SRINAGAR: Muzamil Hussain Malik, 24, did not mind working as a waiter in Mumbai only to be close to Bollywood. Passionate about acting, he tried everything to get a break. After countless auditions, he returned home without any luck.
Failures, however, did not kill his acting dream. Back home, he started acting in music videos and producing short films and reels. As they say, there was no looking back. Today Muzamil is one of the busiest content creators in Kashmir.
“We had tough luck in Bollywood. We tried hard to get a break but did not succeed. Some people demanded money. Some wanted us to do a stereotype cameo. When all doors were shut, we returned home,” Muzamil told The Kashmir Monitor.
Hailing from Central Kashmir’s Budgam district, Muzamil tried his hand at a hotel management course after passing class 12. Later he went to Mumbai and joined a hotel as a waiter. “Waiter job was for our sustenance. Our aim was Bollywood,” he said.
Soon after returning home, Muzamil along with his brother and cousin started making short videos for TikTok-sister app Vigo. “Luckily we bagged a contract from Vigo. We had to post one-minute videos on the app. They were paying us for our content. It was going on well till Vigo was phased out. We worked for good three-four years for Vigo,” he said.
Back to square one, the team did not lose heart and started afresh. Muzamil started featuring in musical videos mostly of celebrity singer Ishfaq Kawa. “We started acting in music videos and they were an instant hit. People liked our videos. Slowly we start getting work. We also produced short films,” he said.
https://www.youtube.com/@BROTHERSPRODUCTION07/videos
A fan of Ranveer Singh, Muzamil wanted to do something that would give him and his team recognition at the national level. So `Brothers Production’, a YouTube channel was born. In a short time, they had 34.8k subscribers on YouTube. They also decided to extend their footprints on other social media platforms. Their Instagram debut made them instant heroes with two lakh followers cheering for them.
“We got so much love and apperception from our fans. Our short film `Awlad Dag’ was received well by the audience. Our acting was hailed by who is who of the industry. Even the J&K music director based in Mumbai gave us work. We not only edited his videos but also featured in some of them. Overall our acting dream has not died,” he said.
However, the wound of rejection has not healed so far. Muzamil and his team have decided to dedicate their lives to nurturing talent in Kashmir. “We do not want budding actors to face our fate. We have decided to nurture talent. We will be giving chance to budding actors in our short videos so that they too can live their dreams,” he said.
