Shivani Bafna is an Indian-American influencer, entrepreneur and YouTuber. She has worked as a TV host on Asia Variety Television, interviewing everyone from movie stars to major film producers. She also founded the “Behind every dream” community where people share and celebrate their success stories with her on her podcast. She claims to be the second generation of the Indian-American Bafna family and has over 174,000 subscribers and her YouTube channel has clocked Rs 3.33 crore in views. She is also a TEDx speaker and her talk was broadcast on January 21, 2021.
Wiki/Biography
Shivani Bafna was born on Friday, January 5, 1996, in Houston, Texas (26 years old; as of 2022). She lived there for only six months before moving to another city with her family.
Shivani Bhavna’s childhood
As a child, she was obsessed with Bollywood and wanted to be a Bollywood actor or a doctor. She loved dancing and learned it. At 15, she also worked as a dance teacher. For her education, she went to Solon High School in Solon, Ohio. She then went to the University of Michigan’s College of Letters, Science, and the Arts to pursue a bachelor’s degree in art, communication, and media studies.
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′2″
Hair color: black
Eye color: dark brown
Photographed by Shivani Bafna
family
Parents and siblings
She is the daughter of Shamik Bafna and Shalini Bafna. Her father, who was born and raised in the United States, was in the residential business. She also has a younger brother named Shreyansh. She is the granddaughter of Kailash Bafna, who immigrated to the United States from the Indian town of Gopalpur with just $7.50. He laid the foundation for a fruitful future for Shivani’s father, who was also born in the United States.
Shivani Bhavna and her family
husband and children
Shivani met Shyam in college and they connected when they became dance partners at the college’s Diwali performance.
Shivani Bafna and Sham’s first picture together after Diwali show
A friendship ensued, and after four months of being friends, they finally started dating. When she moved to Mumbai two years later, things were not progressing between them. So they broke up, but that didn’t last long. After six months, they decided to give up their long-distance relationship and connect again. A year later, in January 2020, Shyam proposed to Shivani in Paris in an elegant Bollywood style.
Shyam proposes to Shivani Bafna in Paris
Their wedding was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and they finally got married on December 25, 2021, in Mumbai. It is a grand Indian wedding with all the Hindu rituals at the center. After their marriage, they moved to the United States and settled with Shyam’s parents.
Shivani Bafna holds wedding ceremony with husband
Religion/Religious Views
Shivani comes from a Jain family and is a Jain herself. In a Q&A video on her channel, she addressed her views and said:
I think my parents did a good job of presenting religion in a way that didn’t seem too forced. My father is an agnostic. Although he believed in Jainsim, his core philosophy was always to be a good person every day. So I think the values that Jainism offers are definitely set at a fundamental level.
Profession
She followed Miss Malini Publishing and found out in February 2014 that they were hiring interns. She put her resume together and sent it to the company via email along with some samples of what she had written. She didn’t get any response, so she tweeted to the company but didn’t hear back. She checked the company page and saw the founder’s name was Malini Agarwal. She has tried all possible combinations for Miss Malini Agarwal with the domain name missmalini.com. She tried all these combinations and sent an email to all of them until her email came through and finally she got a reply. Thereafter, she started her career as a blogger in June 2014 with MissMalini Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai and worked here for nine months till February 2015.
Shivani Bafna worked during MissMalini Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
As an intern, she had a lot of responsibilities including covering press events, trailer launches, interviewing Bollywood celebrities and writing content for MissMalini’s blog. A few weeks into her internship, she covered an event with one of her favorite actors, Shah Rukh Khan, and took a selfie with him.
Shivani Bafna first met Shah Rukh Khan while interning at MissMalini Publishing Pvt.Ltd.
During this period she also shot for several fashion catalogs in Mumbai. In July 2015, she started working as a Social Media Marketing Intern at Everymedia Technologies Pvt. She is working in Mumbai Ltd and completed her internship in November 2015. In June 2016, she began working as a Client Solutions Intern at Kepler Group in New York City, completing her internship in August 2016. In September 2016, she joined FirstPerson in Indianapolis, Indiana as the Strategic Cooperative Area, where she worked until December 2016. In May 2017, she started working as a brand marketing intern at Whirlpool Corporation and worked here until August 2017. In June 2018, she thought of joining AVS, the only media company in the United States doing anything related to Bollywood. She started emailing the company but got no response. She browsed their website and took note of all the team members. She emailed them, tweeted them, but still got no response. In one of her videos, she talked about how she got into the company and said:
I looked up the owner of AVS TV on Facebook and found out that he and another guy are really good friends. I won’t name names because it’s a privacy issue. So 19-year-old Shivani thought, hey, if I don’t get into AVS TV, why don’t I apply for an internship at a friend’s PR agency? Hoping to do a good job and get good recommendations, then I might get into AVS TV. If this friend was looking for an intern for his PR firm and he was going to the New York Film Festival and he was only in New York for two weeks, I would reach out to him.
She excelled during the two-week program and received great recommendations, which ultimately led to her being offered the job at AVS TV. Here, she began working in the New Jersey office, doing tasks such as website content creation. The next summer, she went to intern at AVS TV Mumbai and started her summer internship here. She worked three jobs during that time. From 11 to 8 she worked in an advertising agency and would find excuses to leave the office to do interviews with AVS TV. She also modeled for auditions and would do it at night. After her internship ended, she returned to the United States. This time she came to the United States to apply for a corporate internship. She began working at Kepler Group, a human resources consulting firm in Indianapolis, and also worked in brand management for Whirlpool in Marchigan. In 2018, she finally moved to Mumbai and started working as a Bollywood TV host for AVS-Asia Variety Show, which became a turning point in her career. In this show, she interviews over 200 actors, filmmakers, influencers, musicians for North America’s largest South Asian entertainment program. The show also airs in syndication on Sony TV and has a large international audience base. In the show, she served as the host and interviewed Hrithik Roshan, Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt, Salman Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Khatri Starring Na Kaif, Anushka Sharma, Kareena Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Varun Dhawan, Prabhas, Ayushmann Khurana and other actors. Kartik Aaryan, Sidharth Malhora, Ananya Panday, Kiara Advani, Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Rampal, Sonam Kapoor and many more. In this show, she also interviews filmmakers and musicians including Zoya Akhtar, Rajkumar Hirani, Nitesh Tiwari, Nikhil Advani, Rajakumari, Badshah, Armaan and Amaal Malik, among others.
On April 19, 2018, she launched her YouTube channel and started sharing her experience of working in Bollywood. On this channel, she shares her journey as a Bollywood TV host, influencer, actor and model. Here, she also shares all aspects of her life, including everything from travel vlogs to relationship videos. She resigned from her job at AVS in March 2020 to continue working on her own projects. In July 2020, she founded BFN Agency, which develops end-to-end influencer marketing campaigns and currently has a network of over 250 influencers. In January 2021, she also founded “Behind every dream,” a popular podcast available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iTunes.
Favorites
- Food: Spicy sevpuri, achar and rajma chawal with raw onions
- Dessert: Chocolate covered strawberries and cupcakes
- Cities: Mumbai and New York
- Movie: Kabhi Kush Kabhi Jam
Facts/Trivia
- She calls herself a person who always feels cold and loves summer.
- She was also trained in Kathak dance for six years. The second thing she learned was piano, and she practiced it for seven or eight years.
- When she was in sixth grade, she traveled to Mumbai, India, to spend the summer with her aunt (maasi) and her grandmother.
- She can speak English with both Indian and American accents.
- She calls herself a weirdo, a prankster who likes to take long naps.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education