Alternate media gave me due recognition: 'DUDE' director Ambrish Verma

From a scribble on a diary page two years back, DUDE – written and directed by Ambrish Verma – turned into a fiveepisode series. The last episode of the series will be released on YouTube’s Alright channel today (Wednesday). “DUDE is an acronym for the name of the protagonist’s father Detective Umesh Dhamija (DUD), which later became DUDE. So when his father retires from the detective agency, the protagonist is called DUDE junior,” shares Verma, who has previously played the lead in web series Wrong Number and Backpackers.

This detective drama also has a slice of life humour. Verma says, “The plot is about the protagonist who is solving his last case, and why it is his last case. DUDE also runs parallel to the detective’s (dude) professional and private life, where he is dealing with the mystery of his mother leaving him when he was a kid.” A joint production by Rusk Media and Jio Studios, the series features new gen actors, performers and social influencers such as Siddharth Bhardwaj, Arun Kushwaha, Shibani Bedi, Apoorva Arora, Rakesh Bedi,Sudhir Chaubessy, Lokesh Mittal, Geeta Bisht, Yashpal Saini, and Monika Mishra, with Verma in the lead. Verma always wanted to write a detective-based script.

“Not necessarily like the one in DUDE. My idea was: a middle- age detective without any aptitude of becoming a detective, and in a toxic relationship with his family. However, the idea shifted to the relationship between mother and son. Acccording to me, it is the most pious and unexplored relationship. So, I merged the motherson relationship with the detective story,” adds the 28-year-old, who has 72.6k followers on his Instagram. This is his second attempt as a writer and director, with the first being a short film tilted The Luckiest Man in the World that had released on Timeliners in 2019. But Verma’s first love was acting and he was always inclined towards dancing since a young age.

“It is why I always wanted to be in Mumbai. After completing an MBA in Marketing from the Management Development Institute (MDI) in Gurugram, I got a chance to work with an English daily. To ensure that, I even switched place with one of my colleagues, who was a single child and wanted to be with his mother in Delhi after her retirement,” adds Verma, who is from Gurugram. He joined a weekend theatre group, and it turned out well for him. “Post that, I started working with TVF in their marketing team. In 2019, I quit TVF because I wanted to devote my time to writing and acting,” he adds.

Alternate media such as YouTube has given him the due recognition, which is very difficult to receive from traditional media platforms. “Just like IPL created a middle ground for national and international cricket, digital media is also proving to be a middle ground for entertainment. My experience with the alternate media has been phenomenal, but it was challenging as well because I had no money when I had left the job in 2019,” he adds. What is the role of a person who becomes a social figure, like an actor? “I feel it becomes my duty to have a moral compass, and provide quality content that also works towards the betterment of society,” he concludes.