When are you getting Married ?

Once you touch 30s the question becomes relevant. For the longest time I had maintained I do not want to get married, for one there is no one special [this discounting the emotionally compromised state of being in unsolicited Love, in that emotionally compromised state, I do have someone special but..... ]. Let it be said that I do not want to end up with a women who will resemble my mom, even remotely! My family of course do not talk about it, my mom knows my predicament vis a vis marriage, also knows that should I get married, she is certainly not getting 'our' company! But nothing will please them more than knowing that I think about it, sometimes! 

I get extremely disturbed by emotional turbulence, many can multitask, I can't! Under emotional upheaval I m a deer caught in headlight, frozen till it passes, which is MONTHS. Thus I refuse to get into a situation that fucks me up in the head. What it means is I can't be 2 timing anyone, I can't Lie, it's too much of a hassle, it's easier for me to self control. I know for a fact that I need emotional peace to thrive. Thus all blonds, drama queens and neurotic women can take a hike! Also all damsels who love their distress can forgive me, if you are not full of life and focus ONLY on the negatives then get a "rondu". The other important reason is "I am not qualified, as yet, to even think of marriage"

It is here that almost everyone disagrees with me, I believe I m still a nobody to get married, most elders, don't see it that way! For them you don't get married AFTER you are a somebody, for them [Ford Copolla included] marriage forces you to be "somebody" for the other person! Suffice it to say we have a difference of opinion. I understand what they say is ALSO correct. Fortunately for me, I am not facing a ShahRukh kind of a situation where the my girl is getting married and I have to prove myself quickly or lose her! No one is waiting for me....          

Context specified, I m writing this blog becoz recently was forced to spends a fortnight in a village and a bhabhi, who couldn't get over her HERO Deevar [her words] was obsessed about my marriage. She of course had unsolicited advise that I should marry someone beautiful and that I should not make that decision in haste! It became hard to explain it to her that being physically beautiful is not even a criteria! In my list of things, it is not even in the top 3. I do not think like those punjabi aunties who obsess about physical beauty nor am I the guy who needs an arm candy to SHOW OFF or feel good about myself, any decently good looking person is good enough.  It is hard to explain to ppl that I just need someone with whom I will be happy. With my egomania, bloated self image, self entitlement and my cancerian moodswings thats a tough ask! I have SOME idea of what that person should be, hence I m jotting it down here for my own clarity so that i do not fall for cognitive bias!

In my book the 1st chapter is called 'achievement', this excludes all run of the mill, average JOEs out of the equation. Educated from a nondescript college working a regular job, waiting for a Rich/Handsome guy, DOES NOT QUALIFY! Mirror shattering beauties were never my fantasy, not in school/college or now.

Did you ever pursue something worthwhile? Did you have the guts to make sacrifices for it? Or u just chased experiences in School/College/Profession? I don't think I can respect a person enough to Love [let alone marry] if she is just bidding her time, getting on with what life has to offer! 

The 2nd chapter is "Stake in your Success" I want to be the person who is emotionally invested in the success of my girl and vice versa, that will exclude all eternal sceptics. Yes I am in the film industry and yes success here attracts a lot of chics/chikkas but weak willed and cheater were never used to describe me [4 years of active college politics and i have heard many unsavoury things about me but these]! I am not some starry eyed teenager who will be swayed by shorts and cleavage, even as a virgin teenager I was better than that !!! 

I don't think sexual exclusivity is the be all and end all of emotional bondage. I am quite alright [for the other person] with "discreet" escapades that has no emotional threads attached and is not a public knowledge that stares me in the face. If I am lucky [O and I am indeed blessed wid gud fortune] I will have a relationship like Frank and his wife [House on Cards]. Where the women will inspire me to achieve greater heights and where I can motivate her to do bigger things. It will be a relationship based on Mutual Trust and Respect, there will be no place for lies. I hate liars [I hate lying], can't stand it, no truth is more hurtful than a lie. Will hav a relationship where lying won't be needed.

