 Welcome to the Pride of India show. Our guest today is Meghna Ghaipuri, President of Whistling Woods International. Meghna could have easily followed her filmmaker father Subhash Ghai's food steps, but she chose to teach a different path. She helps youngsters to take your step into the world of filmmaking, acting, fashion, media, and many more things. Welcome to the show Meghna. Thank you. Thank you so much. Meghna, please take us through the initial journey of Whistling Woods. Yes, thank you so much, Kanchan, for this introduction and thank you, Exchange for Media, for having me on this platform. I am actually truly humbled and blessed to be here today because it, like you said earlier, that it was a choice that I made. It actually wasn't. It was something that my father dreamed of, and he dreamed of this many years ago when he was struggling as an actor. When he came to Mumbai after finishing his own acting education and realized that there was no opportunities for somebody who didn't have connections in the industry. And it was a promise he made to himself back then, you know, over five decades ago that he would, if whenever he finds success in life and when he has enough money, he will give back by actually creating a platform where youngsters who are talented come together and help each other find a way in the industry. So it started really from that thought. And over the years, of course, you know, he continued to make films and he continued to produce, direct, write and became one of the finest filmmakers in the country. And, you know, but he didn't forget the promise he made to himself. And so it was around the time that he had made that he decided to launch an IPO for the company, which is Mukta Arts, and, you know, told the shareholders upfront that I would like to dedicate or take some of these funds and put it towards the film institute. And I think that that was really the start of my own journey, because I was in the UK studying there and then working for some time. When my father said that you remember, he always talked to you about, you know, that I want to build a film school. And I used to say, yes, yeah, I don't remember you're doing, you know, you're talking about it a lot. But I didn't think it would be a reality because he's such a filmmaker at heart that you can't take him away from filmmaking and the creative process for very long. And he said, that's why I want you to come back and I want you to really look into the operations, look into the, you know, the entire institute. So, you know, to be honest, I wasn't even sure back then. I was very young and I didn't know if I could add any value. But I knew how much it meant to my father. I knew how much the industry meant to him, how much this country means to him. I know how much giving back to youngsters means to him, which is why I thought, okay, you know what, I must, I must do this as, as my, you know, kind of way of paying by gratitude to my, to my parents. And so I came back and and that's how the journey of this thing was started. It was a long journey before we could even get to the, you know, to the building that you see as today the campus. And but it was, I must say that was something that has really added so much fulfillment in my own life because I got to, I got to learn so many things at such a young age, you know, whether it was from architecture to landscaping to, you know, to technology to legal things and business and marketing and business development, I think all sorts of things, you know, you get to do when you're part of a startup. And a startup such as this, which is so unique. So yeah, so that is, that is what my journey really has been with. So nice to know that we are fulfilling your father's dream and how nicely you are doing it. Thank you. What were your major challenges in the beginning? As you said, you were not sure you were very young, right? What challenges you face in the beginning? So one of the biggest challenges was there was no institute like that in India, you know, the one that we had planned, of course, there was FTI, there was SRFTI, they were government run institutions, and they were very reputed. But what we wanted to do was very different. We wanted to really be an institute which was for the industry by the industry in the industry, you know, and really catering to the industry needs and to make it really, really practical, the course. So in fact, you know, when we researched and we went to various institutes abroad as well, we found that there were no institutes who were really being able to fill that gap between the industry and students, very few, you know, some in LA, a couple in New York, but generally institutes or film institutes or art institutes tend to be secluded from the real world. Yeah, there were very few that had actually connected with some companies and were making sure that the students were learning on while they were studying or doing jobs and training while they are studying. So we wanted that right balance in our institute, you know, my father being a commercial filmmaker understood that he, you know, he and the struggles that he went through as a filmmaker to really, you know, be able to sustain himself and the family and the company, that he understood the importance of business and commercials in a filmmaking process or a creative process, as well as he understood the artistic side of it. So the whole pedagogy of the institute was to bring together, you know, these three main streams, which is art technology and business. And I think that the biggest challenge at that point was to find faculty. How would you find the faculty