Harun Robert aka Rob: Never thought I'd make a career out of art

Harun Robert, popularly known in his kids' icon avatar of Rob from Pogo's DIY program M.A.D., was part of the ongoing virtual edition of Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) on Sunday. The DIY kid's show host and artist has a YouTube channel with around 3 million fans and feels that the digital medium allows people to meet and create art together, while being safe.

An interview expert with Harun Robert:

You are part of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. How excited are you for this virtual edition this year?

I am super happy to be a part of this festival. It is very exciting. I hope everyone else is also as happy and excited as I am. I know, this time we do not have a physical event and it is virtual, I think it's really cool that we are unlocking this festival digitally. You see, we can still meet and create art together and that too from the comforts of our home being safe and with our families. I think that's incredible so kudos to the entire team.

You have been part of DIY kids' programs back in the day. How did that happen? Tell us about your show experience

It was an awesome experience! Back then there wasn't any art-based television show at least not in this format. Everything was conceptualised from scratch and I was lucky to be a part of the planning team right from inception. Also, me being a Designer and having studied art helped me quite a bit in creating the content for the show. The channel went on to create over 100's of episodes of the series mainly because of the response it received. I now feel lucky and blessed to have been a part of this show, which helped me launch my career.

From then till now, what has kept you busy?

The last 10 years have been great. There has been a lot of learning and I am still learning. After Pogo, I decided to give television a break and create content for digital as YouTube back then was a medium that was gaining popularity and was growing exponentially. I started the channel with a handful of subscribers and in a year, I only grew to 1500 subscribers, which was pretty disappointing. I initially thought that my popularity on television would automatically translate to digital, but it didn't. I had to unlearn to learn how the digital medium actually worked.

I feel I am in a great place now on YouTube as well as Facebook and Instagram. My internet family is now almost at 3 million fans and we are still growing. It took me a while to get a grasp of things and I can now say that I do understand the medium pretty well and I am constantly learning. Having said that my content on my digital platforms is constantly evolving as I learn. I tend to focus on trending topics to keep my audience engaged. Also, with digital being such an interactive platform I do receive a lot of feedback from my fans, and I try to incorporate their ideas as much as possible in my videos.