Reaching There

Happythankyoumoreplease Living in the moment is considered a big deal; after all  it makes us happier . It has always intrigued me how it looks like to be in the moment. The sudden change from being outside to being in the moment . Acting coaches always stress on being in the moment . An actor can create the most wonderful of emotions onstage with a burst of self-awareness.  It is the time when nothing can go wrong; imagine Sachin hooking McGrath to a six across the stadium longest boundary. All the forces seem to mysteriously come together and create an invisible cloak of confidence & flair. I remember a couple of days back I muttered a highly excited yet muted "Yes" when I succeeded in something at work. It was great! It happens to all of us and at least a few times a week. It doesn't have to be public; it can be very private moment too. Nonetheless, I must add that to achieve this feat onstage is remarkable. Emotional nakedness is more daunting - say...

Susan Cain's Quiet Ever heard a voice coming inside of you? It makes you wonder who is this person speaking to me and sounds just like me. Some movie-makers have tried to visualize this voice as that of our consciousness (remember the scene from the movie Guide where Dev Anand's character battles between the two sides of his voice ). So Easy to Drown the Voice It is easy to drown this voice in the constant bombardment of “entertainment” available at the click of the button. I have these urges to write down a piece of prose or a poem. I open my blog to begin a post and few seconds later I am on Youtube.com going through some random videos! I can kid myself that it is part of the research, but my voice knows it all. And it goes into a hiding. A World that Ignores the Introverts I am reading Susan Cain’s Quiet these days. Some of the things surprised me and others created a feeling of discomfort. For example, a young man trying to give a few good ideas; but t...

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...

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...

E veryone has gone through times in life when something got stuck in the head like a pin. It just refuses to go away. Arrrrghhh! I can't handle it anymore! I am losing it! #$%& it! Remember these times? I clearly do. This happens to me a lot more times than I expect it should. Well, we're only human, you know. These are the times when you go out for help. Some find help in lonely bars with a lots of glasses of numbness. Of course a huge headache and guilt awaits them the next morning. Some are a bit saner they find another person to help them take through these troubled times. I would any day prefer the later. But sometimes life is cruel and help isn't handy. These are the times when it seems to 'go out' for help, isn't possible. But, is it so? I beg to differ now, especially after hearing what Tom Cruise (yes, the actor) said in an interview which I watched recently. I didn't expect to learn this from a Hollywood actor, but I did! T...

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...

Note to reader: If you're looking for the book Jim Carrey referred to in the interview, I have had on luck in finding the book. So in case you came across this post for that answer - I'm sorry this post is not about the book but something he said. So if you're still interested, please do read on! I recently saw an interview of actor Jim Carrey on Inside Actors Studio. All of us know him as the pet detective in Ace Ventura, or the crazy guy from The Mask, or just as the most versatile comedian of contemporary times. However the interview showed me a whole different side of the actor. He turned out to be a lighthearted guy with a deep understanding of human nature.  Towards the later half of the interview James Lipton spoke about a movie called, 'I Love You Phillip Morris'. It is based on the real-life con artist, impostor, prison escapee; Steven Jay Russell; who falls in love with a fellow inmate; Phillip Morris. The movie portrays the same-sex story of ...

The best way to start anew is to start simple yet big! Simplicity is attractive in any form; whether it is the simplest form of an idea, design or even a human being. It carries with it the power to affect thousands when complexity restricts itself just to a handful. There are numerous examples around us where a simple idea became a big time hit! Whether it was Apple's iPod, Google's home page or Indian " jugaads ". Ideas like Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent movement, Nelson Mandela's efforts on reconciliation (forgiveness) or more recently Juan Mann's free hugs campaign were simple yet powerful enough to carry their effect through the human biases. The inherent infectious nature of these real simple ideas leaves us happily vulnerable to unknown outcomes that always follow them. As I welcomed 2011 into my life I was asked by someone whether I had any new year resolutions. A confession here, I am not a resolution kinda guy. But that set aside I thought why ...

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...

