Notes on Self

An year old memoir
As usual I was having Bhupeendar Paaji’s Rotis and Aloo Gobi. Back in Mumbai, there was a time when I used to starve for hours, to have more of these Aloo Gobi. Not just me, people of various age groups were enjoying their platter, as if they were imagining that, this one is their first and last dinner. Right then, my phone broke the silence humming the song “Am I Wrong?”, and I had move away to accept the call.
Senior producer Gunjan’s name was flashing on the screen. She had a core meeting with her bosses and the channel authorities want to evaluate the unofficial audition process that was happening in parallel. For that, they have asked her to send them the DVDs of all the performances. In no way it is possible, unless somebody is ready to sacrifice their entire sleep cycle. She wanted a scapegoat, so she called me and asked whether I can go to Ajanta Studio, where the live post production was happening.
I have just left the office and now they want me to go back to work, but without thinking, I said yes with all the excitement. Sensing the happiness in my tone, she was surprised. Or more like stunned. She asked me whether her question was not clear. Frankly she admitted that she was planning ways to persuade me to go to the Post. She reminded me that, there won’t be anyone to assist me as the editors have left earlier. I responded that I knew it before and added that I will send the DVDs via a runner by next day 9. She laughed out loud and said that by all means she has failed to understand me. She is not the first one to say so, but she cut the phone without giving me a chance to fill in.
I don’t mind spending a night alone in a large studio with so many editing suites available. One whole studio is my world for one night, actually I should be happy about it, right? I am totally against those who say loneliness is vulnerability. Loneliness is a beautiful feeling if you are choosing it on your own.
Walking back home, I thought about her words. Mindset of everyone on this planet is extensively distinct. Literally, nobody can understand anybody else. The best feasible remedy is to understand themselves. Secondly, I think everyone should try to understand what the other person has conveyed, or else try to think what the other one meant. Obviously, something else is there between these two poles, but it is better to stick on with one version. If you choose wisely, you will get closer to the truth.
Don’t get me wrong that I’m a chronic liar. I try my level best to be an open book and utter truth. But as others have different viewpoints, I juxtapose reality with a tinge of fiction, to make them understand the situation.
By the time I reached home, these thoughts made me good deep into my head. I thought whether I know myself to criticize others. I tried to look inward and examine my own thoughts, feelings and motives. Mostly, I live in my head. I walk in the clouds of my imagination.
What else, I’m an ambi-vert. Introvert to many, and extrovert to the rest. How did I become such a creature? Even when I was a kid, my room was my world. There I would walk here and there imagining and over-thinking. That was the seed, but I don’t think that is the actual reason.
Naturally, thoughts shifted back to my college days. I was weirdly good at innovative stuffs outside the bounds of the approved engineering syllabus. On the contrary, this actually made me widely unpopular. If those who bunk classes and dunk in alcohol, form the South Pole and those who attend all classes and score good, form the North Pole, then I would be the Equator. I would bunk classes on my terms, but at the same time attend technical programmes and conferences in alien colleges. I was given total immunity to bunk classes, and they were covered up as ‘duty leaves’. So even though I was an upcoming disaster when grades were counted, teachers saw an innovator in me. To be frank, I was laughing very hard secretly. Because most of the times, the basic reason why I attend technical events are to travel and watch more movies.
I think I was too scared of falling down. Else ages ago itself, I would have fought and earned parents’ approval to opt writing as a career. Even though I am stable on my feet, I am nowhere near that dream. All the major moments in my life till that point flashed before my eyes. How I did my part creative and part managerial job as a Digital Media Strategist. How I gained more guts to send my resume and disturb those who work in film and television industry. How I shifted my ‘base of operations’ to Mumbai and start interning with show makers and creative directors. And so on.
I thought too much that one night. It has to be true that, numerous consciousnesses reside in one mind. We just have to let it flow freely. Whatever I am writing now must be somebody else’s words, or maybe they were formed in my head because of the thought processes ignited by somebody else’s words. God knows.
By the time I came out of the trance, I was done with transferring rushes into various CPUs. I lined-up the footages onto each timeline, in separate editing suites. When the renderings began slowly, I walked back to my room. But something was different tonight. Maybe all those thoughts were reminding me that I have to start writing, else I won’t write forever. For a change, instead of watching a random movie, I took a Syd Field’s book out of the mini-library and started reading it.

Future is always uncertain, but who knows, maybe I will write and get better. Eventually.

Micro Love Stories

On account of airing 'The Fault in our Stars' for the first time in the history of Indian Television industry (Oh please bear with the exaggeration!), star movies conducted a hashtag competition in Twitter.

No, I don't usually participate in hashtag contests, but I fell for this one. Because they tweeted that 10 best stories will win Amazon kindles.

