Amblings of an idle mind

Do you know what it feels like to have a "writers block" even though you aren't a writer? I do. Ask me. So far my writings (and more than occasional plagiarisms) (ehem) have been inspired by something that has hit me strong enough to bring out the strongest of emotions. But I am not particularly clear about what's hit me this time because this time round there are no soul stirrings. There is so much calm and tranquility within. But I don't wish to loose it by not using it. So here I am here with yet another piece of nothing.

There is this famous quote by Paulo Coelho which says “When you want something bad enough, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
This has also been discussed at length in The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. This, according to me can classify as the biggest truth of this century. What boggles me is how does it just "hit" some people while the others spend a good amount of their lifetimes in just figuring it out. Why aren't we just born with this piece of timeless wisdom! And this answers my question too. If we knew it all, we wouldn't be here. The very fact that we are here is because there is so much to be learnt, experienced and lived.

Despite the turbulent times we live in, it isn't rare to come across people who are as calm and tranquil as a human being can be. They must have something in them which makes them that way. Or maybe it is just wisdom they have accumulated over the years which has given them a unique perspective on life and times. The lesser mortals have a lot to draw from such enlightened individuals.

The sense of calm and happiness that floods and drowns you is overwhelming and a feeling that cannot be matched by anything in the world. The feeling you get when you've wanted something bad enough. So bad that you couldn't live a day without thinking of it. And the best part of it is it doesn't end with the death of the initial euphoria. It stays. That, though would not be the case if the desires are materialistic. Money is no doubt essential. You can't live without it. But it isn't permanent. It comes and goes. So it wouldn't be right to give it more importance than it deserves.


We quibble over so much trivia. We'd throw a tantrum if the same vegetable is repeated for a third meal. But if we look at it another way, we have so much to thank God for. There are people for whom even a single meal a day is a luxury. And here we are with more food than we can digest. There are people who long for company and wish hard they had someone to talk to. And here we are finding faults with our best chums because they have a benign flaw that doesn't fit into our description of "perfect". In a world so temporary we'd rather make the most of the moment than regret when it is all gone. Sheer happiness is hard to come by. But when it does, even accidentally so, we must grab it tightly and extract all we can from it. Because in the end, what remains with us are memories of a life well lived. 10 months down the line a lot of things that occupy centerstage now, would make absoultely no difference. So if something is not going to be so important, why give it more importance than necessary and ruin the otherwise perfect day/hour/minute?

If we really sit down and make a list of things that according to us are a must for a happy life, we might come up with ten odd things. Upon greater introspection and several drafts later we'd realize that there are just 2 or 3 things we can't live without. Everything else can be safely done away with. And by saying this I don't mean you compromise on your desires. Some things just appear to have a lot of extrinsic value but a microscopic look reveals they dont have a bearing on us at all. Those are the things that make us happy for a day, a month, a year. Thereafter they loose their sheen. I am talking more along the lines of Priceless and "There are things money can't buy. For everything else there is mastercard" ;-)

Shahrukh Khan Uninterrupted

(Taken from an interview for Mumbai Mirror. Deeply moving and touching. Completely in awe of his thinking. Didn't want to loose this piece hence the plagiarism)

You are now 43 years old. Tell me three things you didn't know at 23 and at 33.
At 23, I didn’t know that I would be an important film person, I didn't know that there is so much goodness in the world, that looks at me with such kindness, and I didn't know how bad an actor I was. At 33, I didn't know that I could play a school kid in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, or a college kid actually, and pull it off. I didn't know how beautiful my children would grow up to be and I didn't know that at 43, I would still look like 33.

• How have your fears changed from the time you were in your twenties, through your thirties and now in your forties.
At 23, I was fearless, I had nothing to lose. At 33, I was very conscious materially about the work that I did, I used to get scared of flops and hits. At 43, I only fear for my kids. If my son is jumping on the trampoline, I'm worried. I again know what fear is.

• Do you ever actually intend to fade out into the sunset?
Sushmita Sen has told me many times that I should sit on my terrace and watch the sunset. I don't know what a sunset is. I have never appreciated its beauty nor have I derided it. I have no essence of sunset unfortunately and I also don't believe in fading away. My father used to say that 'Shama bujhne se pehle, last me flicker hoti hai, glow hoti hai.' I think I'll go off like that. I'd like to make the last century in my retiring test match. I also think actors don't go away, actors are just very courteously shown the door. We are employed, I truly believe, by the people who watch us, not by the producers, distributors and the directors. And for a certain time our employers are very happy with us, and one day, the employers don't throw us out. They just stop giving us important work.They will show me the door very decently.

