Reaching There

Friends and I A short poem dedicated to my Kanpur days at CSJM University with my friends Abhinav, Ajay and Anupam (in the order of descending roll numbers in college). This poem is part of my effort to explore the poetic side of me ( if any ). This is poem simply about trying to find the  ephemeral  stillness in this super busy world. It goes something like this: I stood in the stillness of a square, with all the traffic whizzing past me. People inside boxes on wheels, trying to get to somewhere else they can be. Watch out, move over, get out of here! This is all they say. Nobody waiting for a moment, too busy to stop a while and  just enjoy the stillness of a wild stare. I miss those days, I would look at the bright blue sky. Just a few friends and an old scooter. Sipping a slice and taking our sweet time to give world a blinding glare. Lying in the bed with a few puffs  floating around in foggy air. Taking...

I was doing an improvisation scene with another actor. The objective of the "improv" was simple; to do a small talk with another actor with a motive to get money out of his pocket. At first it sounded like an easy thing to do; go out there and fleece this guy.  So I went in on the stage with "the goal" dwarfing everything else in my mind. A few minutes into the scene I was struggling for words. And why? I was too focused on my motive. The motive was handicapping my thought process. During the postmortem of the scene my teacher gave me the reason for my failure. I wasn't listening. I was too busy keeping the motive alive in my mind that I missed listening to my co-actor. Eventually I didn't have anything to react to! Robert Downey Jr said he hates motive, during an interview on "Inside an Actor's Studio" (a TV show I am a big fan of). I was definitely too engrossed in my motive to even think about anything else. Maybe it is good...