Special Report
2015: From employees to employers, a year of transition in media
MUMBAI: 2015 saw India retain its title of being the world’s third leader in start-ups. What is interesting to note is that entrepreneurship not only thrived in the technology sector but also showed a sharp increase in the field of media and entertainment.
Follow the year’s calendar closely and you can see it checkered with launches of new bespoke media ventures and innovative digital solutions companies.
This was the year when we saw creative heads, vice presidents and marketing heads of leading agencies and media houses leaving their plush corporate jobs and taking on the challenge to establish their own companies.
Creative stalwarts like Abhijit Avasthi and Gaurav Seth, who were often considered torch bearers in their former organisations, made headlines as they decided to move on to launch independent agencies.
The world of start-ups is dynamic and unpredictable unlike the stable portfolios that these executives enjoyed until they decided to cut the cord as the lure to explore new avenues and expand their horizons eventually won.
As the year comes to an end, Indiantelevision.com lists 10 such media professionals who embarked on their entrepreneurial journeys in 2015.
Abhijit Avasthi: The media had a field day when Ogilvy & Mather chief creative officer Abhjit Avasthi put in his papers out of the blue last year. The mystery was unravelled six months later, when Avasthi announced his new creative solutions start-up Sideways, of which he is a co-founder. Aimed to be a multi-dimensional creative solutions provider, Avasthi even gave an open invitation to professionals from different industries to join his new venture.
Ajay Chacko and B Saikumar: Industry veterans and Network18 associates, who severed ties with company almost at the same time, came together after a long time to team up with media and broadcasting veteran Ronnie Screwvala to form a new digital media company called Arré. The venture aims at establishing a digital brand, which will offer multi-genre¬, multi-lingual content across video, audio, text and other traditional and new age art forms.
Barkha Dutt: Media professional or not, there is hardly anyone unfamiliar with this veteran journalist, who anchors NDTV’s prime time shows. Therefore, her announcement to quit the news network as an editor to start her own digital multi-media company has saddened several fans of Dutt – the reporter. As she firmed up plans for her new venture, she moved to the role of consulting editor for the news channel, while remaining closely associated as the anchor for The Buck Stops Here on weeknights and We The People on weekends.
Cyrus Oshidar: Former MTV man, who is known for his involvement with iconic shows such as MTV Bakra, Roadies, et al, made a comeback this year with what he does best – telling stories about young urban India. Through videos, photos and tongue-in cheek style of articles, branded content start-up 101 India is designed to be the window to open-minded listless and creative millennials and what they find interesting.
Gaurav Seth: Those who have known Gaurav Seth as the senior vice president of Sony Entertainment Television did a double take when he ended his relationship of over six years with the broadcast network to co-found Purple Canvas. Fresh in the picture, this new content creating start-up already has its first television series underway.
Nitin Suri and Chraneeta Mann: When two highly creative individuals get together, the combination always leads to creation and that’s exactly what happened when former Dentsu national creative director Suri and Rediffusion Y&R national creative director Mann joined hands to form The Mob. Funded by the wholly owned subsidiary of Mogae Media, the venture aimed to marry television commercials and content with mobile phones.
Prakash Nathan: This former UTV Disney India operations head and UTV Motion Pictures vice president too recently rolled out India’s first ever digital media market titled CineMArkets Digital Solutions along with partners Girish Kumar and Inkswipe Consulting LLP. Backed by his experience of two decades, Nathan is already leading this CineMArket into new avenues.
Prashant Bhatt: Colors fiction head Prashant Bhatt, best known for shows likeMadhubala and Udaan, surprised one and all in the first half of the year by venturing into production. Bhatt launched the new production house – Studio B&M – along with his business partner and cinematographer Sanjay Memane. The one year old production house is already slated to produce Mastaangi for Channel V.
Pratap Bose: As the DDB Mudra Group chief operating officer, Bose helmed several path breaking projects and even donned the hat of the Ad Club president. Therefore his decision to take on the role of an entrepreneur and start his own creative agency – The Social Street came as a surprise to the industry at large. His former colleagues and associates Mandeep Malhotra, Arjun Reddy and Pradeep Uppalapati were quick at his heel, and joined his new venture as partners.
S Yesudas: The most recent executive to join the start-up bandwagon is former managing director of Vizeum India and media expert S Yesudas. Along with partners Ajit Nair of MX Advertising and Amit Tripathi from IdeateLabs, Yesudas plans to disrupt the current industry with their ‘unagancy,’ which is christened triggerbridge. From the way the agency is spelled to its operational objectives, triggerbridge comes across as having an innovative and modern outlook towards the current advertising space.
There’s no doubt that these ever so crucial moves from leading media houses and agencies have created an indelible void in their respective companies. Whether or not the sudden mushrooming of such start-ups pose any competition to the existing industry leaders, only time will tell. But one thing’s for sure, some of these executives have managed to inspire several of their loyal teammates and colleagues to follow in their footsteps, leaving many empty shoes to fill in their former workplaces.
Even as the curtains draw on 2015, the coming year holds a lot of promise and will see many of them making an impression in the media and entertainment ecosystem.
MUMBAI: Some friendships are made in heaven; others are coded in Mumbai. Hamara Vinayak, the first-ever digital original from Siddharth Kumar Tewary’s Swastik Stories, turns the divine into the delightful, serving up a story that’s equal parts start-up hustle and spiritual hustle.
Some tech start-ups chase unicorns. This one already has a god on board. Hamara Vinayak takes the leap from temple bells to notification pings and it does so with heart, humour and a healthy dose of the divine.
At its core, the show asks a simple but audacious question: what if God wasn’t up there, but right beside you, maybe even debugging your life over a cup of chai?
