BHUBANESWAR: Eleanor Roosevelt, an American political figure, once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” The pain involved in leaving one’s comfort zone to chase one’s dream can bear fruition through hard work and dedication.
This is being proved by two talented youngsters of the state Abhishek Swain and Tanuja Sethi who have made their mark in respective fields. The former is a budding movie director whereas the latter has broken the stereotype of travelling. Orissa Post interacted with them to delve deeper into what made them quit lucrative career options to follow their heart.
For Abhishek, studying B.tech was quite boring as his heart was always set upon film-making. He said, “I grew up in a family where my father and uncle were huge film lovers. I grew up watching a lot of main-stream films. During my early days of engineering, Vikramaditya Motwani’s debut movie ‘Udaan’ had deeply affected my psyche.”
“After watching the film, I realised the power of independent cinema and somehow I felt that I had what it takes to be able to tell stories through visual media. My film-making journey started. It’s been 3 years since the day. After directing a few critically acclaimed projects, I am currently working on my first full length feature film.”
His films based on various social issues include ‘Life Drop’, which has won him many accolades in the Human Rights Short Film Festival held in Bangladesh. The story deals with deaths among children in tribal areas due to consumption of contaminated water. The movie was screened eight times in Bangladesh and was later declared as ‘the best film’ competing among 738 films from 82 countries.
Swain has won the prestigious Sarat Chandra Pujari Memorial award for a silent black and white film ‘Blind’ which is deals with the issue of disability. It also won ‘the best film’ award in (1 minute) category at ‘We Care Film Fest’.
On similar lines, Tanuja Sethi, who’s now an entrepreneur, sells her hand-painted products under the brand ‘Shop with Tanuja’. She quit her corporate job in 2013 to pursue her passion in art and later found travelling to be her new interest. She said, “I always dreamed of exploring places and view nature closely. With the earlier constraints of a cubicle job, it was becoming quite difficult to follow my passion.”
“Finding like-minded companions to travel was a huge trouble too. It took me some time to realise that you need not wait for anyone to travel or pursue any of your dreams. So I finally quit my job. Through my savings, I made my first solo trip to Pondicherry and it was a fantastic experience. After that there was no looking back. I made numerous trips to various parts of India.”
Nowadays she is a celebrated travel blog writer. She puts her own travel stories on tanujasethi.blogspot.com. In this way, she helps youngsters and new travellers to overcome fear and travel smart without being confused. She said, “I would surely advice youngsters to explore new places.”
Chatali Shome, OP
