Executive Dossier

Acting is the assembly of experiences from various sources : Farooq Shaikh

Published

25 years ago

May 29, 2001

Farooq Shaikh made his debut as an actor some 32 years ago in the MS Sathyu-directed classic Garam Hawa. Soon to follow was an immensely successful romantic film, Noorie. Although the following years saw him achieve moderate success in a number of offbeat films, real stardom remained elusive. Not that he chased after it. One can never forget his wonderfully inspired performance in the hit comedy Chashme Baddoor, which was to pave the way for his later roles in sitcoms on television.

Some 12 years after he was first seen on TV, Farooq has created a niche for himself in this medium, albeit more as a comedian. For someone whose foray into cinema was not a planned move, Farooq has indeed come a long way. The mantriji (minister) of Star Plus’ new political satire Ji Mantriji (Yes Minister) took time off from his hectic schedule to speak to our correspondent, Amar.

What brought you to acting?
Well, it began with amateurish stage performances in school and college. While in college I was associated with the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) where MS Sathyu was a senior director. While casting for his film – Garam Hawa – he offered me a role which I readily accepted and that’s how my acting career started. But, to be frank I did not actually intend to be a professional actor. In fact, I am a qualified lawyer.

Farooq Shaikh with Varsha Usgaonkar in Alvida Darling, a Metro Film-produced serial which used to air on Zee TV.

Do you follow any genre of acting? Would you call yourself a method actor or do you go by your instincts?
See, from whatever little I have read and known about acting, there cannot be a fixed formula in it. Nobody can justify a particular method and call all other methods useless. For me, acting is the assembly of various sources – my memory of past experiences, my instincts, the feed I get from my co-actors, the script and the instructions of my director. I agree that when the method school of acting first gained prominence it aroused a lot of interest. It was as if an intangible thing had suddenly become tangible or come into existence. But for me acting does not involve any hard and fast rule.

As against your innings in movies, on TV you seem to have been typecast in comedy roles. How do you choose your roles?
People forget that I started my career on TV with a serious role in Shrikaanth which was Sarat Chandra’s autobiographical novel. Even after that I did a serious drama – Aakhri Daao – with Deepti Naval. I have never been conscious of the type of role I’m doing or whether it is comedy or drama. My only criterion for taking up a role is my gut feel on whether I’m going to enjoy doing a role or not. I have also never craved for a particular role.

“Minister” Farooq Shaikh confronts “bureacrat” Jayant Kriplani in Ji Mantriji, the new serial airing on Star Plus.

Many actors are of the opinion that comedy is the most difficult part of acting. Do you agree?
It is not the most difficult, but yes, it requires a slightly better sense of timing. Performing a comedy scene is like narrating a joke. The joke may be wonderful but if it is not narrated with the right flair, the right expressions, the right timing, it will fall flat.

How do you work on your sense of timing?
One can’t specifically work on it on his own. Your timing by and large depends on the feed you get from your co-artistes. The only way you can possibly improve on it is by striking a chordant note with your CO-artistes and rehearsing with them a lot more than you normally do.

Have you encountered a problem wherein your co-actor is very poor at comedy?
It does happen that some actors have a problem with comedy. At times, the problem is with the language and on other occasions it is with the content. As a co-actor I try to be as patient and supportive as possible. But cinema is a medium where these problems are more often than not eventually taken care of by deft editing.

The “mantri” tries to get one over the “bureacrat”.

How did you prepare for your role in Ji Mantriji?
See, as a moderately educated city dweller, who is aware of the political situation in the country I didn’t need any special preparation to enact a role like that. I think all of us more or less have a perception about our politicians. Moreover, I read a lot of magazines and newspapers and keep a tab on current political issues. Beyond that, no research has gone into the role. Neither has it been modeled on any particular politician.

What are the natural instincts required to be a successful comedian?
Some kind of inherent flair and liking for comedy, the sensitivity to imbibe the funnier and the more humorous influences from the atmosphere, a good sense of humour, the ability and the habit of playing with words and phrases.

Do you adhere to a given script or do you go beyond it?
Effective comedy is not possible without improvisation. I or rather we improvise as much as possible within the broad ambit of the script and the instructions of the director.

Many of the greatest comedians have been scriptwriters and producers of their own work. Wouldn’t you want to be one?
No, no. I just don’t have the temperament to write. And being a producer involves too much of a headache. Acting is more enjoyable.

Hasn’t TV comedy veered more towards the slapstick in recent times?
It has, no doubt. And that’s because economics is the overriding concern nowadays. I believe, in the perception of the channels, slapstick is less unsafe because it tends to evoke an immediate reaction. But with Ji Mantriji, we’ve tried something different. We’ve gone for subtle humour. We’ve pitched it at a less than ‘loud’ level and if this succeeds, it should set a new trend.

For someone who has done movies most of his career, don’t you find TV taxing?
No doubt, TV involves much more hard work. We can some 23 minutes of an episode, which is about one sixth or one eighth of a movie in one and half days. If we shoot a movie at this rate, movies will get completed in twelve days. But again, the economics of the medium cannot be managed otherwise. The only solution lies in being selective about your work and enjoying whatever you do.

Who are your favorite actors?
Frankly, I have no favourites. Whoever has done well at a given point of time and has enjoyed doing that piece of work has impressed me. Invariably I have found that no actor or director can be an absolute perfectionist. Actors who have been exceptional in one role have looked quite ordinary in another. So I cannot think of any name or names I can count as my favourites

What is your advice to aspiring comedians?
(Laughs). They should have a better sense of the language. Without this one

Related Topics:Farooq Shaikh Garam Hawa Jayant Kriplani Ji Mantriji Zee TV

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Executive Dossier

Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star

New reality show puts Rs 1 crore prize and global spotlight on India’s gaming talent.

Published

5 months ago

January 27, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.

Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.

Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.

Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.

Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.

With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.

Digital

SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform

Alon Waks and Amit Sharma join as SpotDraft accelerates growth across key markets

Published

6 months ago

December 3, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.

The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.

Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.

Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.

Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.

Executive Dossier

Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention

AI, dwell time and real-world vision are rewriting the rules of what outdoor ads can do.

Published

7 months ago

November 28, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.

In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.

On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8.

Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability.

On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns.

LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives.

About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes.

Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement.

• Automotive | Renault Triber

For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.

• FMCG | Namaste India

In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift.

• Real Estate

For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.

On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.

As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.

On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium.

LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception.

On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.

OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence.

About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors.

LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:

• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.

• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.

• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.

• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.

These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable.

On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact.

Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.