Adgully Exclusive | Jamming it Chinappa's way

A look at Nikhil Chinappa and you would know there is more to his well-built physique and tattooed arm.

Chinappa, who is a VJ with the MTV channel, is best remembered for his show Splitsvilla, MTV Roadies, and music show Rock ON.

Chinappa, who although was born in Bangalore, had his initial training in different parts of the country. He did his initial schooling from St. George's College, Agra, before his father, an Indian Army Paratrooper, was transferred to Secunderabad where he studied in Faust and for a few months in Begumpet's Hyderabad Public School. He then went on to study at St. Joseph's Boys' High School in Bangalore.

But it was during the B. M. Sreenivasaiah College of Engineering (BMS) days when he found a special love for Radio Jockeying.

"I was studying Architecture in Sreenivasaiah College, but I rarely attended the college. You know it was one of the phases where you managed to get the passing mark to see thorough the year," he recalls.

"The reason, why I took up Architecture was because I thought it didn't have much mathematics. But I was wrong, although I did pretty well. A good thing about a course like architecture is that it allows you to take up a lot of other things you are interested in when you are in college. So I took up theatre, radio, and I used to do shows in local venues to earn my pocket money.

"In the end I guess all those experiences, along with my background of having grown up in different cities and spending five years in the NCC, all of it comes together and helps me be what I'm and do the things I do today," he adds.

Chinappa won the MTV VJ hunt and that's how he came to Mumbai. Recalling his auditioning days, Chinappa says that he never thought he would win the contest. "When I had auditioned for VJ hunt contest, I really didn't think I would win it as most of the participants were either a model or a mini celebrity," he says in an exclusive interaction with Adgully.

"I was the only one from Bangalore, who would crack stupid jokes ' guess that was what they were looking at that time," he quips.

Before making the cut, Chinappa was a successful RJ with Madras FM and was nicknamed Flavour Boy.

So was the transition from a RJ to a VJ a difficult one?

"Many people find it difficult to say the basic two lines to begin the show. However for me the transition was easy because I was used to saying the two lines that is required to begin the show on radio. I just had to learn to use the visual medium," he says.

He has been a part of few controversial shows like Splitsvilla, Rodies, and Rock on. But Chinappa insists that he not a big fan of such reality show, where lots of mud-slinging happens.

"I have to confess I am not the biggest fan of reality television especially when it is made in a non-reality format. The shows I have worked on Roadies and Splitsvilla, everything is kept real. The cameras are rolling constantly. Out of 10 cameras rolling for 12 hours for two days, we get 240 hours of footage which becomes one episode of one hour," says the 37-year-old.

"On "India's Got Talent', it is not a reality show, it is a competition to find the most talented performance or act in India. It is not about telling the judges to fight, it is not about telling the performers to cry on sage. It is none of that. People come and they compete. There is joy, there is heartbreak. Judges may disagree on certain occasions but it happens very naturally and you can see it happen naturally. I think all of us would have quit the show if it wasn't natural," he adds.

Not many know that Chinappa also did try his hand in movies as well. But he insists he would rather wait for the perfect script and be a part of it then. Chinappa has appeared in movies like Snip!,Pyaar Kiya Nahin Jaata, Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamaana.

"I have done three films. But what I have realized in this process is that though I enjoy acting, it's not a natural talent to me. I wouldn't mind working on the project which gives me that space to work on the project because I am not a naturally gifted actor like Nasseruddin Shah," he explains.

"I look at myself a bit like Rahul Dravid. He is not a naturally gifted cricketer. He is just the hardest working cricketer in the planet. So the focus is not so much on films as to what's comes naturally to me which is music, so I'm drawn to projects that has music, as its core, as their fundamental foundation, so that's what I'm doing," he adds.

Chinappa continued to pursue his love for music ant it was the same love, which lead to the formation of Submerge. In 2002, he founded Submerge, an electronic dance music and alternative club scene.

"Submerge is a dance music movement that was born out of frustration. It promotes and plays out its events predominantly in electronic dance music from across the world ' Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Tokya etc.," he explains.

"That's the kind of music we play at our events and those are the kind of DJs we work with. The reason we do this is because the predominant music scene in India is Bollywood and it is so powerful that the music we love which is a very small percentage was getting marginalized.

"So before it gets completely obliterated we decided to call our friends and play the music we like, once in a week or so. And that has now become a nation-wide movement with underground clubbers and parties. It's a very positive movement, it is about the music and nothing else but the music," he adds.