Thus to even consider it, I have to be SUCCESSFUL first, the world doesn't owe me shit and the same rules apply to me. Else in my own head I DO NOT QUALIFY! Luckily for me, people in my industry can marry late and it is full of women who are sweating it out and refuse to be 2nd best. Many women writers, music directors, actors, producers, directors are at it ! People outside, understandably, are sceptical about filmy guys, so don't know :((    

Being physically beautiful is a low hanging fruit and was never a criteria. At a certain age, all you have to do is stay in shape, be groomed and take care of your skin and hair, I know it is not EASY but it is a low hanging fruit nonetheless and is achievable by anyone with decent amount of money, will power and self restraint. No I am not over simplifying it, in youth we all look good, some better than the others but we can all look our best merely by changing our lifestyle! For me to be attracted to someone I have to be intellectually attracted and have to be able to respect her FIRST. I also demand to be respected and loved back and for that I have to earn that respect, be somebody!

The other logical question then is how do you say "now I am successful", when life is an endless pursuit of goals .... You do have to live while you are pursuing your dreams and that both can easily go hand in hand. I have thought about it, but to each his own ... I like to give the analogy of going inside a Cave .....no distraction, nothing to put the blame in case of a misfire! I wud like to believe I have the determination of a Suicide Bomber, the pursuit of an Aghori Sadhu.

For me I have successfully chased a few dreams [notice the plural] I were passionate about. I did chase them down and none of them were achievable when I embarked on that journey. So in my current scheme of things I have to chase my first goal of professional life and make a gud film. I do not mean a 100 crore grocer or a UTV/Disney/Balaji movie with major stars [those are not gold standard of quality but are dependent on market forces beyond my skill/control]. I just have to make 1 good film that does well financially and is appreciated too! I have to be proud of it.Long story short I will consider myself successful when ppl in the industry know who I am AND wait for my movies. 

I certainly believe the movie I m working on now has all the ingredients to make a successful movie, I am also secure in my own skill set to make that happen, so lets hope for the best! Should it turn out the way I want it to .....I will be ready to talk of getting married, as of now don't even mention that word ! 

There are of course ambitions beyond the Film Industry but Clean Energy Projects can wait for another 15 years atleast! 

             

Romantic Films

Just saw "Wedding Crasher" and Loved it ! It,s a romantic film. They make it so good, even a skeptic like me believes it. I love romance. Everyone loves a good romantic story, it appeals to the goodness in you. However, it does paint an idealistic picture, the fairy tale ending. But since most romantic stories have ended happy some of us believe it will turn out well eventually [if it is true love], this belief system is hammered in our brain through timely reinforcement. We begin to view the world a certain way, expect true lovers to UNDERSTAND and TRUST and everything else .......  To give you an example when was the last story you read/saw that told you Crime pays ? In movies and books for every 1 story where crime pays there are 100s where it doesn,t and the reality is exactly Opposite. Crime does pay, unfortunately, society has created so many checks and balances that for an ambitious guy it is ALMOST impossible to be a gamechanger being an honest guy.

Coming back to romance, we as human beings are so vulnerable that we trust extremely late and mistrust rather easily. Once the wind is out of the sail, it never really comes back, we just get lost in the crowd, meet new people, blame the other person, never take a hard look at ourselves, AND even when we do we just try to work our way around the other person [basically manipulate].

So in the movies there comes a conflict in the second half , trust/family/personality issues and then that gets resolved .... In the real world it seldom gets resolved ...if ever..... with time it might lose the sheen but it,s never off ...So if u have trust issues with someone , you will never trust him/her again ...Forever !!! That Romantic story met a tragic end ....Even if the parties appear to move on ...it is still lurking somewhere in the background and will rear it,s ugly head.

Like everything else a happy ending romantic story is like any other field, you have to grind , work at it , and even then you might fail ....As i saw the movie and loved the sugar coated ending ...it was important to write this down ...... and not get brain-fed shit.

P.S. I do believe in love and romance !!!     

Daaru Desi

In one week i heard about two stories both had a drunk guy at the end of the phone .