• Actors often say that competition makes
them more responsible. What does it mean to you?
Nothing, nothing at all, very early on in life I had decided that and I have written it in my book too. I will give you an example of sports because I like sports. I call it the race thought. I have told this to Abhishek and Hrithik too and whenever they feel down they message me to tell them about the race. It is quite simple. If someone runs a race in 9.5 seconds and I run it in 10, even if I want to beat the person I have to still beat my own time. I have to go 9.9, 9.8, 9.7, 9.6 and 9.5, all those are my timings, so in the end the competition is with myself. The race is not about running fast enough, the race is not about running hard enough, the race is about running long enough. Also as I have become a better person, calmer, quieter, nicer, mellow, maturer, I have never thought of competition. And so I have no competition.

• When something good happens to you, who do you run to tell it to?
Nobody really. If at all I do, it's to my children because I feel that they are avatars of my parents. I know that's untrue, but I believe that. There's an old song which says that 'when you finally come knocking there's nobody home' and that has happened to me. I have gotten over this desire to tell any one. Now my attitude is 'Ye khatam ho gaya incident, lets move on.' Right now my son, my daughter and I, we count our medals and have fun but they have more than I had when I was their age. But then schools have become more liberal with awards too.

• When you need a bouncing board, who do you go to?
If it's about films I go to Adi (Aditya Chopra), Karan (Johar) and Farah (Khan). Otherwise my thoughts are all here in my laptop. I just put it down there, then read them back as if somebody is telling them to me. I write a lot, just thoughts, now this is going to be a part of my book. Creative thoughts, I tell my team. I don't really discuss my thoughts with anyone. Not even my family. I am quite
reclusive about my thoughts.
• You always say you are shy…
I'm very shy. I think 90 per cent of what I do as an actor stems from the fact that I am a shy person. At my own home, at my own parties, I'm out of place. Maybe, being the second child, I just turned out a little more shy. I am shy of women, and I'm shy of new people. If somebody asks me a personal question, I still blush. I have to take my kids if I have to go to a toy store. I can't go anywhere alone, shop or travel alone, but put me on stage, before 10 lakh people and tell me to talk about life, and if I know an audience wants to see me, and know me, I can easily do it because I'm then someone else. I'm just an employee of this fantastic super star, not as talented as some other people, not as good looking as some other people, not as tall as some other people, but he is good, I like working for him.

• When does SRK the star sleep and when does the man wake up?
Whenever I'm by myself. I am a very simple boring type of guy just like Sunder Sahni in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. That space has been given to me by my family and my friends, they allow me to be boring. The star awakens when you put a camera in front of me. We are genuinely two different people. I say one thing and I believe it, and I have another thought about the same point too. Its not that I am dichotomous, or I am hypocritical but I just believe both the points of view. Mahesh Bhatt always told me that "you are schizophrenic" and yeah maybe I am. I am a controlled schizophrenic on the loose. Now as I am getting older I can understand it.

• How do you avoid the ivory tower syndrome? Do you even want to?
When you don't have an ivory tower, you want to build one around yourself, I actually have it, and so I am at peace with it. I just do my work. My work requires me to spend a lot of time with the people that I work with, so I am really a little out of touch with other people. But that does not mean I am out of touch with reality because I know where I have come from, what I am, what humility and education my kids should have. My shadow should never overpower the personalities that they have later on in life.

• Have you ever looked in the mirror and not liked what you saw?
I'm not very vain, once I have worn my make-up, I don't even look in the mirror. I am not extremely in love with myself, neither do I hate myself. I don't even comb my hair if I am not shooting. Once I bathe and shave, I don't comb my hair. People at one time used to think that I am a metrosexual male. I don't even understand that. I'm not given to anything that is vain, in terms of beauty treatment or whatever. I don't even use a soap or shampoo.

• How has the perception of fatherhood changed for you?
Like I just said I fear for them and for me, like I never thought of life ending for me suddenly, but I think of it now. I am like 'I hope these guys get enough of me'. I truly believe the cliché that there is nothing as satisfying as being a parent. I was driving two to three hours every morning for the last few days and one of the thoughts I had was, "Ghar aacha hai, aache picture bhi bana li hai, stardom bhi hai, paisa bhi hai, awards bhi hai, sab kuch hai and phir bhi karta ja raha hoon and never has the thought come to me that I should stop this because with all this is another thought that "mein yeh rokoonga to karoonga kya? The word actor defines me. This is what I am. But then a thought came to me that what if I stop working right now, I just dedicate myself to waking up in the morning, getting my kids ready for school, dropping them to school, wait for them to come back, spend a little while with them, study a little with them, try to put them to sleep, play games with them, I can lead the rest of my life like that. That's what fatherhood means to me. My kids complete me. I love the purity of kids untouched. I like their rudeness and I like their goodness. They are so politically incorrect and they are so pure.

