day i was tired of trying to ace

it so i just brought myself into the

scene

and that’s the day my scene got applause

because it was believable

organic and natural and i was just

myself

now with these new found versions of

myself i started creating characters for

instagram

mail as well as female characters i have

a female character

her name is tanya and she

tanya is an exotic french diva

that is tanya in the middle

tanya is an exotic french diva who is

a very extravagant lady and lives in

mumbai but she doesn’t understand

indian culture soon i was invited to

interview bollywood celebrities rajkumar

bowman iranian and couple of others as

tanya for a movie promotion

so i created a talk show called tea with

tanya where i could interview

celebrities

and i wore my wig in front of three men

who stared awkwardly at me in the studio

bathroom

went on the floor and interviewed the

actors

i have an other male character called

chacha chaturvedi

is an old school man who grew up on a

farm in a village he only speaks hindi

he doesn’t understand social media and

he doesn’t understand millennials but he

lives in mumbai

and his journey is about how he

understands what is happening in this

world of

instagram another female character that

i created

is tia kapoor now tia kapoor is the

secret daughter of a well-known

bollywood family

soon these characters developed an

audience of admirers

not to mention some awkward requests

such as wanting to tattoo tanya’s

autograph on their body

but can you imagine that the same guy

who had been bullied for not being

masculine enough

was now being celebrated for his female

characters

that tells us something really

interesting about stereotypes

they limit us from accessing sides of

our own self that we suppress

and push away because we don’t think

they’ll find acceptance

and then we create characters to live

the lives that we never allow ourselves

to live

but it’s really exciting to see which

side of you manifests when you perform a

surrender to a character

all it takes is the courage to try

something new

and the vulnerability to go to that

space within

yes i have a thin body and a small face

not enough masculine grace you’re not

manly enough

they say but today my feelings will see

the light of day

no no we’re not fools but still here it

goes

i have some questions some apprehensions

such as

why should he see a shrink because he

likes the color pink

and why should she too if she likes the

color blue

who decided these molds who made these

gender roles what gives them their hold

no there’s nothing bored about calling

someone tiny about calling someone fat

your ego isn’t shiny and your morality

is a dead rat

you’re body shaming which is just

blaming your own inadequacies on another

person’s build

no there’s nothing skilled you’re just

wrong

yes there’s no rhyme there but i don’t

really care i know i’m a poet and i

don’t need to show it

but here’s something you need to know

the size of your brain

it needs to grow

the wonderful thing about being a poet

or an actor and content creator is that

there’s a lot of freedom of expression

but this profession is at a very nascent

stage of development

the key responsibility areas are

undefined and

the job mandates vary from creator to

creator

and company to company which is why i

believe that it’s important to have

a plan if you want to survive

sustainably

and work for the long run

here’s an example of what my content

plan looks like for the year

but a word of caution that freelance

does come with an initial instability in

income compared to a full-time job

and i still would say that i get great

satisfaction

in terms of doing what i love but i

would also say that being a content

creator isn’t readily looked at as a

most

viable career option in fact on a recent

trip someone once came up to me

handing over a product they had launched

requesting me to make a poem

and publish it on my instagram page and

i look forward to promoting brands

through my craft

but people presume that a one minute

video takes only one minute away

to make because that’s all they see on

screen

but if you’ve ever worked in production

you know that there are so many behind

the scenes factors

that predict that consumers and

audiences don’t see

when they are watching a piece of

content which is why the field of

content creation is probably

looked at as a hobby more than it is a

profession

but it very much is a profession in fact

i would like to share a personal

anecdote from some years ago

when i remember i asked spiritual leader

puja gurudev shri rakeshbai

on guidance on which field to to choose

between

science and commerce because these were

the two main fields at the time

and what he said to me that day has

really been a reason for me to grow as a

person

he didn’t tell me which field to choose

between but told me to use my own head

to think and figure it out and not

having a ready-made answer

is what actually cultivated my own

abilities to find my

own answers and my own path and now

seven years later when i look back i’m

so grateful for that guidance because

my career ended up being neither of the

two options that i presented

in fact i regularly attend puja gurudeva

shri rakesh by his discourses

and the spiritual nourishment wisdom and

inspiration that i get from him

sometimes even spills over into my work

making me more aware about how i can

heal and help others through my content

the good thing about social media is

that it’s made everything

a meritocracy all you need to be

recognized

is you need an internet connection a

camera and a message worth sharing

and chances are if your message comes

from a space of honesty

then it will resonate with people and

they will amplify the message

for example the last poem i released

spoke about human rights issues in my

country

it’s called enough and within a few

hours of releasing the poem

from mumbai the poem reached cities

across the world to cities

such as london ladakh delhi and kashmir

soon a well-known news channel wanted to

carry it

can you imagine that a poem i produced

in my own house

ended up reaching thousands of people

and having international

impact this made me realize my own worth

as a creator i realized that not only

can i use my platform

to share my art but also to make the

world a better place by standing for the

causes that i believe in

i want to use my voice to abolish animal

cruelty

such as the testing of cosmetics on

animals or the meat industry

the way animals are being treated and

tortured today

is miserable and the good thing about

social media

is you no longer need to be a politician

or a celebrity for your message to be

worth sharing

that’s the power of the internet

deciding to quit a well-paying job to do

what i love

has taken me from someone who used to

sit in web series narrations

to someone who recently narrated my own

web series to a production company

i would say that being employed gave me

wings

but going independent is what taught me

how to use my wings to fly

it’s 2020 it’s the beginning of a new

decade

and i think it’s time that we start

telling real stories

that are a departure from stereotypical

content

because the more reality finds

representation online and in cinema

the more everyone’s collective anxiety

as society will be reduced

because we know of because we no longer

have to pursue these unrealistic ideals

of beauty and romance that we see in

cinema

and the more we allow people to be

original and don’t condemn them for

being different

the more freshness we will start seeing

in society

we’re all different not weird but

different

so we need to stop forcing people into

boxes

we need to learn to celebrate art

without trying to alter it to fit into

our narrow concepts

my family is an open-minded and

progressive family i have the privilege

of having

parents who understand my kind of work

and

this makes it much easier for a

millennial like me to create the kind of

content that i create

and i would say that that’s how

non-judgmental and accepting an

environment must be

if we want originality and individuality

to flourish in society

and even content i would like to

conclude with something i realized

recently and something i request that we

all start saying more to each other

you’re not weird you’re original

celebrate yourself

thank you

you