            


To be frank, I loved it. I mean, writing micro love stories!
I'm most certain that I won't win, and so I thought atleast I should paste them here.
Do let me know, if you like any of these :
  • Finally, his presence made no sense to her, but my absence did and she came looking for me. Again.
  • At least, her life is stranger than her fiction. Else, why would she hid her love for me in her books.
  • Bride eloped and when everybody failed to console the groom, his friend Tia succeeded. He married her.
  • My puppy Rony is my Marriage Broker. I met her the day, Rony bit her. I had to take her to hospital!
  • He responded that she is his world. From that moment, everybody and everything else became a blur.
  • He thinks her dumbness is cute and fell for her. But she was too dumb to understand it till yesterday.
  • 2yrs is all what she have,but sorry. Falling in love with patient is against medical ethics,but not a sin.
  • On his way to the railway station, he shared a rickshaw with her. And, her destination became his.
  • Before slitting her wrist, she decided to bid farewell to DAD. But fortunately, she dialed DAN instead.
  • When he understood that his priorities have changed miraculously, it hit him. Yes, he has fallen for her.
  • "Hope is a lie!", she scribbled on the last page of the library book. Fortunately, he rented it next.
  • His absence made her rethink and she went back to win forgiveness.


Regards,

Lone Warrior

"Miles and miles to go before I sleep.."

There is a HIT and there is a RUN !

Verdict (in hit-and-run case) on 49 year old B-Town superstar Salman Khan has drawn extreme reactions from celebrities and fans. Even I was busy tweeting and retweeting trolls. To be frank, after verdicts on Salman and Jayalalitha cases, I too lost my faith in our judiciary system. 
Here, I wanna talk about another Hit-and-run incident. An eye-opener for all those celebrities and fans, who supported the drunkard who drove his car over a homeless.
I hope you guys know screenwriter-director Charudutt Acharya, who directed a beautiful small-budget movie Sonali Cable (2014). 
Charudutt is a graduate in direction from Film and TV Institute of India, Pune. Also holds Masters in Feature Film Screenwriting from the Royal Holloway University, London. He is also a recipient of the proud Charles Wallace India Trust Award for Mid-career fellowship artists 2006-07. To survive in the Industry, he co-wrote numerous Indian TV shows and also penned a couple of movies too.
Ahh...Yes, he is the victim !

Charudutt Acharya's Facebook post :
I am a HIT & RUN 'survivor'.
In 1998 I was 28. Newly married. A baby was on the way. Small independent writing- directing jobs were trickling in. I was happy.
October 1998, at 2 in the afternoon, not too far from American Bakery (where the Salman Khan thing happened), a young woman from Pali Hill (incidentally daughter of a film industry bigwig) rammed her car full speed into the auto that I was travelling. The auto turned turtle.

My left leg was an unrecognizable mess. The auto driver, miraculously scratch-less, extricated me from the auto. The young lady and her friend, who had got out of the car, saw the mess, sat back in the car and took off.
As pedestrians were figuring out what to do with a bloodied me, a pair of really strong muscular arms lifted me in a swoop and placed me like a gentle baby in the back seat of a car. His car was all red and messy now. He asked me my number. I did not have a cell number (it was 1998). I gave him my home number and my wife’s name. He took them down as he drove. I was delirious. I asked him if I would die. He said ‘probably not’.
He took me to a nearby hospital and called my wife from a PCO and vanished.
It was long and tough operation. The auto driver came to the hospital and told me that he had got half the car number and given it to the cops. He said sorry that this happened while I was in his auto.
The next day the Samaritan came to meet me. He was an Indian gym instructor in Australia. He told me his story which is quite dramatic and ‘filmy’.
Two weeks back he said, his near blind widower father had run out of insulin. Because he lived alone and the medical store owner had a faulty phone, his father decided to go and get it himself. He was knocked down by a speeding vehicle. It was late in the night and desolate. Help came too late. He had died. This saviour of mine, said he had come down from Australia to cremate his father and was going back that night after the 13th day ritual. He said when he saw me on the road, he had to stop for me.
After two and half months of giving my pregnant wife the run around, the cops finally tracked down the girl. She came to see me at home where I was bed ridden. She said she fled because she feared the people on the streets will do something nasty to her. I asked her why she did not go to the cops and tell them this is what happened. She just said nothing not looking me in the eye. I asked her the question again and she just continued to be silent. She gave me a bouquet of flowers, cried a bit and left.
She was never convicted. I did not have medical or life insurance. I got some basic compensation from the car and autorikshaw insurance companies. So that was that.
I had three more surgeries over the next few years. I have never walked straight since. I live with this partial permanent disability, making do with a walking stick.
This accident cost me. Professionally, financially, emotionally and psychologically. But I have been bloody lucky to have a support system and professional work to do, which has pulled me through. Needless to say, poor people get screwed really really bad.
What I want to say is this. There is a HIT and there is a RUN. A hit can happen due to various reasons including elevated levels of alcohol in the blood. But a run happens when there are elevated levels of inhumanity and arrogance in the blood. A run happens when there is confidence in a corrupt system to back you up. A run happens when you know that money and ‘Bhai power’ can ‘settle’ things.
Salman Khan ran for 13 years. He first ran from the accident site and then did all money and power could do to keep himself running.
As such, driving drunk is equivalent to giving a loaded AK47 in the hands of a chimpanzee in a crowded street. It’s a no brainer @ don’t drink and drive. But it’s a token take away from this case.
This case is really not about drunken driving. It’s about shameless, cowardly running. A macho star running from the ghosts of victims of a ‘single –screen’ class that subsidizes his stardom, and a shit scared, spineless film industry running to absurdly defend the star who subsidizes their 100 crore clubs.
So each one of you who is expressing rage over this verdict and standing in solidarity and support for Salman Khan, picture this.
You were at American Bakery buying jelly pastries for your near and dear ones at home. You step out and boom! A drunk Salman Khan knocks you down. Your one leg is a smashed jelly pastry now. He gets out, looks at you, sits in his car and fucks off.
For 13 years you go through operations, implant failures, infections. You are in debt. You wake up in cold sweat often. You cry when your kids want to play football with you. And you keep going to court for hearings where all the time the large hearted human being Khan says he was not at the wheels. He does not even recognize you. Maybe he even smiles and waves at you thinking you are his fan.
Then this judgement comes. Salman gets five years. Out of which one year gets pardoned for good behaviour. And in the remaining four years, he gets several privileged and entirely illegal paroles to attend parties and chill out like his good pal 'innocent –gun lover 'Sanjay Dutt gets. Or Jessica Lal’s baby faced murderer Manu Sharma gets.
2019. Salman is out in four years, back into the lap of luxuries and stardom. Maybe starring in his own bio-pic.
But YOU continue sit in the ‘handicap’ seat of a bus like you have been doing for the last 18 years. You sit in the corridors of hospital waiting for the doctor to tell you that finally your bone is united. You sit at dance parties. You sit on the beach. You SIT a lot. You sit your entire life out.
So go figure.
*****                    ******             *****               *****           ***** 
Content Courtsey : https://www.facebook.com/charudutt.acharya/posts/10152991965303640

