From Working in Insurance to Radio Jockeying; RJ Dhvanit Offers a Sneak Peek Into His World

Story of the day: RJ Dhvanit

“I have been born and brought up in the city and was always good at studies. Apart from…

Posted by Humans Of Amdavad on Saturday, February 11, 2017

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“I have been born and brought up in the city and was always good at studies. Apart from academics, I was also good at co-curricular activities. I had written and directed a school play and also tried my hands at singing when I was in 4th grade but I never took these activities seriously and limited them to school as I was more inclined towards studies. After completing my schooling, I had a few options where I got selected for architecture and engineering as well but I wasn’t good in maths so I decided to pursue biotechnology instead and did my graduation in the same. After my graduation, I decided to do my post-graduation but, unfortunately, few months later my father passed away and it changed my life completely. I had just stepped into the real world and my father passed away, that obviously had a huge impact on me. I felt as if suddenly I have to grow up and have to take on all the responsibilities. My father used to work with Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and they had a provision that if any of their employees dies, then they provide job to a family member of that employee. It could either be me or my mother but I didn’t want my mother to do the job so I left my post-graduation and started the job at LIC and worked there for about 3 years. One fine day I went to watch a movie and saw a hoarding which said ‘First Radio Jockey (RJ) Hunt of India’. Till then I wasn’t aware that what a radio jockey does and also I used to dislike Radio Mirchi as I found their content very superficial and I was more of a traditional radio listener. I decided to apply for the Radio Jockey hunt only to see where I stand and evaluate myself in the process as to whether I can do this or not. In fact I wasn’t serious about it at all, there was a question in the form that ‘Why do you want to become and RJ’, to which I answered that I don’t want to become one. Even then I cleared all the auditions and reached the Top 10 finalist round where I had to perform live in front of the audience and judges. Initially I wasn’t ready to perform but after a lot of fight between my mind and heart I finally decided to perform and ended up winning the contest beating 1500 participants. After winning the title, I was informed that soon I will have to join the company and I was in utter shock as I already had a job at LIC. I took a month’s time and after a lot of brain storming discussions I finally decided to join Radio Mirchi. Working as an RJ was initially very tough because I used to hate my voice but with each passing day I worked on my voice and developed it. I started my new school of thought where I started speaking in Gujarati language. I was the first RJ to speak in Gujarati and gave personalized touch to my content where it would look as if one friend is talking to another friend and people immediately connected to that content and started seeing a friend in me. After that I started many social initiatives in the city through Radio Mirchi. Few years back during the summer season I brought the concept of ‘Pani ni Mobile parab’ where our vehicle would move in the whole city, and all our listeners had to do was to donate water to us and our vehicle would move in the city and would provide water to all the citizens and it became a huge success. After that I started another initiative called ‘Guruvar Gurjari’ where I invited listeners to donate their unused products to the underprivileged people. Because a product that might be useless to a privileged person might be useful to a person who is underprivileged. In this initiative thousands of computers were donated and ample amount of clothes, furniture and two wheelers were donated and exchanged. The initiative went on for 3 years where millions of smiles were exchanged. Few years back I had also started an initiative to bring back the sparrows in the city. “Save the sparrow” campaign was a huge hit amongst the citizens where we used to provide free designed sparrow nest and also bird food and would explain them about the nest and that too was a huge success were we distributed more than 85,000 sparrow nests in the city. And recently I started an initiative called ‘Tree Idiot’ where I invited listeners to provide their lands and we will come and plant the saplings for free. Just provide us the land and we will plant the sapling of your choice and number and so far, we have planted 75,000 saplings in the city. So far it’s been 13 years that I have been working with Radio Mirchi and the journey has been amazing. There are listeners who haven’t even seen me or met me but still they have made me a part of their lives. They have made me a part of their happiness and sadness. Nothing can match the amount of love and affection I have received from the city. There was this one time when we were celebrating 2 years of Radio Mirchi at a multiplex and thousands of people had gathered for the celebration. While I was cutting the cake, far away I saw an old aged Aunty coming inside with her husband and they were searching for someone, so I instantly went down and asked them that what they were looking for?, to which that old aged aunty said that I am here to meet Dhvanit. They hadn’t seen me so they said who are you?, I said I am Dhvanit and they started saying that whenever we hear you we feel that we are listening to our son who lives in US. Usually I dont allow your uncle to drive a scooter but today we came here on a scooter specially to meet you. So incidents like this makes me happy. There have been many experiences which have been so memorable that sometimes I sit and think as to what have I done to receive so much love from the listeners.”