A meaningful host'a la vista

A struggle is always a part of an inspiring story. That’s what enthused 32-year-old Vinay Bharadwaj to launch, Let’s Talk with Vinay, an inspiring English talk show in the city. A senior manager at an international bank in Singapore, Vinay is on a mission this year — to unfurl the successes and struggles of some of the biggest names in the city today. Launched earlier this month with a blazing episode featuring Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, this show on YouTube is already the talk of the town for its inspirational content from celebrities. And his next one has Raghu Dixit telling all.

When Vinay lost his mother to cancer, had to deal with the loss of his only grandmother and put on a brave face as his father’s leg was being amputated — all in quick succession, he realised that there was a lesson to be learnt through the ordeals. “The thought of how I could help someone going through the same thing was on my mind.

That gave birth to the idea of a talk show,” he explains. Vinay realised that no one would listen if he went on a rant, he allowed his thoughts to evolve and before he knew it, had 20 celebrities who were willing to speak up! In its first season, this trailer of the show has over 2,000 views on YouTube and features everyone from actors like Puneeth Rajkumar, Pranitha Subhash, Nirup Bhandari and Radhika Chetan, singers like Raghu Dixit and Vasundhara Das to athletes including Ashwini Nachappa, Ashwini Ponappa, KL Rahul, Vidya Pillai and Pankaj Advani. Other popular personalities like Prasad Bidapa, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Sundeep Rao, Rubi Chakravarthi, Dr Ajai Kumar, Sunita Dhairyam, Anna Chandy and Mayuri Upadhyay are a part of the show too.

Although a banker by profession, Vinay decided to go on air like a pro. All suited up, the self-confessed extrovert believes in spontaneous conversation and not staging the show. “There were no questions prepared. The spontaneity helped the guests open up and have a good intellectual conversation because they didn’t know what was coming next,” he says, adopting the airs of his favourite hosts – Anupama Chopra and Barkha Dutt’s flair for candidness and Jimmy Kimmel and Ellen de Genres’ larger-than-life approach. For him, the show has been a great start with celebrities opening up about handling success and failure and getting candid about that one person they lost to cancer. “Even as I held back tears talking to the guests about losing someone they loved the most, I had goose bumps when Raghu Dixit dedicated and sang one of my favourite songs on the show,” he says about his life changing experiences.  

After his hometown Bengaluru, Vinay is all set to take his talk show to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai and across South East Asian countries. “I intend to create a scalable venture to generate funds for cancer victims in rural areas. Since it is an expensive treatment, helping children fight cancer is very dear to my heart and I intend to do that soon,” he confesses.