While in college, most of us pursue a lot of things that we are passionate about. After we graduate, many of those interests decline due to paucity of time. But there are some quirky ones among us, who decide to take the roads less travelled, and chase those very passions. With her blog series, Aditi Olemann, explores her love for writing and brings us life stories of some of our alumni who went on to explore their passion in life, after engineering. Aditi Olemann received her BTech in Electronics and Communications Engineering in 2013 from IIT Guwahati and is currently working as Partner, Corporate Strategy and Innovation in the Swiss Multinational company, Roche. Through this blog series, she hopes to get inspired and inspire many of us to chase our unfulfilled dreams. She also hopes to convince young students still in college, that you can be whatever you want to be.
“Hey Nishit. Can we get you on a plane to Chennai? We want to work with you on an Amazon Prime web series we are creating with AR Rahman!”
As he sat on the flight to Chennai, Nishit’s heart was racing. When he set out on this journey a few years back, he imagined a lot of plane rides, but never one leading to this. “Rahman, I am coming,” he smiled to himself as he sat back and let his life flash back in his mind.
CHAPTER 1: Born to run
If Nishit’s life ever had a pivot, a constant, a (0,0,0,0) — it would be his love for travel. He was born with wanderlust. A young kid growing up in Jaipur, Nishit took whatever opportunity he got to run off to beautiful places around his home. When he landed up in IIT Guwahati in 2009 as a biotech student, he saved his pocket money to explore hills and mountains of the North East and even places beyond.
A lot of us pursue our passions in college. Some of us take up acting, others join a rock band, and many of us go traveling. However, once the big bad wolf of worklife consumes us, we hit the brakes. But Nishit didn’t. Even after he joined Sokrati — a digital marketing firm, Nishit didn’t stop travelling. He followed his instincts and took off whenever he got the chance. Do not get me wrong — Nishit did not travel to escape from his job. In fact, he loved digital marketing and grew phenomenally fast, so much so that his firm offered him a promotion within a few months of joining. Flipkart became the next port of call since they loved his work and wanted him to join their team. While he smoothly sailed from one role to another, honing his marketing skills, he kept exploring every nook and cranny of Incredible India.
“Nishit, let’s fly some drones,” Rahman’s voice jolted him out of his thoughts. The legend was standing right in front of him, smiling. The enormity of it all was settling in with the setting sun in Lonavala. He was the aerial cinematographer for the Amazon Prime webseries, ‘ Harmony with AR Rahman,’ a show that would go on to become one of the best shot travel and music originals on Amazon. While Nishit’s heart was a drone up in the air with excitement, his mind was firmly on ground, working closely with and learning immensely from one of India’s most talented crew.
CHAPTER 2: Where the streets have no name
Nishit wasn’t always a filmmaker. He tried to recall at what point he had transitioned from a traveller to a travel filmmaker. He couldn’t pinpoint a time but he realized it happened over a year. He could remember the day he decided to start capturing his travels. It was during one of his trips to the mountains, while looking at a breathtaking sunrise, Nishit had this strong urge to arrest this moment — share it with travel geeks, and nature buffs, people like him — people born with wanderlust. Thus began his journey with a GoPro and his blog — The Hopping Bug.
For a long time, Nishit would not buy bulky expensive camera equipment since he felt he would be weighed down as a traveller. He would mostly travel alone, but make friends on the way. Some of these new found friends would help in his shooting. Nishit would take his viewer on a journey with him, discovering the places he visited — sometimes walking through little paths that take you to quaint coffee shops tucked away on hilltops or by dancing rivers. His trip to Ladakh, although one of the early ones shot on GoPro, actually landed him the Rahman stint since they loved the way he shot it. From the GoPro days to this day when he owns 8 professional cameras, Nishit had travelled a long way — both literally and figuratively.
