All glory is fleeting. And, If you do not love what you do, don't do it.
How Hungama became the top children's channel in India is interesting because we were up against, not just Disney, but also Time Warner's Cartoon Network. It was an illustration of the fact that for any company that wants to grow in emerging markets, localizing content is the key.
Most of us don't look at investment in a win-win situation. You have to give in a little bit; you have to take a little bit. Most feel everything has to be rinsed out for closing of the transaction.
When something becomes a business, 50% of your decisions are what you have to do and not what you want to do.
People think that cartoons are meant to be watched on television and not in cinemas. To get people into cinemas to see animation really boils down to storytelling for the family.
The consumer has paid a ticket price to watch a movie and he/she is being subjected to a massive 15 minutes or more of advertising thereby driving him/her away from coming to the theatre. This has to stop.
Theatre has been a sort of hobby. I regret that I am not active, but given my job that is difficult. But those were learning days. The learning curve was the level of confidence, maturity, and reflexes that theatre teaches you is fantastic. You are alone in front of an audience for two hours and that gives you a different kind of confidence.
When one was looking at getting out of media, I took a fair amount of time to figure out what I want to do for the next 20 years… the one thing I am very passionate about is entrepreneurship in this country.
My parents used to play cards on Saturday… all the friends would come across. So it was like one massive Parsee gathering… and the value system kind of creeps in.
My thought process was: We had decided to become a B2C company and build the UTV brand and we couldn't be that as a TV producer or ad film-maker or doing in-flight programmes.
When we started our foundation, I was less than 30 years old. We pledged that 10 per cent of our profits, whatever the amount, would be used for a social cause, and that we would be actively involved in that cause.
The film business is just one of our verticals. We have wanted for some time to make inroads into the English language market, because I think that over time such films can cross over into the international market.
For an emerging market that hopes to be the third largest economy in the world, you cannot do it without being innovative and disruptive. There is no choice in the matter.
Somebody needs to position you and introduce you, but after that, most of the bankers get represented with their large clients; mostly investors are their long-term clients and an investee is a short term client.
The online education space, especially in higher education, is ripe for disruption.
UTV's uniqueness is that it is an integrated media company.