I'm no one to advise celebrities. Let them support him or do whatever they are entitled to do. But my dear fellow movie-buffs, before you side up with rich spoiled brats, take a moment and think. What if you and your beloved ones are the next victims?

~ Lone Warrior



The Game of Life - Shattered Dreams

I have just finished reading 'Ramayana : The Game of Life - Shattered Dreams (Book 2)'. First of all I’m not a great fan of spiritual/mythological Novels and I haven’t yet read the prequel of this book. But it gave me a knock on my head and I have decided to order the prequel! Subha Vilas’s most awaited book, the sequel to his bestseller Rise of Sun Prince : Book 1 is one of its kind, I would say. 

To be frank, this is one such book which will force you to slow down the reading and each bit of knowledge imparted will set forth your thoughts. You might even start to analyze your real life incidents based on mythological events.
Nope, I’m not exaggerating!



The Game of Life series is a nice blend of Spiritual and Motivational elements. He is not just retelling Ramayana through these 6 books, instead it is his way of filling all the blanks or answering all the mystic questions which might anchor in your mind after reading Ramayana.

Book begins with conflicts happening inside Dasaratha’s head.  Followed by, his decision to step down and crown his beloved son.  We all know what happened afterwards, but Subha has provided crisp explanations for all those turn of events till Rama’s exile. It also gives a glimpse of villainous warlord Ravana’s battles too. (It seems, the next book will be dedicated entirely to paint Ravana’s life.)

Subha has given great deal of emphasis to explain the story in every key character’s point of view. Truth is always relative to the version of the story which we believe in, right? Bharat’s agony and emotional outbreak of everybody who wanted Rama on throne are remarkably moving. I’m not sure if anybody else has uplifted Bharat’s character this much. He is not evil queen Keikey’s dear son, but a prince who is forced to pick up the only option left to him, which made me like this book more. The way the versions of Sita and Urmila are explained, is again quite different. 
(Not just Amar chitra kadha, I have read slightly adapted versions of Ramayana and Mahabharatha when I was a kid, like most other Indians. :D )


Oops.. I forgot to mention the main point, the book can be divided into 2. Rama’s tale after his marriage and Subha’s wisdoms in nutshell. I bet, once you finish reading the book you will have a tendency to go back and read all those wise sayings again( and again).

I don’t think I will ever be able to pick my favorite, because each wise point is apt in some or other instance. But hey, I am listing a few of them here :
  • “When humans learn to celebrate each other’s success rather than plan one another’s failure, they develop concrete relationships rather than concrete jungles.”
  • “Confidence is the key to all doors, but overconfidence is the lock to all doors. Confidence leads to inspiration, but overconfidence leads to perspiration.”
  • “When your actions boomerang as reactions, rather than wondering who threw it at you, you should wonder when you threw it.”
  • “Destiny unfolds itself of its own accord. Trying to make destiny respond to our urgency or shape it to our needs is like breaking an egg to hasten the hatching process.”
My verdict? 
Must read stuff. This book is also a small encyclopedia of Management skills! :D


Looking forward to read the forthcoming Game of Life books.

~ Lone Warrior.
Miles and miles to go before I sleep. Godspeed.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!