that would actually understand this vision, understand how to execute this vision, plus in our industry, because there were no other institutes, many institutes, you know, the two institutes had brought up very few people who were already working in the industry. They were not teachers, they were not trained teachers. So the journey and the challenge was to bring the right team together, because we could have built and we did end up building this beautiful campus, but it would be nothing if we didn't have good teachers with us. And I think that is where my challenge was. And that is where actually, I think my biggest achievement, if I don't say it myself, has been that, you know, I was able to create really beautiful bonds with people, you know, the one to one connection that I had with each person who contributed to this thing was whether it was through curriculum, whether it was through teaching, whether you know, so I think, and that continues today, those bonds are really strong even today. And I think that has made me a, you know, a richer person. So like they say challenges are the ones that actually make you stronger. So I definitely feel that was the first challenge that we face to find good faculty. There were of course financial challenges, we were not a government funded institute, we were not funded by anything, you know, our parent company was supporting us. So we needed to get back on our feet very, very fast. We had already spent a lot on the campus and technology on the campus, but finding students at that point way back in 2006 for the challenge. So we built this huge campus for 1200 students, and our first batch was 75 students. So you can imagine and that continued for many years, for five to seven years, we were like very, very short of students, because at that point, to children or parents did not believe that, you know, you needed to get educated in the creative arts to make it in the film industry or the media industry. So it was first of all, you know, educating them that, you know, it is really, really important for them to understand the craft, for them to understand the skills, you know, half their journey will be, or their foundation will be so solid that, you know, they'll be able to complete their journey with more success, and chances of success if they are educated. So yeah, so these kind of challenges in terms of students, quality students, faculty, quality faculty, we brought in a lot of people from out of India to kind of, you know, work with us for some time. And then we started, of course, ourselves, becoming more and more efficient with the way we wanted to run the school. This year, you managed to fill the entire 1200 seats. That was, I think, later 2015. How has the film media and fashion training evolved over the last 15 years since you were handling this institute? You know, so this industry, like many people find it, you know, the glamour industry and they find that, you know, this industry looks like so much fun, right? But it is actually a lot of, you know, a lot of work, a lot of hard work, a lot of persistence, because it's a very dynamic industry. As creative people emerge, audiences also emerge and change and, and, you know, form their own opinions. So the industry has to continuously keep changing, whether it's storytelling, whether it's the way you tell stories, whether how you're performing for a film, you know, and we've ourselves seen how the content in our country has changed so much over the past 20, 30 years, right? So I feel like that, I think that aspect of something that we really need to understand about this industry, that is, it's an extremely dynamic industry, right? So things keep changing and we have to understand that fashion, film, creative arts, media, entertainment, these are areas that we are dealing with. So our responsibility as an institute is to always be ahead of the times, always be thinking, what is it going to be 10 years from now? You know, so this thing was already about four years ago mentioned into VR filmmaking, right? Which was not even being talked about otherwise in India or even in the world, it was something that they were experimenting with, but we got into it very quickly and we started training our students in it. So I think that the industry is always changing. What are the changes is a very difficult question because there are so many, but what we must understand is that we must keep changing with the changing times, whether you're a creator, whether you're an education institute, whether you're a student, we need to all keep that in mind. Let's go with made it tough to function. Yes, absolutely. I mean, it has been a difficult time for everybody. And I think queued us to our faculty and our academic team who really shifted from gear from, you know, suddenly going online. And I think we did a really good job of bringing everything online, taking the curriculum online and something like our course, which is so practical, you know, our fashion students in fact, completed their complete fashion line at the end of two years and presented beautiful garments and all of that was done remotely. So I feel like, you know, the challenges of the pandemic also taught us how to work in chaos. I think these students are really fortunate to be honest, because tomorrow there will be many other challenges in their lives, but they would have gone through this 2020-21 phase and they would have known how to deal with those challenges much better than if they hadn't gone through it. Having said that, we are extremely glad, very, very happy to have our students back on campus, to have our classes