The Actor who wasn't

"Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame, when exhibiting yourself. Glory, when you can forget yourself"- John Gielgud

Most often we download a torrent or buy a ticket, sit comfortably popping in pop corns and watch a movie. And the moment the credits role, don’t know where it comes from, but even the dumbest of minds starts shooting out criticism that the director could have done this and that the climax could have been altered etc etc. And mostly it’s the actor who gets torn apart despite him just being a projective of the director’s thoughts. But one has to be in the actor’s shoes in order to find out how difficult it is to be one. I’m saying all this coz I’ve been there, done that :p

There is this friend of mine from college whose passion is to be a director and has done a lot of amazing short films for which he has won quite many prizes. One night he came to my room saying that he has come up with a new script and made me hear it. The plot is about a young couple giving guidance, using their own experiences, to a guy who has just fallen in love. The twist comes towards the end (BOOM) that the couple involved had actually committed suicide years back and it was their ghosts which were playing along. I told him that it’s too good after which he gave me the BOOM for real saying that I’ll have to play the male ghost.

Playing a ghost wasn’t totally new to me as it was just recently, I was part of a little documentary named VISITOR where the audience had an ironical feeling of having a good laugh while watching a horror movie. So I was apprehensive not to repeat the act and screw the plot but he managed talking me in. It eventually took more than a week before we actually shot in Coimbatore. The one starring as the female ghost was one of my close friends,extremely beautiful, smart and lovable. The first location was a crowded park, Sunday,surrounded by a dozen of spectators where we had to dance for a 1980’s kind of duet with freaky steps and angles (Equate the embarrassment).

People close to me know how unexpressive a person I am (the kind who remains silent on hearing a joke even when the whole room laughs to tears). So naturally we went for multiple takes just coz of me while she could well have qualified for a lead in a Mani Ratnam movie with the confidence and charm that she exhibited. After almost an hour, I managed something worthwhile by dimming the curious on lookers from my vision and trying to imitate TR’s grooves in Veerasamy. The stuff didn’t stop there but it went on with looking in to each other’s eyes, dancing around trees, close ups wit flowers and more. As we wrapped up, I had accounted for more number of crazy things in a single day than I had done in my entire life.

The next portion of the movie came out extremely well for me as I had to be a human looking ghost giving advises and recalling old days with not much expression and a low tone (natural act). With this we completed half of the shoot but the real challenge was the remaining which had to be shot in the college corridors as I already had a tough time facing my classmates’ pranks since they heard of this thing. Sunday helped, with not many ppl seen in the corridor. I had to go behind her and propose with a lengthy exchange of dialogues (it helped me understand that I wasn’t great at remembering lines as well). Time had the answer and we got it done with the camera guy rotating a hundred times to get it captured (thank God, he did).

But unfortunately we couldn’t complete the movie as we had an indefinite closure of college due to a strike and since then hell became heller with ppl even getting expelled from hostel for shooting short films (which according to the CS HOD is synonymous with hot films). For good or bad, the film remains incomplete and the actor in me stays dormant (thus paving way for the world to live beyond 2012). But what I learnt after this is that an actor shouldn’t be criticized unless you are an actor yourself as he is doing a far better job than what you can. No wonder why they even become Chief Ministers, It’s an art. An art, very few master.

Selfish Selflessness

There are like a very few instances when you are really tempted to pick up a pen and start penning down those moments immediately. This is one such thought that occurred to me today. For all those BITians who know me, you know how jobless i’ve been over the past few weeks but today wasn’t one such day as i had my first review for my project this noon(Not that i had to work a lot, it’s just copy pasting, but still ) So i had a little time before starting to college this morning and the best thing was that there was power ( Lol, we live in this crazy hostel where the power is there during college time but not during breaks). I happened to rush through Bachna he Hasseno and got to hear this startling one liner that Ranbir uses to woe Deepika in the climax, LOVING YOU IS LIKE LOVING MYSELF.

