Multi-faceted ‘Dean’ Viveck Vaswani reveals ‘newcomer’ Shah Rukh Khan’s qualities that made him a ‘Super-star’ !

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By Team Bollyy
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Multi-faceted ‘Dean’ Viveck Vaswani reveals ‘newcomer’ Shah Rukh Khan’s qualities that made him a ‘Super-star’ !

It’s always a pleasure to converse with articulate, erudite  Viveck Vaswani, the Bolly-cinema-box-office-gyaani actor-producer-mentor-star-maker and now ‘Dean’ of a prominent Media School.

In an exclusive interview, the outspoken Viveck (it’s his birthday on July 1st) speaks candidly on diverse relevant issues - Chaitanya Padukone

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Viveck, you are currently the Dean at the prestigious Pearl Academy. How did this happen and are you enjoying this new profile ?

Yes, that’s right, I am the Dean of the School Of Contemporary Media at Pearl Academy, and we have campuses in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Jaipur.

When I turned fifty, I looked back and realized that the time had come to ‘give back’ all the fame, knowledge and success that I achieved so far.

It all started with my award-winning education-centric small feature-film called ‘Rough Book’ directed by Ananth Mahadevan.

This movie had a unique distribution strategy where screenings were held in schools and colleges and I suddenly became an in-demand lecturer which led to me moving to the prestigious Pearl Academy.

Where I am finally doing what I was born to do, nurture, guide and mentor film students and media-aspirants..

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 Most of today's youth seem to crave for quick results and prefer short-cuts to success ? How do you handle that ?

We are in the digital world. These days. kids are born with Google in their brains and high-tech smart phones in their palms.

They carry universities, libraries, multiplexes and offices in their phones and they are an instant-coffee generation. I teach them that I cannot teach.

The height of Mount Everest is on Google, so I don’t waste their time teaching them that. But then, I coach them how to actually climb Mount Everest---and that’s not on Google !

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 How has your showbiz journey been over the past four decades ?

From acting to production, from theatre to ads-commercials from to TV to feature films, it’s been a really long amazing, enriching journey.

I’ve been fortunate to work with both black ‘n’ white films, as well as with digital cameras.

I’ve worked with superstar Rajesh Khanna and ‘showman’ producer GP Sippy-saab,  who launched Rajesh Khanna.

If  TV show Khandaan was a big hit in 1986, then Scam1992 was a megahit in 2020.  Well, God has been kind, and I thank him daily !

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 Aren't you planning to venture into OTT, the web-zone and digital media ?

Definitely, am planning two shows on OTT platforms, two movies with Ananth Mahadevan.

Am curating three international film festivals and am creating my own OTT platform. This is part-time.

My main work which takes up 70 hours a week is being the Dean of ‘SOCM’ at Pearl Academy. 

Will we ever get to experience the 'magic-of-cinema' in movie-theatres, once again ? 

Quite simply, the magic-of-cinema ‘died’ when people started watching films with one eye.

The other eye on their smartphones, chatting, shopping and messaging while the film-screening was on.

The magic vanished when waiters started walking all over the auditorium serving snacks and beverages..

The magic diminished when we got frisked for food before entering the auditorium. Today, going to the theaters is ‘not’ a great cinema experience, it’s a social experience. I am not a social person ! 

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Since you had ‘mentored’ Shah Rukh Khan from his initial days, what are his three personal qualities ( the ‘X-factors’) that have contributed to his ‘superstardom’ ?

Daring-by-nature as a ‘newcomer’ Shah Rukh Khan was fearless when he had to meet and discuss with eminent film-industry people who matter.

Secondly he had and still has the capacity to work around-the-clock with total dedication.

Thirdly, SRK puts in a certain amount of exuberant emotional super-energy in his performances which shows and flows on the screen.

Which is evident in our musical-super-hit movie ‘Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman’ (1992).  Being a  scene-stealer, frenzied fans went fidaa over SRK’s charismatic screen-persona and stylized romance.

Even when SRK was the avenging nasty killer or an obsessive anti-hero lover-boy, theatre audiences boisterously cheered him.

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