Writing He published his first collection of poetry,
Aameen by
Rajkamal Prakashan, in 2007.
Aameen is a
Ghazal collection explaining human values and human relationships. He won the
Dushyant Kumar Award from
Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Akademi for his debut poetry collection
Ameen in 2009, followed by International Pushkin Award in 2011. The fourth edition of Aalok's Aameen was released by
Namvar Singh and
Javed Akhtar at the
New Delhi World Book Fair in February 2015. He published his second book,
Aafreen, a story collection published by
Rajkamal Prakashan in 2012. It was released by Chitra Mudgal and Uday Prakash in
Johannesburg,
South Africa in the
World Hindi Conference. It was well-received by the readers and critics.
Harish Naval writing for
Navbharat Times, placed the book,
Aafreen in the list of '13 Most Popular Books of 2013'. He has performed poetry in various countries, including
United States,
England,
Russia,
Kuwait,
Bahrain,
Qatar,
South Africa and the
UAE. His works have also been translated into various other languages, including
Russian,
Gujarati,
Marathi,
Urdu,
Maithili languages. He has written lyrics for the 2011 film,
Patang, directed by
Prashant Bhargava, followed by writing the lyrics for the 2014 documentary film, ''
Can't Take This Shit Anymore and the thriller film Vodka Diaries'' (2018). In 2020, he also wrote songs for
A.R. Rahman's musical drama film,
Atkan Chatkan. He has written theme songs called
Dhadak Dhadak Be Dhadak Dhadak for
Agra–Lucknow Expressway and
Na Jaam, Na Jhanjhat for
Lucknow Metro. These songs were made for the
Uttar Pradesh government and were directed by
Kushal Srivastava. He has written the song
Watan for
Doordarshan and
Prasar Bharti, which Javed Ali sung and released by
Prakash Javadekar, the
Minister of Information and Broadcasting in August 2019. His poem,
Mai Naye Bharat Ka Chehra Hun, which he wrote for
Doordarshan, was recited by
Amitabh Bachchan and was launched at the celebratory event of the 60th anniversary of
Doordarshan in September 2019. His music album
Eternal was sung and composed by ghazal singer
Jaswinder Singh, won the AAMA Award for the Best Album Of the Year. Aalok has also written the lyrics for
Anoushka Shankar's album,
Traveller (2012), released in the US and was nominated for
Grammy Award. In June 2015, he released his
Ghazal album,
Khwaabon Ki Kahaani, sung by
Pankaj Udhas. Some of his other notable music albums includes
Eternal (2016) by
Jaswinder Singh and
Noor (2018) by Sudeep Banerjee.
Journalism Aalok worked with media organisations like
Aaj Tak,
India TV and
Doordarshan for almost 15 years as a print and television journalist. He began freelancing for
India Today and other newspapers in the 1990s. He started TV journalism with
India TV in 2005. In 2007, he joined
Aaj Tak and produced significant TV programs on religion, sports, politics. In July 2014, Srivastav joined
DD National, a state-owned public TV channel, as National Channel Advisor in 2014. == Bibliography ==