Ravi Kaushal, noticed with his debut directorial venture `Naya Daur' with Navni Parihar and Irfaan in lead roles telecast on Zee TV, is the man in question. Is it going to be another form of `India's Most Wanted'? ``No, it is not a running-after-criminals programme but something of an awareness campaign.'' In fact, Ravi is all for mixing entertainment with a cause. ``Naya Daur' highlighted the genesis of corruption. ``It is not an overnight development in our country, but has been happening for generations before and after Independence. And I brought out all the sections which manipulated this very independence.'' For that matter, his forthcoming serial `Angare', starring Rohit Roy, Mansi Joshi, Irfaan and Vijay Kashyap, is also against the corrupt system. ``This serial deals with a bunch of research scholars who become the victims of the same system which they are fighting.''

Ravi did not board the train to Bollywood to become a director with Zee TV, acting was his passion. For Ravi, who was the only member of the National School of Drama Repertory from the PU department in recent times, always played the lead roles in almost all the repertory productions for three years. And that too with stalwarts like Ebrahim Alkazi, Ram Gopal Bajaj and Tripurari Sharma. But financial constraints made him opt for direction instead of waiting for roles to come in when he reached Mumbai. Thus `Naya Daur', based on Bhagwati Charan Verma's novel, `Sabhi Nachawat Ram Gosain', was born. ``And when the serial ran 55 episodes, it gave me a name on the circuit along with a local critics' award in Mumbai.''

Ravi came to his old city from Delhi, where he, along with old NSD batchmate and now wife Alka, was called by teacher Tripurari for staging the play `Adhey Adhurey' at the ongoing theatre festival. Alka, who was responsible for launching the concept of teleshopping when DD Metro went on air, was seen in Ramesh Sippy's `Gatha' and will play a major role in `Hasratein' fame Ajay Sinha's new serial. But one-year-old Shambhavi keeps this bright-eyed actress off the screen nowadays.