Ashish Vidyarthi talks about how GoPro and he discovered each other during one of the phases of the pandemic and how they embarked on a journey of telling stories together. It made him look at people more closely, and the stories started happening. Today, the National Award winning actor has 1.93 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, Actor Ashish Vidyarthi Vlogs and 1.5 million followers on his Instagram handle.
Ashish was in Kerala as part of Raining Smiles, his ‘project’ following the monsoon and spreading smiles or rather laughs as he performs stand-up comedy across the length and breadth of the country. As part of it, he will perform impromptu gigs in cafes and restaurants. He started at Kanyakumari, before moving to Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Kochi. As a stand-up comic, he has performed Sit Down Ashish across the country, the most recent being at the Habitat, Mumbai and Black Cat, Kolkata.
While Sit Down Ashish is, as he calls, ‘the formal thing’, Raining Smiles is informal, unrehearsed and organic. As part of it, “I will come to a place where performances are not usually held. I will meet people and perform as well.”
He is exactly like how he is on his vlogs — warm and friendly. There is an unhurried air about him, as he settles down for a conversation. His wife, Rupali has been travelling with him.
The actor who won the National Award for the Best Supporting actor for his role in Drohkaal, handles mainstream and arthouse films with equal ease. The Malayali audience last saw him in a cameo in Aavesham. That balancing his multiple roles is not hard for him is evident from how he speaks about them. He enjoys crisscrossing the country, constant travel… “I go to bed completely tired, I like to go to bed tired rather than bored. And I am not bored!”
Ashish Vidyarthi | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
His vlogs, posted on IG and YouTube, cover food too. Before the food content, he posted interviews with little-known but extraordinary people.
Of how he got into creating content, he says, “It was an interesting period of my life when I was going through stuff. It is said that the more you keep looking at yourself, the more you get depressed. Things don’t go according to plan and this [vlogging] too was not planned.” At the time, he confessed, he did not know much about vlogging though he had been blogging.
Vlogging helped him deal with the difficult times, “it was therapeutic,” he adds.
The food stories which have him explore little-known food places with locals are especially popular. He remembers his first food Reel, one of him eating vada pav in Mumbai shot by a colleague. He is candid about the numbers initially on YouTube and IG — “I had zero subscribers on YouTube and around 20,000 on IG.” The current figures speak volumes about his popularity as a vlogger/content creator.
This ‘new’ role is not by, what he calls, ‘purposeful design’. “I am combining my two loves — travelling and eating. I am expressing myself in ways beyond what I am expected to as an actor.”
In another avatar he is a motivational speaker, he has been one for the past 13 years for which he travels regularly. “That was my first new avatar…the vlogging part is new. And stand-up comic is the newest. For me, it is an extension of who I am. The material comes from my life, I can laugh at myself… which is again therapeutic,” says the 58 year old. Ashish another YouTube channel, Fifty Plus Zindagi and a podcast, the Ashish Vidyarthi Podcast.
The films are happening alongside, but he picks and chooses them. With 350-odd films in 11 languages, he has earned that privilege as an actor. “So, I’m looking for those amazing roles and when I say amazing I mean one that is central to the film. As an actor, it is interesting to wait for things to happen.”
His packed schedule begs the question about how he makes the time for everything?
“I have time for everything because I wake up very early. On the days I have a shoot, I record my vlogs before and after it!”
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