{"id":224847,"date":"2014-09-05T14:16:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T08:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=224847"},"modified":"2014-09-05T14:16:08","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T08:46:08","slug":"interview-nidhi-bisht-theatre-tvf-qtiyapa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/interview-nidhi-bisht-theatre-tvf-qtiyapa\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We Never Have Enough Funds. So We Look For Work Outside Theatre\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nidhi-Bisht\"Was your shift from law to theatre gradual or sudden?<\/strong>
\nBollywood played a significant part in my growing up so much so that after my 12th, I wanted to study English and work with a theatre company alongside. Wishing a secure career for me, my parents didn\u2019t allow this to happen. So, I read law at Jamia Millia Islamia and practiced for little more than a year at Delhi High Court before taking up law full time. Since my Dad wanted me to become a doctor, like an adarshwaadi<\/em> Indian beti<\/em>, I had planned to do PhD someday, just for him!
\nTell us about New Brain Theater Volks.<\/strong>
\nApart from being a long-nurtured dream of having a theatre company of our own, New Brain Theater Volks<\/em><\/a> was also started to make theatre a sustainable business model. Actors enjoy doing theatre and it is our medium. But unfortunately, we never have enough funds and so, we look for work outside theater, primarily for money. So far we haven\u2019t succeeded on the sustainable front but we\u2019re working towards it. If not rehearsing for a play, we catch up over chai and Parle-G, and when we have money we eat vada pao<\/em> also!
\nHow did you collaborate with TVF?<\/strong>
\nArunabh (CEO, founder TVF) was the first person I met on reaching Mumbai. This was before Qtiyapa<\/em> bombed the Internet. We met; he called me for a couple of projects and introduced me to the team. And eventually, I joined them as one of the creators.
\nOther than the humour quotient, what is the objective of the content you generate?<\/strong>
\nI think we are recording popular facts from our times for the generations to come.
\nAny road-blocks along the way?
\n<\/b>Acceptance was our biggest challenge. The general perception not very long ago was that we are a bunch of boys who make YouTube videos for fun. My parents still find it hard to believe that I do this full-time. I see all of it as typical clich\u00e9s for our biopic!
\nDo you see yourselves \u00a0as social media vigilantes?
\n<\/strong>That’s a very boring title. I think we see ourselves as our reflection in the mirror! On a serious note, we make content that interests us. We are all storytellers and to have ‘humour’ as a genre is a conscious choice.
\n<\/strong>
\nWhat binds the group together?<\/strong>
\nIndividuals here are from Bettiah, Varanasi, Rourkela, Khairthal, Muzaffarpur, Indore, Falna, Chattarpur. We are all from middle-class families with similar childhood stories and references. To illustrate a little about our backgrounds, the recent video\u00a0Tech Conversations with my Dad<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is based on an actual chat between Biswapati Sarkar and his Dad. I\u2019ll sum up by saying that we all are quintessential\u00a0bakchods<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A trained actor from Barry John\u2019s Imago academy, Nidhi Bisht has been involved with theater since her early days. She writes and directs plays for her own theater company called New Brain Theater Volks. Her association and work with major Youtube channel and social media sensation, The Viral Fever has made her a recognized face among netizens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":224849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[7766,7995,7996,7997,7998,5728,604,7999,8000,8001,8002,8003],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224847"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}