Pankhuri Harikrishnan: To get Anushka Sharma a role in ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ was such a high

Do comics and digital creators have a Susie Myerson in their life? And is s/he the most important part of it?

The final season of the OTT show, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, belonged to the lasting relationship between Miriam Maisel and her manager, Susan Myerson. With all the loves that walk in and out of their life, Susie and Midge’s is the relationship that sticks till the end. Fiery even when they are continents apart, and Susie is retired but Midge insists on working every day of the week. They have the rituals and banter of any long-partnered couple—watching a TV show together, flights of ridiculous fancy.

Are working relationships really like this? “A talent manager plays the role of an agent, a best friend, a bodyguard, a therapist, a mom—all in one,” says Viraj Sheth, who manages digital content creator Ranveer Allahbadia (known popularly as BeerBiceps). They met while studying in Dwarkadas J Sanghvi College of Engineering, where Allahbadia was two years his senior. He was the first male talent Sheth managed, and his vision for him initially, “was to ensure he becomes India’s biggest fitness content creator”. Now, Allahbadia has 2.5 million followers on Instagram and a picture with Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, among others, on his feed. The Ranveer Show is going places, he says, and much of it has to do with the opportunities and visibility a manager hustles for him.

Kusha Kapila and Meher Dudani have been working together since 2021

Pankhuri Harikrishnan was head of marketing at Elite Model Management where she learnt the ropes of talent management, before establishing her own company Fetch Consulting, which manages digital superstars such as Kusha Kapila (3.3 million followers on Insta), who was recently at the Cannes Film Festival on a partnership with AirBnB. “The role of the primary manager of a talent,” says the Delhi-based entrepreneur, “is to build a team around the talent that s/he works well with and showcases his or her at their best—stylists, personal managers, etc. They also have to know brewing opportunities that their talent can fit into—brand endorsements, acting roles, red carpet opportunities, casting calls, etc.”

One of the early feathers in Harikrishnan’s cap was getting Anushka Sharma a role in a Yash Raj film for her debut. Then, Sharma was one of the models Elite was managing. “To get a newcomer a role opposite Shah Rukh Khan was such a high.”

Digital content creator Chandni Bhabhda and her manager Aayush Jain

This is the kernel of the relationship: A manager is deeply invested in the success and growth of his or her ward. “We create a vision board for each talent at the beginning of the year,” says Harikrishnan, explaining their process, “With brands, opportunities, people, events, awards shows—everything they’d like to work with that year. It’s the manager’s job then to help them tick each one off.” Case-in-point: Kapila’s presence on the red carpet at Cannes Film Festival this year. “The manager also has to have an understanding of the right brand fit,” she says, “there may be other ways to be at the same event but the talent has to trust the manager when s/he says no to one brand in favour of waiting for the right one.”

“My team celebrates every little win,” says Chandni Bhabhda. “I may not think I have done a great thing, but they will make it a big celebration. They know that an artiste is hungry for applause.” She signed on with a new talent management agency called Clout about three months ago, and was assigned Aayush Jain. “Though the relationship is very new, it feels like we have been working together for ages,” says Bhabhda, who has 3,62,000 followers on her Instagram feed on which she mostly posts her mimicry of actors. “First off, we are both Marwari and that has been a big bonding factor. If I crack a joke, he gets it. There’s that relatability factor.” Besides Jain, her team includes Kirtiwan Singh—who helps her with writing and PR—and growth members Vinay Pillai, Ankit Panicker and Shaun Pais.

Tripti Babbar manages Agasthya Shah, an upcoming comedic digital talent. She sees her role as manager as, “We possess the gift to unveil the depths of your potential. Agasthya knows where he is headed, with short-term and long-term aspirations in sight. He recognises the value of sacrificing now for future benefits. I provide the support he needs to soar towards his goals.”

She knows the value of celebrating milestones and is unabashedly emotional about them. “We cherished the milestone when Agasthya reached 400k followers on Instagram. When he delivered a TED talk at a college event, I was crying. I was so proud,” she says.

Bhabhda has a personal ritual. After every win—big or small— she stands outside her school to have a good cry, assured that she will amount to something after all. She recently closed a deal with an OTT platform, and members of her team will be joining her for this emotional ritual because they know what it means to her.

A manager’s role is also to be a ruthless hustler—A Disney fairy godmother with a background in handling admin for a mob.

“There was a challenging moment when a brand hesitated to make the payment for a campaign,” says Babbar, “I would stay up late, making calls as late as 2 am, advocating on his behalf, expressing our concerns about the unfairness of the situation. I reached out to a number of contacts to find a resolution.”

Sheth talks about the synergy he has with Allahbadia that needs the littlest of communication. “This one time,” he says, “we were shooting with a powerful guest who was constantly trying to make it difficult for Ranveer to shoot by being sarcastic and curt. Ranveer looked at me, signalling ‘What to do?’ I signalled back: ‘Give it back.’ He did and it worked like a charm. The guest not only befriended him but so did the crew. At that moment, we figured out just how much we knew each other.”

Bhabhda listed the brands she wanted to work with, and Jain got it done. “That’s the magic of a manager. I don’t know how he locked them down, but he did.”

One also has to be quick witted, with lakhs of rupees on the line with collaborations and shoots. The manager then becomes the sounding board for an idea. “Niharika [NM] was on set to shoot with John Legend,” says Sheth. “Just minutes before the shoot, there were some creative differences between our team and theirs. If we wouldn’t have figured out a new concept within the next two minutes, we would have had to drop the video because he was due to perform on stage. We were almost going to let it go, but Niharika and I thought on our feet and John was so happy with how we turned it around.”

“I believe a manager is someone who looks out for you,” says Mehek Dudani, who manages Kapila, “has got your back and is also a grounding force… you could say a backbone of sorts.” They have to match the talent’s drive and fearlessness in chasing their dreams. Bhabhda relies on Jain to call a spade a spade. “It’s not like he says yes to everything just because he is my manager,” she says, “Sometimes, he will say, ‘This is not working’, or ‘I don’t think this is right... it might affect long-term growth.’”

Given that they spend so much time together, travelling to locations and events, boundaries play a big role in keeping the relationship healthy and robust. Fetch has a policy of keeping weekends sacred with no calls to managers.

Kapila and Dudani bonded through travel. “The time we spend together on a project and the experiences that come with it has brought us closer,” she says. They started working together in 2021. “For a while it was just the two of us, now we have a team that travels together! For me personally, the most important boundary is personal space, taking time out to gather my thoughts and process the day ahead, especially when we’re travelling. What works best for me is sitting down and having an honest conversation, trying to understand his or her perspective.”

Sometimes, the talent is many miles away, as in the case of Sheth and Niharika NM who lives in Los Angeles. “Communicating with her got so difficult because we were in different time zones and would end up yelling at each other often,” he says. “But at the end of it all, we would cuss and then laugh.”

Bhabhda thinks her manager’s biggest task is to manage her ‘pagal-pan’. “When I am in a zone, trying out a new voice or decoding it,” says Bhabhda, “I speak to everyone like that. I’ll get angry like that. Aayush understands that she’s now answering the phone as Gangubai or she’s Shraddha Kapoor, and lets me be.”

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