Friday 22-02-19 was all LIGHTS, CAMERA AND ACTION at Avantika University for we were visited by a very popular guest straight from the bedazzling clasps of Bollywood. Naved Aslam is a man as big as the screen he is seen on. He was born and brought up in the bustling city of Delhi. He has been an actor, director and screenwriter for many TV series, movies and more. Aslam has been trained in the classical Indian vocal music and has pursued a postgraduate degree in mass communications from Jamia Millia Islamia University based in Delhi. It was his father who introduced him to theatre.

Aslam has written, directed and acted in stage plays for over 10 years. He moved to Mumbai to work on his acting career. The city took him to projects like DD Nationals’ Vyomkesh Bakshi (1993), Pyaar Kii Yeh Ek Kahaani, Pavitra Rishta, Jodha Akbar, Ishqbaaz and movies like Honeymoon Travels, Sehar and Once Upon A Time in Mumbai. He also made a debut on digital platforms with a web series called Smoke.

The session started with an air of regality and dumbfounding speech. Naved was as good as a speaker as he is an actor. He opened our minds to the wide reality of what we should be focussing on while we communicate. A session majorly based on how we should be constantly pushing ourselves to the vista of learning and searching new horizons in communication was something many students were yearning for. He taught us a lot of things in short gist. One of his many great sentences was that “Learning is imperative.” And to be honest that stuck with me because it made a lot of sense. 3 words but the amount of impact it made was truly of great effect.

Obviously, communication is important for survival right from the first breath to the last and it just doesn’t come from going and rote learning in schools and colleges. What matters is how much you apply it in the real world, where it actually matters.

We then came down to discussing about how it is important in screenwriting, not only in the film industry but also in real life. The basic idea is to reach out to your target audience as much as you could. It all starts from a story and to have those many stories in your pot of mind, you have to constantly observe people; their actions, their body language, their attitude and their expressions because everyone has a story. The only difference is that some don’t know how to execute it while some can.

Moving on to the next topic which was diversity, it matters a lot in this field. Diversity of human life is getting crushed day by day due to several influential reasons. The solution to this growing problem is constant generation and execution of different ideas.

We also streaked along the conversation about how it is very essential to possess knowledge about other subjects also. Everything in this world can have a different perspective per se. Short stories give a great deal of insight about how these perspectives pan out in the real world. Stories have a really eminent effect on the reader or the listener, if told properly. The story conveyed should always be able to spark an idea into the reader/ listener. Also, you yourself should have a lot of confidence in your story when you’re presenting it to the world. Always finish your story. Always. Whatever the matter. It demands to be told.

Finally, we landed on the most important pillar of the session i.e., acceptance. It is a very dynamic world with a fairly radical meaning. It’s true meaning can only be perceived by a handful of people. It is a tough job to understand the importance of acceptance. It is the key which opens the doors to many, many possibilities and landing newer opportunities. In the end, I would like to just conclude that stories create relevance. And that is the reason why stories are necessary. For every single one of us.

Written by,
Atharva Dahotre