Hi,

Born to Ishrat and Shahida in a family of Urdu poets and writers, I was ever the peculiar art kid who'd doodle on everything; from walls to workbooks. Incessantly drawing made-up characters inspired by the media I'd consume in the form of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, superhero comics, and kayfabe wrestling, it was at eleven years old that I discovered the use of words for my creative expression. Tethering rhymes to the flight of my imagination, I started off with poems which gave way to short stories and, eventually, hyper-detailed story worlds that would swim in my head through every waking moment. Ironically, as I began studying to become an engineer, I discovered - and instantly fell in love with - cinema. Consuming all kinds of movies from all parts of the world over the next four years, I bloomed into a passionate cinephile and firm believer in the power of the audio-visual medium. I became convinced that this was the highest form of creative expression, and one that I wished to pursue for the rest of my life. After engineering, I enrolled at film school where I learned (and unlearned) the tenets of filmmaking, in addition to other disciplines like photography, culture studies, and performance art. My first job was on the entertainment beat of an English news channel in Mumbai. However, the allure of interacting with celebrities on the regular waned fast as reporting on the seamy goings-on of 'Bollywood' with little creative or editorial control over the work I was doing exasperated me. Soon I switched to a small advertising agency based out of Delhi where I was the Creative Director and singularly responsible for all creative decisions regarding our projects. There I conceived of, planned, and executed numerous ad films and oversaw the digital marketing campaigns for our clients. That was until the lockdown brought the world to a halt.

Returning to my hometown of Lucknow at the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic was a homecoming I never knew I needed. In the enforced downtime, I honed my skills at yet another key element in the audio-visual pipeline: the edit. Over the next few months, learning from YouTube videos and through watching other creators, I acquired the necessary skills to round out my education as an independent filmmaker. I've since been experimenting with writing, shooting, and editing content for my own channels with a focus on film appreciation, besides working on freelance projects that involve everything from storyboarding to scriptwriting to video editing.