The show’s tagline, “God isn’t distant… He’s your closest friend” perfectly captures its quirky soul. Across its first two episodes, screened exclusively for media in Mumbai, the series proves that enlightenment can come with a good punchline.
The series follows a group of ambitious young entrepreneurs running a Mumbai-based tech start-up that lets people around the world book exclusive virtual poojas at India’s most revered shrines. But as their app grows, so do their ethical grey zones. Into this chaos walks Vinayak, played with soulful serenity and sly wit by the charming Namit Das, a young man whose calm smile hides something celestial.
He’s got the peaceful look of a saint but the wit of someone who could out-think your favourite stand-up comic. Around him spins a crew of dream-driven youngsters – Luv Vispute, Arnav Bhasin, Vaidehi Nair and Saloni Daini who run a Mumbai-based tech start-up offering devotees across the world the chance to book “exclusive” poojas at India’s most sacred shrines. It’s a business plan that blends belief and broadband – and, as the story unfolds, also tests the moral compass of its ambitious founders.
“The first time I read the script, I found the character very pretty,” Namit joked at the post-screening interaction. “It’s a beautiful thought that God isn’t distant, he’s your closest friend. And playing Vinayak, you feel that calm but also his cleverness. He’s the friend who makes you think.”
The reactions to the series ranged from smiles to sighs of wonder. Viewers were charmed by the show’s sincerity and sparkle, a quality that stems from its creator’s belief that faith can be funny without being frivolous.
Among the cast, Luv Vispute shines brightest, his comic timing adding sparkle to the show’s more reflective beats. But what keeps Hamara Vinayak engaging is the easy rhythm of its writing – one moment touching, the next teasing, always gently reminding us that spirituality doesn’t have to be solemn.
Luv spoke fondly of his long association with Swastik. “Since my first show was with Swastik, this feels like home,” he said. “Every project with them is positive, feel-good, and this one just had such a different vibe. I truly feel blessed.”
Saloni Daini, who brings infectious warmth to her role, added that she signed up the moment she heard the show was about “Bappa.”
“We shot during the Ganpati festival,” she recalled. “The energy on set was incredible festive, faithful, and full of laughter. It’s such a relatable story for our generation: chaos, friendship, love, kindness, and faith all mixed together.”
Vaidehi Nair and Arnav Bhasin complete the ensemble, each representing different shades of ambition and morality in the start-up’s journey. Their camaraderie is easy and believable, a testament to how much the cast connected off-screen as well.
This clever fusion of mythology and modernity plays to India’s two enduring loves, entertainment and faith. Mythology has long been the comfort zone of Indian storytellers, from the televised epics of the 1980s to the glossy remakes that still command prime-time TRPs. For decades, gods have been our most bankable heroes. But Hamara Vinayak tweaks the formula not by preaching, but by laughing with its characters, and sometimes, at their confusion about where divinity ends and data begins.
Creator Siddharth Kumar Tewary, long hailed as Indian television’s myth-maker for shows like Mahabharat, Radha Krishn and Porus, explained the show’s intent with characteristic clarity, “This is our first story where we are talking directly to the audience, not through a platform,” he said. “We wanted to connect young people with our culture to say that God isn’t someone you only worship; He’s your friend, walking beside you, even when you take the wrong path. The story may be simple, but the thought is big.”
That blend of philosophy and playfulness runs through the show. “We had to keep asking ourselves why we’re doing this,” Tewary added. “It’s tricky to make something positive and spiritual for the OTT audience, they’ve changed, they want nuance, not sermons. But when the purpose is clear, everything else aligns.”
For the creator of some of Indian TV’s most lavish spectacles, Hamara Vinayak marks a refreshing tonal shift. Here, Tewary trades celestial kingdoms for co-working spaces and cosmic battles for office banter. Yet his signature remains: an eye for allegory, a love for faith-infused storytelling, and an understanding that belief is most powerful when it feels personal.
Hamara Vinayak, after all, feels less like a sermon and more like a conversation over chai about what success means, what faith costs, and why even the gods might be rooting for a start-up’s Series A round.
As Namit Das reflected during the Q&A, “Life gives us many magical, divine moments we just forget to notice them. Sometimes even through a phone screen, you see something that redirects you. That’s a Vinayak moment.”
The series also mirrors a larger cultural pivot. As audiences migrate from television to OTT, myth-inspired tales are finding new form and flexibility online. The digital screen lets creators like Tewary reinvent the genre, giving ancient ideas a modern interface, without losing the emotional charge that’s made mythology India’s storytelling backbone for decades.
In a country where faith trends faster than any hashtag, Hamara Vinayak feels both familiar and refreshingly new, a comedy that’s blessed with heart, humour and just enough philosophy to keep the binge holy.
For a country where mythology remains the oldest streaming service, Tewary’s move from TV to OTT feels both natural and necessary. Indian storytellers have always turned to gods for drama, guidance and TRPs from Ramayan and Mahabharat on Doordarshan to glossy mytho-dramas on prime time. But digital platforms allow creators to remix reverence with realism, and in Hamara Vinayak, faith gets an interface upgrade.
The result is a show that feels like a warm chat with destiny, part comedy, part contemplation. And in an age of cynicism, that’s no small miracle.
As Tewary put it, smiling at his cast, “The message had to be positive. We just wanted to remind people that even in chaos, God hasn’t unfriended you.”
With 5 episodes planned, Hamara Vinayak promises to keep walking that fine line between laughter and light. It’s mythology with memes, devotion with dialogue, and a digital-age reminder that even the cloud has a silver lining or perhaps, a divine one.
If the first two episodes are any sign, the show doesn’t just bridge heaven and earth, it gives both a Wi-Fi connection.
