The question I get asked most often these days is a simple one: Why film?
Not how — people are curious about the process, the crew, the logistics of making a film — but
why. Why, after four decades as a businessman and philanthropist, did I decide to produce a film?
Why this story? Why now?
I want to answer that question honestly, because I think the why behind a creative project
matters. It shapes everything — the choices you make, the collaborators you attract, the spirit
that ends up on screen. If the why is shallow, the work shows it. If it is genuine, that shows too.
My why for Avyaan is genuine. Here is what it is.
What the Film Is Actually About
Before I explain the vision, let me share what Avyaan actually is — because I want readers to
understand the story, not just the idea behind it.
Avyaan — A True Journey follows three young people in Varanasi, each searching for meaning,
identity, and purpose through their own form of expression: music, movement, and art. The
tagline captures it simply: three passions, three journeys, one city that binds them all.
Our lead characters are Aakash, played by Chayan Chopra; Shivani, played by Anushka
Kaushik, Astik, played by Omkar Kulkarni, and Purab, played by Navdeep Singh. Each of them
carries a different relationship with their art form and with the city of Varanasi. Each of them is,
in their own way, searching for something that cannot be found in the noise of everyday life.
The film is rooted in Indian ethos — in Sanatan values, in the rhythms and textures of a city that
has carried civilizational memory for thousands of years — but its emotional truth is universal.
Young people searching for identity and purpose, for something that feels real in a world that
often feels disposable: that is not an Indian story alone. That is a human story.
Avyaan means the one who is complete and unwavering. I chose that title deliberately, because
the film is about the journey toward that completeness — not as a destination you arrive at, but as
a quality you discover within yourself through honest engagement with your own passion and
values.
Why This Story
I have been living outside India for over forty years. Since 1983, Thailand has been my home. I
have built a business there, raised a family there, and become part of a community that I love and respect deeply.
But living abroad does not weaken your connection to India. In many ways, it sharpens it.
You see India from a distance, and the distance gives you a kind of clarity you cannot always
access when you are in the middle of it. You understand, perhaps more acutely than people who
have never left, what India actually is — not just a country, but a civilization with a particular way
of understanding life, time, meaning, and human purpose.
What troubled me, as I watched Indian cinema and culture over recent years, was the growing
gap between that civilizational depth and the stories being told. Not all Indian cinema falls into
this gap — there is wonderful work being made. But too much of what reaches wide audiences is
either spectacle without substance, or it borrows its emotional grammar entirely from Western
storytelling without asking what an authentically Indian story might look like.
I wanted to make something that fills that gap. A film that is genuinely Indian in its roots, honest
in its emotion, and made with enough craft and care to hold the attention of an audience that
deserves better than formulaic content. That is the creative problem Avyaan was made to address.
Why I Trusted Gaurav Khati and the Urban Boat Films Team
I am a producer, not a director. That distinction matters enormously. My job is not to make
creative decisions for the film — it is to find the right people, give them the conditions they need
to do their best work, and hold the overall vision accountable to its original intention.
When I met director Gaurav Khati, I knew very quickly that he understood what I was trying to
do. He had the technical skills — that was clear — but more importantly, he had the patience and
sensitivity that this particular story required. Avyaan is not a film that benefits from a heavy
directorial hand. It needed someone who could observe, who could allow the characters and the
city to breathe.
Chandan Kowli, our cinematographer, brought the same sensibility. Varanasi is one of the most
visually complex cities in the world. It resists being photographed quickly or carelessly. Chandan
understood that the camera needed to move at the city’s pace, not impose its own rhythm on it.
The image of the golden riverside at dusk that appears on our first official poster — that is not a
manufactured moment. That is Varanasi as it actually is, captured by someone who took the time
to see it.
Nivaan Sen and Neelu M. Sen of Urban Boat Films brought the production together with the
kind of commitment to detail that a project like this demands. From the opening puja ceremony
on November 18, 2024 — conducted by Pandit Sourav Banerjee on the banks of the Ganga — to
every day of shooting that followed, the team maintained a seriousness of purpose that I found
deeply reassuring. When the people making a film genuinely believe in it, that belief is tangible.
Our lead actress, Anushka Kaushik, described the shooting experience as spiritual. I believe
her. That is what happens when a project is made with the right intention, in the right place, by
people who care about what they are doing.
What I Wanted to Prove as a First-Time Producer
I have spent my career building things for the long term. In business, that means making
decisions that might sacrifice short-term gain for lasting value. The same principle applies in
creative work.
Avyaan was never going to be a safe commercial bet. A quietly spiritual film about young people
searching for meaning, set in Varanasi, made by a first-time producer who is more associated
with chambers of commerce than film studios — that is not the obvious formula for a hit. I knew
that going in.
But I have never been particularly interested in formulas. What I was interested in was making
something real. Something that, when it reaches audiences, does not feel like a product — it feels
like an experience. Something that people carry with them after they leave the theatre, the way a
meaningful piece of music or a genuinely moving conversation stays with you.
As I said when we announced the film: “As an entrepreneur, I have always believed in building for
the long term. With Avyaan, I want to build something for the soul.” That remains the truest thing I can say about why I made this film.
What I Hope Avyaan Does
I am not a person who makes grand claims about what a film will achieve. Art does not work that
way, and it would be dishonest of me to pretend otherwise.
What I hope — genuinely and simply — is that Avyaan gives its audience something they do not
often get from Indian cinema right now: a story that treats them with respect. A story that
assumes they are capable of sitting with complexity, of feeling something quiet and deep, rather
than loud and immediate, of recognizing something true about their own search for identity and
purpose.
The three characters at the center of Avyaan — Aakash, Shivani, Astik, and Purab — are young.
They are at the stage of life where everything feels uncertain, and the pressure to define yourself
is enormous. The film does not resolve that uncertainty with easy answers. It honors it. It says:
this search is real, it is worthy, and it is connected to something much older and much larger than
your individual life.
If an audience member finishes the film feeling more at peace with their own questions — not
because the film answered them, but because it helped them feel less alone in asking, then
Avyaan will have done what I hoped it would.
That is what good stories do. They do not fix things. They make us feel accompanied.
A Final Word on Why Any of This Matters
There is a question beneath the question of why I made this film: why does it matter who makes
it?
I have thought about this. And I think the honest answer is that it matters because the stories we
choose to tell, and the seriousness with which we tell them, reflect what we actually value. When
a businessman who has spent his career focused on trade and community work decides to invest
his time, energy, and resources in a film about young people searching for meaning through art
in Varanasi, that says something. It says that cultural storytelling is not a luxury or a sideline. It
is as important as any other form of building. I believe that. Avyaan is my attempt to live that belief.
You can follow all updates on Avyaan and Sunil Kothari’s filmmaking work in the Film
Productions section of this website.