AMIT KHANNA is perhaps the only media professional who has worked across every segment in the field: print, radio, television, films, stage, live entertainment and digital media. He started his film career as an executive producer, writer and lyricist with actor-filmmaker Dev Anand's Navketan Films in 1970. He has written the lyrics of 250 film and non-film songs. In the 1980s, he wrote, directed and produced many critically acclaimed feature films, documentaries, commercials and TV programmes. In 1989, he set up Plus Channel, India's first integrated media and entertainment company.
He was the founder chairman of Reliance Entertainment from 2000 to 2015. He has headed media and entertainment committees of FICCI and CII; been a member of the Prime Minister's Committee on Information, Communication and Entertainment; and was the Founder-Trustee of the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image and the Mumbai Film Festival. He was the first Indian to serve on the international Emmys jury, and has also been on the juries of film festivals and awards in India and abroad.
Amit divides his time between Delhi, Mumbai and Mashobra (Shimla), writing and mentoring and advising young people. His anthology of Hindi poetry, Anant Raag (Infinite Verse), was published in 2013.
AFTER SPENDING OVER FORTY-FIVE years in media and entertainment, actively working in all sectors at the top, I decided it was time to quit working for profit. However, having spent a lifetime pursuing not only a passion but being involved with various arts and crafts of different media, I wanted to do some academic work on the subject I knew well. One of the first thoughts which came to my mind was to write a book. After bouncing various ideas and discussing them with some friends, whose opinion I value, I zeroed in on doing this volume.
I had two choices. Either I could do a comprehensive book on Indian cinema, a field where I have spent maximum time, or do an overview of the evolution of different segments of creative and performing arts. I chose the latter. Again, the choice was between writing longish essays on different media or taking a much broader perspective. Finally, the book is a bit like an encyclopaedia, where some portions are described in detail. It's a big fat book, but I have written it in a manner that you can read the whole book or just read about media and art forms which interest you, or about specific periods in history.
When one writes about so many different yet allied subjects which involve hundreds of much-loved and admired people, one is bound to miss out many truly talented achievers. For such omissions, some deliberate, but more on account of space constraints, I can only apologize. I have tried to be objective and give the reader a kind of a bird's eye view with an occasional deep dive. Sometimes if it reads like a book of lists, I crave your indulgence. A research team helped me for three years to gather material from various sources, which I then distilled and interpreted. Most of the facts are culled out from different sources, not any one source, hence not attributed. Besides, a large part is based on personal knowledge of people and events since the 1960s.
I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in every media form and discipline in the past five decades. My first poem was published when I was fourteen. I wrote my first play a year later, I got involved with stage, radio and journalism by my sixteenth birthday. I was editing a magazine when I turned eighteen. Soon I did my first TV programme, wrote advertising copy, film reviews and more. I was an active member of Delhi's cultural scene. All this gave me a chance to observe and acquaint myself with leading artistes, musicians, painters, dancers, journalists and many other creative professionals. Some of those relationships have endured for five decades.
A serendipitous meeting with a matinee idol opened the doors of cinema for me. While still in college, I was working with the star's production company Navketan. And on completing college, I went off to Bombay and again was lucky that in a couple of years I was heading the company. Meanwhile, I pursued my writing both on cinema and in cinema. Soon I turned a lyricist and script writer, even as I learnt the ropes of film making those were heady times as I came in contact with the giants of showbiz and creative fraternity. I worked with several top film-makers, artistes and technicians. I turned a producer in 1975 and was soon an active member and office bearer of the Producers' Guild and other industry bodies.
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