Reaching There

Sucking Big Time (second from right) S hucks, I sucked in this scene! This is the first thought that rushed through my mind when I had just finished an improvisation, playing an old man talking to his friend. I somehow had a great gut feeling that I sucked big time. I can't do this thing they call "acting".  My teacher read my face. He looked at me and said, “If you fail trying, your efforts are appreciated at the least. If you fail because of negligence you are mocked." So the ball was back in my court, and the big lingering question was, “HOW DID I FAIL?" I failed because I tried something which was different than my usual self. I wasn't negligent. Due to my inexperience I couldn't strike the right chords. I tried and I failed. I am happy I tried. So I can't be a good actor if I fail? Nope, acting is the chance to fail. In failures lies the magic recipe of success. The more I hit the wall the more I'll learn about the char...

The Lovely Bones The Lovely Bones This is a movie which you can sit back and enjoy the superfluous imagery it builds in front of your eyes. You will completely miss the underlying theme of conflict, pain and love. Or if you manage to take a closer look at the eyes of the actors you'll notice the sorrow and beauty of the story. It took me a second look to go beyond the visual grandeur and let my mind absorb the message the movie is trying to shout out. The message that has managed to seep through the corners of my mind is of hope and love. It sounds simple but as we know wisdom is supposed to be uncomplicated yet as elusive as the shooting star. There is a silent victory hidden in a loss. Hidden beneath the layers of disappointment and sorrow lies a small victory. In the movie Susie Salmon (played by young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan) traverses through the maze of the world "in-between" she comes across emotions ranging from disappointment to vengeance to pain and f...

The  ego  gropes in darkness, while the Self lives in  light   Sometime back I wrote a post about my writer's block . I just couldn't create a new piece of writing. Although there were thousands of thoughts jumping inside my mind but I was unable to latch onto one. This inability leads to frustration which made the process even more difficult. Anybody would tell this period of inactivity is unavoidable. And my mind has been under the influence of this atrocity for over a month now. The coupling of helplessness and uncertainty leads to stagnation of not only intellectual growth but the emotions took a beating as well. In a writer's life these periods are as common & unpredictable as the seasons in a year! The last post was about the symptoms and after effects of this disease. In this post I would walk through the cure for this. I must admit the inspiration behind this post came from my father. On reading my previous post he said something that st...

Actors talk about their performances as the best when they were in the moment. Meryl Streep in one of her interviews says she likes to research a lot about the role and when going to act she tries to forget all about it. In this way she is letting her instincts guide her through the process. These instincts were developed partly from the research she did and partly from her own previous experiences. Similarly for us learning about ourselves plays an important role in living our life. Unconsciously we gather a lot of information about us during our daily life. We learn about our tastes, likes, dislikes, allergies, passions, weaknesses etc. But when somebody questions us to list our strengths and weaknesses we draw a blank! Why is that? We believed we knew what we are. But we struggle to describe ourself, our passions, our goals etc. Jagadguru Kripaluji Maharaj in His discourses talks about the real "me". In ancient Hindu scriptures the real "me" is the soul while bo...