A series where veteran artists inspire creative minds by sharing their journey, experience, and views on their art

An online platform, Craqit aims at building a community of artists and art lovers to shape, promote, and value professional work in the performing and visual arts space. While there are various social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook to upload videos or pictures, a lot of creative work gets lost either due to competition from irrelevant content or lack of presentation and resources. That's the aim behind curating Craqit, which offers an invitation-based, curated global platform to showcase the work of professional artists.

A source says, "We offer holistic support for artists in the form of converting their raw work to premium digital content, reaching out to their audience at a global level, in turn connecting them with the organizers and hiring managers opening up vast avenues for future events and prospects."

Their initiative - MasterConnect, features the veterans of the industry, popular celebrities from various spheres, where they talk about their personal journeys, techniques, challenges, and views.
"We believe that training, inspiration, and experience - all play a pivotal role in shaping the path for an artist, especially for young professionals. To that end, we have put together this innovative series of interviews, where we have invited veterans and celebrities talking about their journey, their craft, their processes, and the vision for their art form, along with introducing some of the artists in the Craqit community directly to them", says the source.

While popular names from the Indian film and theatre circuit such as Satish Kaushik, Usha Uthup, M. K Raina are part of the MasterConnect series, the most touching and warming interaction happens to be one with the veteran choreographer Saroj Khan, who is now no more with us. "The idea behind MasterConnect is to help young professional artists make the right career decisions, drawing inspiration and guidance from veterans in the field. It's really unfortunate that Saroj ji is not with us anymore. Our interaction with her was very enriching; feels rather surreal to talk about it now. Who would have thought that this interview would be her last when we were looking forward to engaging with her for future endeavors. Her positive words and smile have just stuck with us forever. We consider ourselves lucky to have become that medium to share her awe-inspiring journey and her last interaction with her fans on a large level", says Subhankar Mitra, Founder, Craqit.

He adds, "Some of the key aspects Saroj ji spoke about included how things used to be when she started out as a choreographer and the process she would follow; her fondness for Madhuri Dixit Nene and how she enjoyed training her; how practicing used to be so rigorous back in the days, when she would practice each mudra for three hours and how the process has changed."

Meanwhile, to promote creative arts and offer a platform to artists, Craqit will be hosting a series of events through August and September. There will be a wide spectrum of performances by a Dastangoh (storytelling), a sand artist, a classical vocalist, a Bollywood and Gujarati playback singer, a folk music band, a magician, and more.