In one story there is this guy who asks a girl out for a coffee, the girl denies [pehli baar main haan to nahi hi karna hai {her words}]. The guy asks her number and a week later this guy calls her, 1st call is a  drunk call and talks for an hour ....asks her to meet him the next day ... The girl says [to me] " i don,t want another mess up in my life " 

In 2nd story a guy hears something from his girlfriend, which goes like this ... An ex boyfriend is buzzing me and has called me up drunk .....this guy here is drunk [i m told that is usually the case] and believes everything he hears so much so that he wants to "talk" to the ex on the phone ... 

One just has to see both these events from an unattached perspective. 

Here is a story from my childhood, i must be 11 or may be 10 , it is my kaka,s 1st anniversary, my aunt is all ready, my mom and my bua are super happy, we have good food prepared, the ladies are having a great time, slowly the clock ticks to 9 and then to 10 , all the festivity is gone. My bua and mom try to console her , she says nothing, changes her dress and goes to sleep. Even for a guy 10 years old i knew that this was horrible. My uncle came home late night [arnd 12], all sloshed ..... Nobody said anything. 

I love my uncle and he loves his wife.

Hearing both these stories i felt sorry for the women who will marry these guys, one out of 5 of these guys will be an addict. What it means is this [from personal experience]:-

In all major events the guy will be sloshed, at public events and family gatherings he might puke and/or embarrass his wife in front of guests. [Has happened to one reader of this post at a family wedding] 

The kids won,t respect the father which, in almost all cases means a broken family.

In most cases there wil be cases of wife beating, should she nag him when he is drunk. 

In many cases he might turn up on the doorstep beaten up or being dragged home by police/autowallah.

My aunt does,t allow any of us to sleepover at her house because she does,t want to risk a scene.

Now i don,t know about these two gentleman but even if they are twice the man that my uncle is [and my uncle is a gem] even then, the girl is screwed. 

And yet most women will still marry a guy who is regular drinker because they believe it won,t happen to them [o, btw, if loyalty is ur thing, well u know wat walks out of the door when ur drunk]. 

Here is the wishful thinking "everyone drinks [says who ?]" "it only happens to the lower class/uneducated [yeah ofcourse....]" "he loves me [in that case u deserve it]" "i will change him [yeah ofcourse]" "he drinks almost daily but in limits [yeah we will ask u wen he is 40]" 

So if ur a girl reading this, just look at this group of guys who are regular drinkers and know that 1 out of this 5 is a sure shot tragedy, within 5 years of the marriage your condemned to a life of eternal emotional pain and embarrassment. 

If u love ur man too much to risk a lifetime of misery for 3 years of romance ....sure go ahead, in that case it,s ur Kismet . 

It is easier for a girl to not be an alcoholic, but in a guy,s world if u drink casually [not strictly socially] then slowly u will be a part of a group that drinks regularly and that group will binge drink more regularly as they grow old, one of them will be an alcoholic.  

I know atleast one girl who says she can,t marry a guy who doesn,t drink, she says, he will be boring. I wish i could show her the trauma we have been through, i don,t wish it even on my worst enemy. The risk of being a bore is rather a small one.
  

Hero Hiralal

I took an auto from office to home 7pm , this auto wallah was a young guy. I was dressed in the usual filmi attire with head bandana and all . When u take an auto from Aaram Nagar and have long hair it means ur either a model [if u have a decent physical presence] or may be a writer. So this autowallah asked me if i was an artist [ an informal word for actors ]. I said i was a writer [ i dont introduce myself as a Director to strangers, the reaction is too much of a trouble]. This is wat he said

Hero Hiralal : Sir ek baat poochay bura nahi maaniyega

Nikhil [thinking] : {O boy ....not another casting cough question} Poocho

Hero Hiralal : Suna ki film sign karne say pehle Director Producer log heroin ka izzat loot leta hai

I just laughed so hard at the innocence of the word "izzat loot leta hai" I was no longer irritated at the question and instead of answering my usual "aapko kyon matlab hai essay" i said "hum log to writer hai hum log abhi bahut neechay hai par aisa hota nahi hoga"........

