A few weeks ago, ‘Who the hell is Orry?’ was the first question to pop up each time anyone scrolled through any Bollywood content. For the uninitiated, fashion influencer and Bollywood insider Orhan ‘Orry’ Awatramani has been ubiquitous on the film industry’s social scene for a while now, often spotted hanging out with actors — and his ‘BFFs’ — Janhvi Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan and Ananya Panday.

But in November, the 28-year-old socialite seemed to embody ‘everything, everywhere all at once’, posing up-close with familiar faces at every high-profile celebrity event.

Despite this, no one had any definitive answers as to who he was. Online searches for [sic] ‘who is orry’, ‘Orry kon hai’ and ‘what does orry do’ rose significantly. Between October 21 and November 11, ‘Orry’ searches saw a 67x spike. By November 26, the day of his special appearance on Bigg Boss 17, searches for ‘Who is Orry’ reached peak popularity. The majority of traffic was interestingly from unexpected places such as Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Chandigarh. Searches for [sic] ‘Who is Orry Awatramani parents’ and ‘Orry net worth’ spiked too.

AIB’s former head writer Devaiah Bopanna believes Orry is playing the Kardashian fame game. “I don’t doubt Orry when he says he is a genius marketer. He knows exactly what he is doing — meme your way into mainstream pop culture and celebrityhood, and then spin it off into one or many multi-million-dollar businesses,” he recently wrote on Twitter.

Orry has already begun spinning that ‘fame’ into brand collaborations. In August, Netflix used the curiosity around Orry to promote its film, Heart Of Stone, while in October, Bumble leveraged his perceived lack of relatability as the premise for its ‘I’m Just Like You’ campaign (a script Orry says he wrote).

Cred’s Kunal Shah says teaming up with Orry for their latest ad film was a natural extension of the experimental approach that the brand is known for. “We’re known for doing different things, not just working with known celebrities. We’ve done animation and music, and the Orry ad was just one of those experiments,” Shah says.

Netflix and Bumble declined to comment for this story.

For marketers, part of Orry’s allure is the large number of social media followers he has. “In the last 30 days, his Instagram has gained over 3,00,000 followers and collaborations with global, well-known brands such as Netflix, Bumble and Cred gave him more credibility,” says Nick Baklanov, research specialist at influencer marketing platform, HypeAuditor. “I would say that his collaborations now can cost about $30,000 to $50,000”.

An Instagram post on his feed is expected to cost about $670 to $2,000, while a story could set brands back by $300 to $1,000.

The man in question, though, says the sudden spotlight on him isn’t a marketing strategy; “It’s not planned,” Orry says.

But he does acknowledge this: He’s either always thinking about or working on his brand. “I know the DNA of the Orry brand — what’s on or off-brand. I know how to manipulate a photo, sell a story, make a dull moment shiny and shiny moments shinier,” he says. “I know how to sell you the dream that you don’t have and the dream that possibly even I don’t have.”

So far, Orry has deflected questions about his education and livelihood with seemingly meaningless quips like “I work on myself” or “I live life, so I’m a liver”. Some say that by maintaining a secretive aura about his life, Orry is milking the curiosity around him.

But he disagrees with this assumption. “Somebody once said about me, ‘He is by far the most public person in the world but [is] still private’ — I really like that. Between Snapchat and Instagram, I story everything. You’re with me almost 24 hours a day,” he says.

“I recognize that this glamorous world isn’t available to everyone. I’m happy to share it with my followers, but I’m not obligated to answer anything. If you say I’m an open book with a few pages that are stuck together, I’d say the book isn’t over yet. The questions you have will be answered as we approach the end of this novel.”

The 28-year-old is adamant about not answering questions about his family and is quite cryptic when it comes to revealing how his friend circle was cultivated. “I’ve met them [the celebrities] along the way,” is all he says, rather mysteriously.

However, independent marketing consultant Karthik Srinivasan believes that maintaining privacy about parts of his life is par for the course when building a personal brand. “Usually, people misunderstand ‘personal branding’ as ‘being out there’ or ‘being 100% authentic’. But it isn’t about living one’s life 24x7 in front of the world,” he says. Instead, it’s about cherry-picking aspects and consistently projecting them, so that people remember the person for those.

“In Orhan’s case, the mystery element of what he doesn’t talk about comes directly from the celebrity connection. It’s less of ‘Who is Orry?’ and considerably more of ‘Who is Orry who is seen next to X [a celebrity]?’,” Srinivasan surmises.

Experts say that enigma alone can take a brand only so far. Image consultant and integrative personal counsellor Benaisha Kharas Dongre says, “Curiosity sustained for too long can develop into frustration.”

“Curiosity or mystique would be a good hook to get people interested, but once they are interested, it needs to be fed with something tangible [over time],” agrees Srinivasan.

A case in point being when Frooti rebranded itself in 2001 and created the character ‘Digen Verma’. That was backed by a multimedia teaser campaign that intentionally omitted the brand name, generating massive curiosity. “But once it was revealed that he [Digen Verma] was a character created to promote Frooti, people’s interest waned, which is the danger with any brand that is hyped on the basis of curiosity,” cautions Sumanto Chattopadhyay, former chairman and CCO, 82.5 Communications, Ogilvy Group. Finding ways to up the ante with surprises that fuel curiosity can help a brand sustain for longer, he adds.

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Orry is very clear about what Orry is. The brand isn’t meant to be elitist or luxury; it’s meant to be fun. “To me, the Orry brand means ‘I do what I want’,” he says. There was a lot of disbelief, he recalls, when he decided to appear on Bigg Boss.

“I got a lot of comments saying, ‘I’m disheartened; your brand is meant to be luxury’, and I’m like, ‘No babe, my brand is what I want’,” he says. Appearing on the show was the best decision he made, he adds. “It catapulted me to a different level. Earlier my audience was more of the elite South Bombay or South Delhi, upper society people. However, after Bigg Boss, I have been able to share my creativity with a much larger audience.”

“There’s no such thing as bad publicity. When people ask ‘Who is Orry?’, it means I’m doing something right; something I’m creating is resonating with them. Yes, there is frustration — who the hell is Orry? How can he be in Paris but also in Bombay and also on Bigg Boss? — but all of that frustration has only added to my branding,” he reveals.

“In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes,” Andy Warhol supposedly said once. Orry sees nothing wrong with this. “Becoming famous for the sake of being famous is an art form and possibly the most difficult one there is; you’re creating something out of nothing. Playing the relevance card is a lot tougher when you don’t have much to leverage.”

“Let’s not lie,” he says, right off the bat. “I have had the honour, privilege and blessing of having a few best friends in Bollywood and I value them for sharing their spotlight with me. The Kapoor sisters [Janhvi and Khushi] and their father [Boney Kapoor] have shone a spotlight on my creativity and humour but my incredible network is not the only reason I’m here. Otherwise, any celebrity’s best friend could be where I am.”

“It looks shameless to self-promote but there is no shame in self-promotions. If you don’t put yourself out there, no one else will. You have to be greedy in your ambitions,” he says.

It’s the content that drives him over a brand, he says. “Of course, I would love to work with a Cartier or a Chanel, who wouldn’t? But I don’t wake up and dream of collaborating with a particular brand. For me, the biggest draw is the script,” he says, adding that he would pick a smaller, lesser-known brand over a big brand if the script was right.

So, what’s his favourite script? Cred’s ‘Black Friday’ campaign, he replies, adding, “That was a genius script. And it showed in the engagement; I’ve never seen a post where the number of shares equals the number of likes.”