• How do you see the difference between lonely, alone, loner? Which defines you?
Lonely is nothing but a state of mind. You can feel lonely when you wish to, you can call upon lonely whenever you want to feel sorry for yourself. Lonely is your best friend who does not even need a phone call. It's the fastest deliverable commodity as an emotion in the world. You can prolong the period, you can shorten it, and you can bring it back. Some people also use lonely as an artistic expression. I think it is really a tool of self pity with a nice word.I don't know if it's the right way to put it, some people by nature are aloof and listen to a different drum beat, they dance to a different music and they are happy. Loners are happy people. Lonely can be unhappy because you wish it to be. But loner is a guy who is not dancing to the music that you hear. So loner is nice, and when I want to intellectualise it, I can be an intellectual loner. I call it reclusive. Alone is a good space. It is not lonely and it is not dancing to a tune. I think alone is something that you should utilise, as meditation, as self-analysis. I like being alone, a couple of hours a day or an hour a day. I do that in my bathroom. And not necessarily doing the things you do in a bathroom. My family knows about it, it's a joke that Shah Rukh spends lot time in the bathroom. My bathroom is like a living room. My wife has made it like that. She says you are going to sit there hiding from all of us, then you might as well as well sit in a chair. I just relax and read a book. Sometimes I take a telephone, or a video game. I just sit down and I empty my mind which is also known in modern terms as unwinding. Alone is just to be. It is very important for some kind of a creative process also. Its also great to re-energise yourself. Alone is good, lonely is pathetic because it is self-inflicted, and loner is intellectual reclusiveness. Of these three I am mostly 'alone'. And to turn a phrase around, 'At the top it's always like this, not lonely, just alone.’

Welcome to Human Networking!

“Cosmos Conspires”. This is one of the phrases a friend used to use all too often in conversations. I always found it very intriguing. Now I see the truth in these words more than ever before. The rich tapestry of the Almighty can never be matched by any of our plots and plans. If you’re supposed to bump into someone, you will, and in ways you never imagined possible.

It was just another morning, which found me flipping through the newspaper. I chanced upon an article about a writer who had just published a book in my city. The title of her book caught my attention but what really got me interested was the name of her blog and I made a mental note of visiting it when I logged in. And when I did, I was hooked. Line and sinker! (To the way her beautiful thoughts flowed). I left a tiny comment on an article I really liked. At that point in time I wasn’t aware of any details about her. For starters I wasn’t aware of the fact that she takes out the time to respond to every possible comment. Even though they are all the same and had I been her, it would elicit a yawn and make me go “Not again!” The next day I happened to go back there and voila! What do I see! A comment from her on my comment (By that time it had dawned how famous she was, so I was naturally thrilled to bits). This went on for quite some time, with me religiously reading her write-ups and she being gracious enough to acknowledge.

An integral part of every interesting story is the element of surprise. And so it was here. We got talking and casually inquired each other where the other stayed. We discovered that not only were we based in the same city but lived a few blocks away from each other. Then one fine day (ok it was day 2 in our conversation) she asked “ Don’t you live in Flat number X-YYY?” I jumped out of my skin! I didn’t know I was that famous already! It turned out that we shared a maid as well who had spilled the beans :-D Uncanny right? If you were to come across this in a Hindi film, you’d shrug it off as a typically cute planned encounter between the protagonists in the story. A chuckle still escapes me when I think about this, but I know for a fact now that art does imitate life and how!

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to have met her in person. She exudes so much warmth and goodwill that it is hard to not get infected :-) Yesterday, for the first time I felt what it is to be in awe of someone. I have never met anyone of her stature who despite being so famous, is so down to earth. Reading her blog makes me feel like I’ve known her forever and makes my blog seem so redundant since whatever has been buzzing in my head for so long has found a way in her writing. And I know for a fact that I can’t express myself as eloquently and with as much elan like she can. She has no airs about her that you’d expect someone so great to have. Today I keenly skim through the newspapers noticing the names of writers (something I didn't do earlier) and eagerly point out an article written by her to may parents. As enthusiastically as if I had written it.

She is one of those rare kinds who you’d want to know more and more about and never loose touch with. She is Ms. Preeti Shenoy