CHAPTER 3: Love what you do what you love
Although Nishit loved the appreciation pouring in for his work, he never really had dreams of becoming a Youtube celebrity. He was a traveler and filmmaker who wanted to create beautiful and meaningful content for people who loved nature and travel. This realisation kept him grounded. He could have easily made a couple of videos every day to garner more followers the way most Youtube vloggers do today. He could have hankered after virality. But he didn’t, because for him quality always trumped quantity.
For a typical 10 minute video you would watch on his channel, Nishit would easily have worked through 50 hours of footage — all by himself. He would have woken up at 4 am for that perfect sunrise shot, having gone to bed the earlier night at 1 am after going through his recordings of the day. All of this, while having a full time job. How could he manage all of this? It wasn’t always easy. It still isn’t.
CHAPTER 4: Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
Because of his knack for digital marketing, Nishit got several opportunities to work with great companies. Although he loved the work in these firms, he struggled to balance his travels with his work. But he didn’t give up. They say fortune favors the brave, and fittingly Nishit landed up with an opportunity with a UK based company that gave him the flexibility to work remotely. Ever since, travel and work blended seamlessly in life. Things were going good.Where was the catch, you may wonder? Even though Nishit was travelling around meeting new people, it was often difficult to sustain the friendships back home. Since he was hardly around, he couldn’t be fair to a relationship either. “Following your passion isn’t as easy as it seems to be on camera,” he thought out loud.
Nevertheless, he was earning well, and travelling and filming to his heart’s content. Nishit’s followers were growing rapidly but he was still spending a significant amount of money from his pocket to sustain his travel and his blog. This was going to change after he got a call that opened his world to new opportunities he never realised existed. This was a year before the Rahman call.
A company called Tripver had approached Nishit. They loved his blog and wanted to sponsor his next trip. Nishit was excited — he never considered he could be paid for doing what he loves. Thus began the journey of association with multiple brands.
CHAPTER 5: It’s an Epidemic!
Once the sponsorship option opened up, Nishit started reaching out to potential sponsors through email and social media. Eventually, companies began approaching him to partner. During all of this, Nishit remained committed to his goal — he was travelling to showcase the places he visited. The brands were only associated as sponsors or partners. Unless he truly believed in a brand, he would never be a sell out by publicizing it. This strong work ethic along with his passion for quality made him grab the attention of global brands.
Then came a defining moment for Nishit’s travel filmmaking career. The music platform,Epidemic Sound, approached him. Nishit had been extensively using their platform for buying music for his blog videos. He had often spent long nights on their website listening to hundreds of songs to select one for each video he made. The company wanted him as a brand ambassador for India, give him access to all their music for free AND pay him for associating with the brand. From paying for music to getting paid for using their music, it was beginning to seem that Nishit had arrived.
As the crew started wrapping up after the final shoot of Harmony, Nishit took a deep breath, taking in every bit of the dream experience. What was the biggest lesson? “When you have a team waiting, you cannot wait for your creativity or inspiration to come to you. If it is your day job to be creative, you have to be creative on demand! Often there are no retakes, one chance is all you get.” he recalled. Another great learning was understanding how a team of artists worked towards a common creative goal. As a travel filmmaker, Nishit was a one man army. This experience of working with a creative team, therefore, gave him a different vantage point.
CHAPTER 6: Where do we go now?
After the Rahman shoot was over, even before he hit home, Nishit’s mind was buzzing about his next video.
He has big plans for the future. For one, his new year resolution is to miss no flight this year (he had missed 13 of them last year). Until now he has missed only 3, which isn’t bad at all considering The Hopping Bug has already taken 50 flights this year. In the next few months, he plans to go international. He is eyeing Spain. What eventually? He wants to keep making great content not just for India, but for the world. He wants to be associated with global brands and great people who truly value quality content and an eye for detail. He wants to follow in the footsteps of his inspirations, renowned international filmmakers — Peter McKinnon and Casey Neistat.
Above all, he wants to travel.