How sweet! I know we love ourselves much more than we love anybody else but there are a few instances where you realise that watching someone else being happy makes you feel far better than rejoicing for your own selves. And getting to have such a person with you doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve known this person since a year back and henceforth i’ve never regretted even a single moment spent with her. Yes, her . She has been a friend, companion, sister, care taker, PRO as in pupil relations officer (she publicises me telling ppl what she feels i am, but what i think i’m not), a compatriot and everything else.There is not a single day that goes by without blurting out my worries or hearing her shower endless compliments that my entire archives is filled with texts from her(a whole 50MB of text).

Though i’m like ten blog posts old, i haven’t had a better reception as my first one even if all the others put together. Guess that’s the catch with tragic love stories! lol. So coming to the point, there is nothing much interesting in life than one’s first love. Like me, this girl that i’m talking about also had, has and will cease to have her first and only love, with an amazing guy who is no less to her by any means (say rab ne bana de jodi). They love each other like crazy and i don’t know if it’s my first blog or what but i’m always called to play the peacemaker in case they have a misunderstanding, most of which are silly to the core. But that’s the best part .
There is just something about them that makes it so hard for me to resist being reminded of my girl and the incredible days that i had spent with her. Everytime i think of what went wrong with me and my girl, i wish i could take back a few things that happened between us, which i know is mere impossible. But in these two people, I see what i missed out on. I wish they don’t make the same mistakes that i did. It makes me feel like they are living my dreams and fantasies which i wish would have been happening between us if we hadn’t broke up. So if they are happy today, it’s like i am happy. I know it sounds crazy but yes, that’s how it is. A selfish selflessness. Well, have you experienced anything similar? Think.

PS You Love Them

Today I accidentally got to have a look at the letters I addressed to my dad and mom years back as a little kid residing in a boarding school almost 350 km away from home. Let me write down one of those letters for you exactly as it was.

My dear mum and dad.

How are you? I am fine and happy over here. How is the climate over there? Here it is good. I celebrated my birthday. The dress was very nice and the greetings. We are going to black thunder as a picnic on Saturday 12^th September. Charge 150 they will put with the bill. My quarterly Exams will finished at 20^th September. You should come on 21^st September Warden Miss said. How are all at home? Write a letter to me as I do for you. Pray for me as I do for you. I end this letter with lots of love and kisses.

Your loving Son.

The letter was dated 7-9-98, when I did my 3^rd std and was in a scribbling hand writing which even I found it difficult to read. There was also a crappy drawing behind in pencil that I had drawn(God, I really didn’t know what that meant no matter how hard I tried, so I gave up. May be I’ll upload it on FB for you’ll to decipher it). Just felt so much amazed and went on to read the rest of the letters dated since 1995. The bolded part in the above letter was standard in all of them which made me wonder if the climate was always good (Wish I can still add that part to my letters, sorry e-mails). And I think the words in the letter are far high for a 3^rd std student. It brought me a lot of memories from the good old past when life was limited within the fences of my school. My dad has all those letters filed up in the locker and values them more than all the money that he has earned over the years.

I agree it really is wonderful to catch up with any of our friends wherever they may be with just one click but what we miss is the days when we send a letter and eagerly wait for a reply from the other side. Today when there’s a friend’s birthday coming, we get alerts on our homepage on which we leave a post on their wall, leave them a text msg or send them an e-greeting which is standard for everyone, from acquaintances to our best friends. Where is the time and care that we spend on identifying the best of greeting cards from numerous others and address them to our loved ones with loads of care!

Though the Tele-communication era has made our world a global village, the truth is that it has distanced us in terms of the love and affection that we share for each other. But it is so heartening to know that besides all the 2G, 3G and S Band spectrums, we still have our age old India Post functioning and we still receive a few telegrams, personal letters and greeting cards. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone (no, not OD letters. Lol). My humble request is that, give it a try, spend some time, script a hand written letter and address it to your loved ones ignoring all the temptations posed by the 21^st century and witness how content you feel and also make the addressee feel. So what’s holding you, pen on J.