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Kanan Srivastava and Neeraj Ganvir

From struggling in audition lines and hearing "Not Fit" at the door and working odd jobs for 6 years to creating their own web show - Kalamanch which will soon be on an OTT platform.

Actor, Producer and writer duo Kanan Srivastava and Neeraj Ganvir came up with their new web-series titled Kalamanch adapted from the book Kalamanch authored by them. The show stars actors like Priya Chauhan, Sahil Arora, Rose Sardana, Siffat Gandhi, Sonal Shankar Sagore, Amit Poddar along Kanan Srivastava and Neeraj Ganvir. The trailer of the series has been launched in Mumbai.

The duo Kanan and Neeraj gets candid about the arduous and bumpy yet amusing process of the curation of their upcoming series.

Sharing about the process of transfiguring the book into web series Kanan says, "Initially, we wrote this concept as a book with rigorous discussions on each and every character and the story line. The characters were popping in front of us to bring them to life. Thus, it gave us impetus to develop screenplay and shape this idea from book to a web series. Once this was done we started creating our characters by giving them layering and creating a whole life for them in real. This whole process almost took us a year."

Narrating his character and what prompted him to pen the book Kanan states, "Well, it was an exciting experience for me to personate the role of Anant. My personality is poles apart from his. He is a shy, self conscious guy from Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh) having a respectful attitude towards everyone which stands him out. This character is very unique which required a lot of work, I have to keep my posture hunched back, movements really closed ,small and work on a specific dialect from Uttar Pradesh.

Talking about the inspiration behind writing this book he shares, "This book is to motivate and inspire actor's to trust in their craft without the fear of failure and uncertain future. Acting or any other creative art is often looked at as a hobby rather than a profession. The unfortunate truth is that too many new actors and artists lose the inner battle. They allow their thoughts of doubt to stifle their art and their development of skill. Over time, they simply give up. But if we know that struggling is part of creating art, we can cope with it when it comes. And instead of giving up, we face the battle and may even find enjoyment in it.

We both had this inner urge to do something for the community of actors and to make an impact in our society and we wanted to manifest it through the medium of art."

Neeraj Ganvir talks about the challenges of making the series. He says, "To bring this to fruition was not less than climbing a mountain. We did not have any backing and connections from the film industry so we were starting from the scratch. We had to talk with numerous people of different departments of filmmaking like Directors, DOP's, Executive Producers, Line Producers etc. We spent a lot of time hosting meetings with them. Kanan used to personally meet them since he was here in India and then we used to meet on zoom since I was in New York. We had to find people who matched our frequency. Once we got everyone on board we indulged in the process and rest started falling into place. It was difficult yet a wonderful experience for both of us."

Talking about playing a homosexual character Neeraj reveals,"I am glad that I got to play Azim because it was something I have never attempted to do before. Playing a role of a member of LGBTQ community was a privilege. There is always a thin line for playing such roles. I did not want to play stereotypical homosexual personality that people usually see on screen. I wanted to layer the character with some substance and ground work. I wanted to make him a mystery. I spent time with many of my friends who belong to LGBTQ community to get a good understanding and came up with my background for Azim. Had some behavioral traits incorporated for his physicality. Overall it was an amazing experience bringing the character to life."

He lastly adds about the message the film conveys stating,"People are going to understand the inner battles being fought by them and would connect and empathize with their emotions. They would understand that education is imperative for an actor or any artist."