15092024-LSCC-01.qxd 9/14/2024 9:58 PM Page 1 c m y b NAYANTHARA’S ACCOUNT HACKED Nayanthara has revealed that her X account has been hacked. Taking to social media, the actress informed her fans about the situation and cautioned them to ignore any unusual posts from her account. “Account has been hacked. Please ignore any unnecessary or strange tweets being posted,” read her post. TRIBUNE Set for IIFA Ananya Panday will present an electrifying performance at the 24th edition of the International Indian Film Academy Awards. LUDHIANA | SUNDAY | 15 SEPTEMBER 2024 ABHAY PANNU VICKY KAUSHAL Mona They say in India, you first become an engineer and then decide what you want to do with your life. Engineer-turnedcricketer Saurabh Netravalkar reiterates this belief. He was a high-flying software engineer before he secured a spot in the US Cricket Team and left people stunned with his impressive performance. There are other examples. The Hindi film industry has scores of engineers who are now successful actors and directors. The Tauba Tauba sensation Vicky Kaushal has a bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications from Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Kaushal, who got the National Award for his stellar act in Uri: The Surgical Strike, began his innings in the film world as an assistant director. Vicky isn’t the only one from Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology to make it to the industry. Filmmakers Ayan Mukerji and Ravi Dubey also graduated from the institute to pursue direction and acting, respectively. Right from Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein sensation R. Madhavan, who is an electronics engineer, to Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2’ s Rooh Baba Kartik Aaryan, who holds a B.Tech in biotechnology, the industry has its fair share of engineers. Interestingly, for Aaryan, having an engineering degree was useful to convince his parents about his plan to pursue acting! The other famous actors with engineering degrees are Sonu Sood, Riteish Deshmukh and John Abraham. Singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan pursued software engineering before taking the Breathless way! Abhi Toh Party Shuru Hui Hai singer Badshah is a civil engineer. Many of them are from prestigious IITs. Kota Factory actor Jitendra Kumar is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus. TVF Tripling actor Amol Parashar has done mechanical engineering from IIT Delhi. Film writer and director Varun Grover is from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi. Even the Dangal director Nitesh Tiwari is IIT Bombay pass-out. Not just the actors, actresses like Ameesha Patel, Kriti Sanon and Taapsee Pannu too completed their engineering degrees before making a splash in the film world. Launch pad Abhay Pannu, who directed Rockt Boys, says, “My father is an engineer and my Engineering success in showbiz What’s the common trait that Vicky Kaushal, R Madhavan, Kartik Aaryan, Badshah, Taapsee Pannu and Kriti Sanon share? They all studied engineering before opting for Bollywood ENGINEER’S DAY hero. So, I followed suit. I studied marine engineering at Maharashtra Institute of Technology. I am not a huge advocate of engineering institutes in our country except for the IITs because times have moved and our institutes haven’t kept pace with it. Still, training as an engineer comes handy in life – personally and professionally. My training helped me in my filmmaking journey. It was easy for me to pick my first project — Rocket Boys. I wanted to tell stories based on science . It was exciting to bring out the lives of scientists on screen. The challenge was to portray them in such a way so that even non-engineers could understand what they were doing and at the same time look credible to those who understood the subject. Engineering teaches problem solving and probably that makes engineers successful in everything they do!” learning experience. Right from managing finances to forging bonds, my engineering days taught me a lot. Learning 12-13 new subjects in a semester or two helps hone one’s analytical skills. One has to be efficient and also a team player. Thanks to the years of training, an engineer can do things in much less time than a non-engineer would do. Also, paying attention to detail is another aspect that engineers imbibe. These equalities make us stand out in any field that we choose to be in! KRITI SANON Attention to detail Actor Abhishek Sharma narrates his journey, “I pursued my engineering from MM University in Ambala. It was a SONU SOOD R MADHAVAN ‘I am not the TAAPSEE PANNU the Tumbbad actor and producer from Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan said he has realised he is better off being authentic. “I drink masala chai with a lot of milk. They say milk is harmful and masala chai is more harmful... That’s life’s journey... You should know whether you are a cappuccino guy or a masala tea guy. I am not the cappuccino kind of guy,” Shah said. The 41-year-old, who ran a real estate business in Sri Ganganagar till the arclights beckoned, has backed the unconventional Ship of Theseus and Tumbbad and is familiar to OTT viewers for his roles in hit shows such as Maharani and Dahaad. The journey from being the unsure, primarily Hindi speaker trying to establish himself in a city where you were judged by your English skills to who he is cappuccino guy’ Sohum Shah recalls his ‘unique’ Mumbai journey Back when he first came to Mumbai, Sohum Shah wanted to be the guy insouciantly ordering a cappuccino. Two decades later, the actor-producer says he is content being the masala tea loving small towner making films he likes and acting in shows he wants to. The somewhat fancy cappuccino and the humble masala tea capturing his struggles in the frenetic showbiz world of Mumbai, c m y b today has been unique and he would not trade it for anything, Shah said. “I have grown from a zero to a hero… I find my journey beautiful. There are many people who come from outside, many producers also come in. Rich kids say ‘Papa will invest money and I’ll act’ or they come on their own. But they make only one film and go away. In this regard, I like my journey a lot,” the actor said. The pressure to fit in - with people telling him ‘you don’t know anything, even your subordinate is better than you’ — was enormous and took a toll. “I have visited therapists and spoken to them at length for hours. You have sort of absorbed that if you know English you can mingle well… Bombay is a city where everything is vertical, so a certain isolation tends to creep in. But at the same time, Bombay is a meditative city, it helps ABHISHEK SHARMA you evolve.” In the initial years, he would wake up every day with the question — should he leave Bombay? “I remember there used to be a CCD cafe. I didn’t have the courage to even order a cup of coffee for myself because I didn’t know how to say ‘I need a cup of cappuccino.’ I used to feel shy... My bread and butter didn’t come from Bombay. It was only my passion. I used to think my children, my wife and I were suffering because of my passion. I would feel like a king in Ganganagar, here I’m nobody. “A whole decade of my life went away thinking about this question. I was fortunate that I had the support of my wife and friend Adesh Prasad, who cowrote Tumbaad. We work together. He asked me to not leave because of fear.” While money was not an issue, the language barrier was a difficult one to overcome. — PTI