Tu Beer Hai!

Naveen Kasturia isn’t your devastatingly good-looking, armed with six-packs and hazel-green coloured eyes kind of a guy, but one look at his face will make you believe that there’s a story behind it – an interesting one at that

As Pitchers, the web series created by The Viral Fever became popular, people had taken note – not only of how good the script was or that something so real and relatable was conceptualised for the Indian audience but most importantly of its protagonist Naveen Bansal – a character that seemed like Naveen Kasturia was tailor made to portray. Overnight, Kasturia had become the poster boy of the “start-up generation”. His character in Pitchers inspired an entire wave of dreamers to aim for bigger things – to start doing what their hearts wanted them to do irrespective of how bleak the consequences seemed. But Naveen Kasturia isn’t just a face that resonates with millennials who are passionate about venturing out on their own. Wedding Affair caught up with the young actor who taught us how to be fearless and chase our dreams.

The first thing that one notices about this assistant director turned actor is how forthcoming he is. Kasturia knows there is a certain pocket, almost a cult following that admires his work and relates with who he is but he isn’t delusional about where he stands in the stardom pyramid. “I think becoming a star is a different ball game altogether. The audience needs to have some kind of liking towards the actor for him to be a star – there needs to be an engaging factor about him.” Naveen was born in Nigeria to doting parents Arjun Dev and Veena Kasturia. “My father was working in Nigeria as a mathematics teacher and I was just one when we came back to Delhi.” Naveen spent all his life in Delhi before finally making the big move to Mumbai. The actor states that this shift in his professional life from working a corporate job to putting his foot in the film industry didn’t settle very well with his parents and there was a lot of convincing involved on his part.