For most of us the best days of our life were the childhood days. Everything was fresh and exciting. A piece of paper to a toy gave us a world of endless possibilities. Each and every moment we were ready to learn new things. Almost nothing felt boring. Lack of ideas or no time for play was boring! God! Everything felt like a source of endless possibilities. Success, failures, disappointments, anger, selfishness and other emotions just felt like a phase that would bring something and then go. Fast forward twenty odd years ahead, you're in your twenties nearing thirties (or any age you are in). Life has become a drab and you are pushing your way through it. A piece of paper is just a piece of garbage. A toy, I can't even understand now why I played with those "things"! The moments of learning have given way to a seemingly endless race of fighting for the next level of success. The excitement of finding something new in small things has faded away and financial wants...

I know, it's a very catchy title for my post. Julia Roberts and Elizabeth Gilbert are probably two of the most famous names from the field of arts. These two artists have risen to pinnacle of probably the two most toughest forms of human creativity; acting and writing.  These two forms of art require large amounts of inspiration as well as perspiration from the person trying to pursue it. And interestingly the unemployment rate is highest in these fields. However there is a certain attraction that draws thousands of people to delve into their lives and bring out something new through acting and/or writing. (A trivia; Julia Roberts is starring in the lead role for a movie based on Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir called " Eat, Pray, Love "). Although there are lot of things to learn from these artists but they do form an epitome of a characteristic that has shaped their magnificent careers. Julia Roberts If you think of Julia Roberts you would probably think about the...

Source of Inspirations for this blog post. -Peter Bregman's article on Harvard Business Review -Dead Poet's Society -Mark Ruffalo If we look back at our life so far we would always pull up a list of things we should have done. This list of should haves' and could haves' has always bothered us. But do we have to carry this burden continuously? The answer is of course, yes! This is burden is ours' and ours' alone. Whew! That's a lot!    This brings me to my next inspiration. It is a movie called Dead Poet's Society. In it Mr. Keatings (played by Robin Williams) talks about getting a chance to write a verse of our own in the book of universe. As Pushkar Bajpai I am being given a chance to write something new every day. Although some of it may have already been written by others or others' words have inspired me. But every word I write down I am aspiring myself to elevate to the next level. This aspiration inspires me and fills within me an ener...

Another of my post inspired from an episode of Inside an Actor's Studio featuring an interview with two time Academy Award winning actress Hilary Swank. This is an interview series which gives me a chance to look into an actor's mind and try to understand the philosophy that has brought him or her to this point of realization in their life. Hilary Swank talks about forgiving herself as an actor when she is not in the moment i.e. is when as an actor she cannot feel the character she is portraying. This feeling of being connected or rather being in in the character is of utmost importance to get the true performance. But sometimes actors concentrate on the "disconnection" too much that the connection just goes whirlwind. She asks us to be forgiving in those moments. Asking yourself, that now I am not in it so how do I get back into the moment again? The ability to forgive ourselves and focusing on getting back on track again. This is a situation we always face in ou...

Be yourself, be natural, don't be somebody else. We all have heard these words sometimes in our lives or at least have reached this realization based on some experiences. Like you I too have thought about this sometimes in my life and work. The meaning of being yourself or being true to oneself sound a bit abstract concepts. Can it be explained in easier terms? Recently watching Jodie Foster's interview on Inside Actors Studio, she said something that stuck with me. Jodie Foster on being asked a question about what should a new actor should show the producer to get his or her foot in the door. It sounded like a sensible question to ask. I am curious about what others' are interested in seeing in me that would make them like me or hire me or marry me! In others word I am generalizing myself for others' convenience. I am aligning myself to what society or media has deemed to be usual and suitable to be liked or hired or married. Before wandering too far giving my own ...

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...

Inside an Actors Studio: Steven Speilberg I recently watched Steven Speilberg's interview on James Lipton's Inside the Actors Studio (on youtube!). One of the biggest piece of adivce was his answer to how he direct child actors in his movies. There are quite a few movies in which his story was told from a point of view of a child (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Empire of the Sun). He answered "I don't treat them like children I treat them like my peers". He further added that the moment he begins treating them like children he would become the overbearing adult. This gave me an indirect lesson on how manager or a team leader should treat his team members. He should treat them like individuals who have their own individuality, personality, aspirations and emotions. He should respect their existence in the team and listen to their opinion with a "porous" mind. The reason I used "porous" mind because such a listener gives the oppor...