Salil Acharya is a veteran media professional who has been in this industry for almost twenty years now. He started as India’s first radio jockey in Hindi with RadioMirchi and has worked with them for fifteen years. He has also starred in TV serials as well as in a blockbuster movie like Aashiqui 2 along with others. He is also working with Spotify on a podcast channel named ‘Offset with Salil’ along with many other projects.

Salil was born and brought up in Delhi and owing to that his Hindi was good from the very beginning. He feels he had a very strong schooling and upbringing which helped him further in his life. He was always among the toppers of his batch and he even scored ninety-nine in Economics which was utterly difficult in the 2000s. He was also a keen sportsperson and loved to indulge himself in Tennis and Cricket. When he came to Mumbai upon winning a RJ hunt, he took no money from his parents. He came all by himself. He was ambitious and he had a point to prove to the others.

For Salil, struggle is not a story about ‘rags to riches’ but indeed an incessant urge to keep improving with everything he does. He feels it’s not about coming from a small background and proving yourself but to be consistently on the top, proving your mettle with the work that you put into everything you choose to do. He was all by himself when he went to Mumbai but he was never devoid of work so that part was never a struggle for him. He was always expected to do more by the people and to always meet their expectations, that was his struggle.

When Salil started doing podcasts with Spotify, his podcast was the second most heard podcast on the entire Spotify community which was a big achievement for him. Even his producers were in awe of him. Similar was the case when he worked with big names in Bollywood, he always outshined them. He was constantly reminded by his production houses and the people he worked with about how good he is and that was all he ever needed. Salil continued to shine and even today after twenty years in the industry, he is ready to face any challenges thrown at him.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, Salil realized the importance of being with his family because most of the time he was away from them working. When he spent time with them, he realized how much he was missing. His wife was a big support for him all the time. He realized that all the work he does his wife can do too, but he would never be able to do everything that she does and this was a big realization for him as it made him understand core values in life. Also, Covid was very disappointing for him as it ruined everything he had planned for his family. His one and a half year daughter has not yet seen the outer world which really upsets him because he had a lot of plans for his kids. Salil believes that the old saying about destiny is a real thing. No matter how much you try, nature and God have the power to ruin everything you plan for years in just an instance.

If he had a time machine, Salil jokingly says he would want to enter the stock market earlier than he did so that he could make more money. He would also like to go back to the late 1900s where the world was rebuilding itself and people had no personal agendas in life. Other than that, Salil would like to change nothing in life as he has no materialistic obsessions. He started drinking and smoking at the age of sixteen and quit them all at once at his prime age of twenty-five. The only obsession he has is with the point of views and expressions of the people because he thinks everybody should get a chance to do what they love in life.

Salil was always inspired by sports persons rather than celebrities. He always felt that the hard work and dedication that a sports person can put in his game is unmatched. From a very early age he started reading biographies and autobiographies of famous personalities rather than reading fiction, which allowed him to understand how they were able to achieve greater things in life. So, for Salil, all his inspiration in life came from the people he followed and read about. They were all his role models.

Salil believes there is no substitute to knowledge. He feels people assume that you don’t need knowledge and everything is very practical-oriented in life but it’s not the correct way to think. When he opened his production house after realizing he would be able to earn double, while he was working with several TV series, he didn’t have enough content and he started watching everything he could to gain knowledge. With that knowledge Salil was able to get twenty programs into his name. Hence, he emphasizes a lot on gaining as much knowledge as one could get.

Salil feels that a person can only learn when they make mistakes of their own and not from the mistakes of the others. He thinks the untruth will always get separated if you have a good knowledge and secondly a person should always have a fear of failing because there are a lot of people better than you and that is what constantly pushes a person to do their best in life. When you don’t feel bad about losing to someone, you cannot improve.

Salil considers himself fortunate to have come this far and still holding up well in life. He feels that there is no point in blaming the situation. A bad workman always blames his tools. One should always try to make the best out of every opportunity and every situation they are put into and always try to deliver, because that is what differentiates a winner from a loser.