resume, because I think that personal, you know, especially in a course like that, especially the way we've run Bistling Woods is all about one-on-one mentorship. It's all about taking care of each student as an individual. And I think that only works when you're actually be able to talk to them in person and be with them and see their work in person. So now the pandemic has declined. Do you have any plans for expansion? So, you know, expansion is something that everybody keeps asking me about, but I feel like Bistling Woods' main goal has always been quality. You know, so the idea is to always work towards quality. And I feel like if you spread yourself too thin, you may lose out on that quality. Like I said earlier, the industry, you know, needs people here in Mumbai. The faculty is here in Mumbai. So, you know, we are working on new programs. For example, last year we launched a school of events. This year we've launched a school of sports and e-sports. You know, so we are constantly introducing new programs into the institute so that we can grow in terms of giving students the opportunity to do what they love. The idea is that there are so many streams that today's child, today's youngster wants to get into, but they don't know where to go or how to go about it. And I think Bistling Woods can be that one platform when it comes to the creative arts and entertainment and media. We can be the provider for quality education in those fields. So yeah, slowly and steadily we are expanding. You know, we used to be only a film school. Then we started the media and communication school, fashion school, music. We are the first music composition production course program in India. You know, we are offering degrees now for all our courses, which again is something that many of the other institutes weren't able to do. So that has also helped us get better students because parents then are more willing to send their students, their children, to the two film school or a media school. So I think, yeah, I think that growing within our campus is something that we've been focusing on. Another thing that we are really, really focusing on is Virtual Academy, which is our online platform for teaching our courses online. So it's something that we've done very successfully with our film program. We have a wonderful one-year program that we are running on that. We have students doing it. And some of them have done really well after doing that program, which is excellent. I think that gives flexibility to a lot of professionals out there who got stuck doing chemical engineering or something which is not of their choice, but then have this option of virtually learning how to become comfortable. So that is something that we are really looking forward to expand all over the country because that's virtual, in fact, all over the world. So do you have any plans to start an institute in Uttar Pradesh because the government over there, they want to start a film industry in Noida, I guess. Yes, yes. That's right. I mean, the whole idea is that we will look at each opportunity equally. We will look at whether it makes sense, whether we are able to sustain it, whether we are able to give the students the best education possible. So if that is possible, if we can source faculty, then why not? It's not something that we are not open to. So you are a successful leader. So what is skills are necessary to be a successful leader? I think the biggest skill that any leader must have is that of empathy. And I think that is why we are seeing more and more women leaders become successful and entrepreneurs who are really, really showing the way to others because I feel women generally are more empathetic. I know I shouldn't be making such statements, very, very bad of me, but men too can be empathetic, but women I think it's kind of intrinsic in us. But any leader, whether you're a man or a woman, I feel being empathetic towards your employees, towards people you work with, people you deal with is extremely important. So once you start empathizing with them, you are able to then lead them rather than lead them with respect. So the mutual respect kind of gets developed. You are able to empower them with more kind of authority, which also helps people stay motivated in an organization. I feel like if you are just going to be shouting out commands and telling people that you must listen to me because I say so, that doesn't work. You need to lead by example and you need to empower your people to feel, to make them feel that this is theirs more than anybody else's. And I think that was one of the first things that I decided, having worked in an organization before, I knew and it was a startup as well. I knew how I felt when I worked there. I felt like it was my own place, even though I wasn't even, I was just one of the most junior employees in the company. And I felt like when I started this thing, I really wanted every employee, every faculty member to walk into the campus and feeling the sense of ownership that this is theirs, not mine, not Meghna's, not Savajka's, not the family's or Mukthar's. This is mine. And that personal ownership, I feel really has people staying motivated. So the leader, if you empathize with people and you're able to empower them in that way, you really can create a beautiful culture of love, respect and loyalty. And I think that those are the things that you need for really building a place where you can have good productivity as well and efficiency. Very nicely put Meghna. Thanks for talking with us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kanchana. Thank you for having me. Bye-bye.