He is intelligent and with an in-depth understanding he is capable of writing reader friendly reviews of popular cinema in length and breadth. Most importantly, he has the passion for what he is doing.
After getting an Engineering degree from a premier Institute in India, he had a copywriting stint at J Walter Thompson, Chennai and then took off to Marquette University, Milwaukee for a Master’s degree in Advertising and Public Relations. He spent a few years with IT industry in USA and then got back to Chennai where he is freelancing now. His film reviews and other articles on arts, entertainment and humour have been published in The New Sunday Express, The Economic Times – Madras Plus, Man’s World, Simplifly and Seminar. His blogs can be found at http://desipundit.com/
Started in year 1954, the National Film Awards are considered the most prestigious awards of India. Many popular artists have retired from the film industry without getting a National Film Award. For that matter, King Khan, Shahrukh is the best example who has won the famous Filmfare Best Actor Award so for seven times, but is yet to win the coveted National Film Award.
In the much delayed and recently announced 53rd National Film Awards, the award for the best film critic went to Proud to be a BITSian Baradwaj Rangan who did his B.E.(Hons) Chemical Engineering from BITS Pilani. During his stay at Pilani from August 1988 to June 1992 as a student, he must have seen about 200 films in various languages in the grand auditorium of the Institute and built up the passion to be a name to reckon with in the film industry.
This good natured jovial chap was Baddy for his buddies and Shankar who is one of them is of the opinion that Rangan’s journey to the writer’s world is as stupendous as his writing. This award winning guy has the cheek to say that some engineering graduates remain engineers, some move to management, and some, like him, go on to career mismanagement.
Baradwaj Rangan who has integrated himself into the excellence circuit is indeed a proud alumnus of BITS Pilani and in the times to come, he is bound to climb more peaks.
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani Rajasthan which has set a bench mark in industry university collaboration is one among the top ranking universities in India today offering degrees in various branches of Engineering, Management, Economics, Pharmacy, Sciences, Engineering Technology, Information Systems, General Studies, Finance, etc presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa campuses and in the near future at Hyderabad campus apart from an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates.