Sushant Singh Rajput lessons!

#178

In over 14 years of blogging I have rarely commented on macro affairs. My blogs are almost always about me, my life experiences, how they impact me in feelings. I don’t have a “personal” side that needs hiding or masking; I am a very average person grappling through life issues. I think it’s foolish to live under a curtain; as long as you don’t share your account balance in your savings account or the passwords to your mails frankly nothing should be PRIVATE unless you are sleeping with different women or persuading another man’s wife to elope. If you pause to think, the world is callous. Nobody is interested in you, much less your stories. You might as well paint an apathetic world with your colours. I blog my stories for a reading value; it gives me clarity is my payoff. 

            Sorry we got distracted in this needless self-praise though entirely not out of place. It got us that “we can be open about our stories to our friends or anyone in the neighborhood” as long as it does not recoil on us. Now to SSR!

            I am not a movie goer, though I did watch “Chhichhor” on Hotstar. It was an average fare, I liked it though not bowled over. For an Indian movie, it was a refreshing but if your usual habitat is Hollywood this is a watchable time-pass ones. Then I heard the news of the suicide on Sunday. It did not affect me. But as I kept following the news on Twitter, I was caught in the heated nepotism debate. Seriously on Sunday the actor’s suicide was news but by the end of Tuesday the dripping poison of this debate had its venom. I felt outraged at the injustice. I saw all those Karan Johar’s slights, or that dumb Sonam Kapoor clips (Sushant Singh Rajput! Who??) and Alia Bhatt sniggering at him (I will marry Ranbir, kill Sushant and hook up with Ranveer) or the maha insult of SSR by shortie SRK and lanky Shahid Kapoor (On a dais of a film awards function, which was sickeningly patronizing) on Twitter. This is not my world, so please stomach my distaste and disrespect to a SRK or Alia or Johars. I never respected their creativity or their work, ever! 

            SSR’s death shows a mirror of our society – it does not respect talent at all. This is something I have been crying hoarse for decades in these blogs. We are self-centered and apathetic society. Maimed beggars at traffic signals does not make us kinder; we callously drive away when confronted with eunuchs and little five years’ girls who carries a baby half her size. I have repeatedly made this point ad infinitum: We are a rat’s society not only in terms of numbers but we also have a rat’s urgency to horde (it hides its food from the prying eyes of others, later itself forgets the place. Such a depraved self-defeating creative). So this nepotism makes sense: an actor would promote his son or daughter as much as a musician promoting his wards or a ex-cricketer making a phone call to the state selection board “Can you please include my son in the team?” This is no different from bribing a TTE for a sleeper berth in a train or paying donation fees to get your 3-year-old into the best convent school in town. I dare say that every Indian is a crook. What about me? Am I snow white in integrity? Fat chance, if Jayalalitha had sanctioned a petrol pump dealership, I would have no qualms erecting cut-outs or prostrating at her feet. 

            Now to SSR. What he did was wrong. You don’t commit suicide if you are out of big productions. Suicide over a love failure is laughable. There are plenty of fishes in the sea. When I was dumped in romance, I was angry but never suicidal. I rubbished her name to mud in my blogs. With time, I realized without an atom of doubt it was a lucky escape. Actually when you ponder there is no reason why anyone must self-deliver unless a terminal disease and you can’t digest your food or you need someone to clean your ass.

            A mind slips into depression when the thoughts get into a cyclic pattern almost helplessly to “I am worthless and I am good for nothing”. But depression sets in those weak people whose inner wiring feeds a strong self-critic. Or those who live on others crumbs or evaluations. These days each of my blogs invariably ends with this leading premise: there is no medicine better than “learning to respect and loving yourself”.  The mind needs to anchor - I am respect worthy, I will not put myself down or allow anyone to put me down including gods or devils or a fuckin Bollywood asshole.

            Imagine I have a story session with a Salman Khan or Karan Johar over my screenplay. I will be nice and courteous. If they were to say, “Sathya, we will get back to you.” I will say my goodbyes in the calmest tone, “You don’t know what you are missing out. It’s your loss entirely.” Even if nobody finds it “movie-worthy”, I can live with it. But on no account I will drool saliva or fawn over them. This is a scene I did not conjure up now for a blog post. I actually lived it. After “O my darling India” was published in 2009 I thought “story writing” would be a natural career option. I dreamed of book signing fame and being interviewed by BBC. But I met a couple of literary agents and publishers that left me so tepid that I threw in the towel. I stopped marketing my manuscripts. I realized that the Indian publishing is pulp while I am semi-literary. My attitude was: "You don’t deserve me or the Indian reading public’s wavelength is too low for me to dig my nose in.” I realized soon that we are a English speaking nation but not a English reading one. I made my contempt for Indian publishing houses so public in my blogs that TOI did an article on my views!!!! I did not stop with this. I took writing samples of a Bachi Karkaria, Chetan Bhagat, Shobaa De, Santosh Desai and many others and edited it for a better read. I had the audacity to send that link to them and inflict a personal humiliation. 
               Even in Abu Dhabi when Mohan was ramming the rod to a colleague’s ass every day I had the gumption to stand up and say, “Sir, I can’t take this verbal lashing every day even if it is directed against somebody. I am quitting.” I walked away from a 2 lacs a month job without even a second thought.  When HDFC bank rejected my loan application after two months, I wrote to the CEO and even the Finance Minister. They sent a team of four managers to my house to placate me!!! Love yourself to such intensity that not even Gods can insult you. Of course they will be many people born to run you down, or find fault and cavil. Don’t believe them and if you are as much a cunning fox as me, they will end up eating out of your hands.

Post Script: Self-respect is something you are born with.  When I was working in Contract Advertising, Blore in 1994 my manager John would twist a knife for a bully, "If the report is not in my table by 9:00 am, you will kiss the job goodbye." I replied, "Teach me advertising for a month and then I will teach you." In 1988 my father was invited to T Subbarami Reddy's daughter's wedding. That man was a film producer and a politician and those in attendance were stars like Sridevi, Jayaprada, Jeetendra and so many of them. I accompanied my dad for the wedding. They had two entrances; one in which he and his wife greeted the stars while the second one was manned by his manager to usher in lesser mortals like my father. I cringed at the slight, refused the dinner while my father went for a bite.  But for me the most vivid memory is Vinod in school. He walked up to Sam Pitroda (during the Rajiv Gandhi government) and said, "Your reservation policy stinks."  Sam replied, "Man, you seem a little frustrated."  When he narrated his incident to me, I asked, "What if he had thrown you out?" My friend replied: I would have taken a front page advertisement in Deccan Chronicle with Sam and my picture next to each other and then say "this man asked me to GET OUT." The message is clear: You don't go out of your way to get into tangles with authority. But if you are slighted, give it back.