I am like the Bhishma Pitamah of the media industry, says Roshan Abbas

Watch Roshan Abbas conducting a workshop with corporate types, speaking to an audience at a conference or performing on stage and you understand why he is so popular across the creative, media and marketing ecosystem. Erudite, witty and completely relatable, he is one of the most positive people I have met in two decades of covering media. So, I grab the opportunity to catch up with him at O Pedro in the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai. The Thursday afternoon just before new year (and the third wave) has a relaxed air. As I settle in and order an apple cider, Abbas, who’s just turned 50, walks in. A regular at the restaurant, he too asks for a cider and takes over the ordering. That leaves me free to ask, why has he been making all these trips to Delhi and Dubai?

The answers are classic Abbas. Delhi, because he is the creative producer on a Babasaheb Ambedkar musical by Delhi Tourism. And Dubai is where the new chapter of Kommune, a performance collective he set up along with actor, cricket-presenter Gaurav Kapur and musician Ankur Tewari in 2014, has just got active. Encompass, the first firm he founded and sold to WPP (and still heads), merged with another WPP firm, VMLY&R, in 2021. The latter also picked up Glitch, a digital agency he co-founded in 2011. Meanwhile Chtrbox, an influencer marketing agency he founded, has just been sold to Canada-based QYOU Media. I raise my hand in protest. The number of things Abbas does, and the ease with which he does them, always makes my head swim.

He’s been doing theatre since the ’90s, is an award winning radio jockey, has made TV shows, anchored them (Family Fortunes, This is Your Life), emceed over a thousand events, set up half a dozen successful ventures. He is an investor in 40 start-ups through the Global Super Angels Forum, a start-up accelerator and early stage fund. Then there are 10 other investments on a personal basis — all on people and ideas in the creative/media domain. He’s founded EMDI Encompass Institute of Radio Management, co-authored a bestseller on public speaking, and has written and directed a Hindi film, Always Kabhi Kabhi (2011).

Who then is Roshan Abbas?

“I am like the Bhisma Pitamah of this industry, watching this whole Mahabharat — from theatre, radio, TV, films and digital — unfold since 1995,” he laughs. Bhishma was like a sutradhar or link that connected the past and present generations of characters in the Mahabharat. Abbas has been part creator, part nurturer and part superstar of a chain that connects brands, advertisers, writers, singers, actors, broadcasters, OTTs, investors and others in myriad, kaleidoscopic ways. For instance, some of the talent in Kommune goes on to be part of a story a brand, say Spotify, Zee or Hewlett Packard, wants to create around its products or services. His journey, more than that of any other media personality, mirrors the growth and fun the Rs 1.38 trillion media and entertainment ecosystem has had since liberalisation.

The prawn Balchao and poee (a Goan bread) arrive and we get busy eating. This is just the right time to dive into Abbas’s past.

A La Martiniere College, Lucknow boy, he had a happy childhood. His parents were teachers who encouraged him to follow his interest in debating and dramatics. “I was a complete anomaly in Lucknow; it was a laidback city and I was this energiser bunny,” remembers Abbas. The family’s focus on education meant that he remained a top-notch student. But very early on he realised that being “engaged with the arts” was what he wanted. “I can dissect a frog beautifully but no one claps for it,” said a 16-year-old Abbas to his dad. Abbas Sr told him that he had all of Rs 4 lakh in savings, two each for him and his sister. He could offer him just that to pursue his calling, not a rupee more. That is how in 1988, Abbas, then 17, left for Delhi. He lived with an aunt and enrolled for a degree in literature at Hindu College.

“I was on a constant quest to do things; theatre, voice over,” he says. At an inter-college festival in 1988, Aamir Raza Husain (The Legend of Rama, The Fifty Day War) spotted him.

He became part of Husain’s theatre group, Stagedoor, as an errand boy and actor. It gave Abbas a ringside view of a life that fascinated him. “We travelled within India, to Sri Lanka, stayed in hotels. We had to sell tickets, go to the entertainment tax office to ask for an exemption. Along with the art, I was also learning about the math of creativity. It was my Disneyland,” he says.

By the third year of college in 1991, the Mandal Commission report, which proposed additional reservations for backward classes, became a hot topic. That is when Abbas set up Nukkad Naatak Manch with a bunch of college friends and performed plays all over Delhi. A course in mass communication followed. By then weekly serials had started airing on Doordarshan. “My parents figured that I would be joining the world that brought Buniyaad and Wah Janaab,” he says, dipping his poee into a bone marrow dish that is impossible to pronounce. Just as he finished his two-year course from Jamia Millia Islamia, the satellite TV revolution happened with Star and Zee. India and the world of Indian media were finally opening up.

Abbas joined AIR FM in 1994 as a radio jockey. He was poached by Times FM (now Radio Mirchi) in 1995. It soon became clear that a big reason why audiences (and therefore advertisers) flocked to Times FM was Abbas’s voice. This was also apparent when he did Public Demand, a countdown show on Zee TV. By 1997, he was also anchoring corporate events for Airtel, Maruti and so on. The emceeing of badly planned and scripted shows prompted him to set up Encompass and move to Mumbai in 1999.

The bone marrow dish is good, but the grilled octopus is something else. This is the part of lunch interviews I like best — desert and the more reflective chit-chat that a full stomach brings. Aunty Li’s Serradura, a delicious concoction of whipped cream, orange caramel and other goodies, and a cup of tea are the perfect accompaniment.

How does he manage it all? “Every 2-3 years, I end up having a crisis between the personal creator and the creative entrepreneur.” Out of Abbas’s many epiphanies and conflicts came Kommune, arguably his most significant contribution to the media and entertainment space. It is to budding Indian storytellers what YouTube is to the world — an audition theatre of sorts where they come and perform stories, poetry or any spoken word. Over six years, it has gathered a million ‘Kommuners’, has a database of 30,000 artistes and has worked with 25 brands. Its power grew in the lockdown as audiences converged online.

“The moment you give a creator new tools to play with, his mind starts trying to find ways,” he says. And the newest tool is the metaverse. “You could do a concert with Nusrat (Fateh Ali Khan, who died in 1997) and Rahat (Nusrat’s nephew) in the metaverse. Today I have the confidence to put money behind my own ideas,” he says. It is this confidence he gives thousands of unknown people, through Kommune or as an investor, to pursue their dreams. On stage and in life, Abbas continues to hold his audience.