It was a long conversation 1, 30 hours and the entire conversation was if ppl fucked for role ....

Next time i m not a filmy any time some stranger asks me 

When I played Butcher

This is a small incident from my childhood that is a character building event, will explain why i m writing it here.


Growing up in a small town [think wasseypur, although it was not a muslim dominated area], getting chicken was always a big deal [this is before boiler chicken became a household name] so the only ppl who would sell a chicken were some from muslim family and since only a handful families had chicken to sell, it was seldom available to be bought. One fine evening, we bought a chicken from our backyard it was available to be sold and my aunt bought it. Normally they would sell you alive chicken. Butchering it was the job of a male member. In our family it would either be my kaka [chhote cha cha] or his best friend Sahjaad Chahcha , both of them were absent. No male member of my family or anyone in the neighbourhood was available. Now my aunt [badi mummy] was born and bought up in Nepal [to indian parents] and she had exposure to all kinds of wild lives [even in our house, snake was a usual presence, whenever you had fish in the house snake was a sure thing] and had killed snakes, frogs, chicken and what have you. But even she refused because now she was a mom now and hence she couldnt do it. So she asked me to butcher the chicken, she would guide me. Being an enthusiastic kid dying to eat chicken, i was happy to do it. So I butchered a chicken, under her guidance.  My uncle later heard about it smiled and said "ladka bada ho gaya hai" Sahjaad chacha gave me a treat, of his hand cooked mutton.


Not every male member of a family goes to a butcher,s shop to buy chicken or mutton. Buying mutton is especially tricky, only my kaka and me do it, not my dad not my cousin golu, nor my bade papa. So today i went to buy mutton, it was a khossi [a kid lamb] and had just been de-skinned. Clearly a few other processes like cleaning intestine and cutting off some cartilage had to be done, so i stood there and was thinking about my own non-issue with butchery, remembered Bill the Butcher and the Qureshis from the movies. I have seen people who can't see an animal butchered, it,s not a sight for the faint hearted, even the mutton shop owners do it discreetly. I have to admit i have never seen a religious animal sacrifice so my only exposures to butchery was in my early childhood. Atleast i think is a character building experience slaughtering an animal, firing a gun, getting in fist fights, being beaten to pulp, spending a night in Jail etc etc ... Beaten to pulp or spending night in jail is yet to be done, i missed my chance in the Anna aandolan, and havent been beaten to pulp but yeah have been beaten to a crooked nose.              

Life Is Beautiful

Wow..... 8th July will indeed go down in my history as a historic day, saddest day of my life, can't share it here or with anyone. Blogged so that i remember the date and my feelings. 


The most shocking news come to us unannounced, it not anything like in the movies, there is no heightened emotional impact so to say. It just hits u and u don;t even know what part of it has hit u. You just become numb. 


Life is complicated. I know i m blabbering ..... Don't want to write more..... can hear my mom weeping in the drawing room.  

The Last Samurai 

Let me clear it at the onset, I admire everything about Japan minus sushi, can't think of eating fish raw. I was introduced to japan by the book "The Way Of The Zen", reading about it i came to understand the Zen mind. The bare minimum requirement is a "still" mind which is only achieved by long and conscious effort to tame your mind [every book says thats the toughest thing in the world and hence only a few do it]. But Hinduism and Zen differs post this first step. In our culture once you have achieved stillness of the mind you are expected/encouraged to be religious but in medieval Japan or China this was not the case. Once you achieved stillness of mind you could really do wonders for the society and hence people were free to use this concentration and discipline to achieve goodness in any and everything. Hence you find a lot of titles like "Zen and the art of motorcycle repair" or "Zen and Archery" "Zen Garden" "Zen Painting" etc etc .....

Anyways coming back to the movie Tom Cruise kills a Samurai Warrior in battle and the Samurai lord captures him alive and puts him in captivity to learn the ways of the western warfare [guns and cannons]. Samurai lord puts him in the house of his sister whose husband was killed in battle by Tom Cruise. The way this subplot in the movie is handled really touches my soul. Ofcourse the lady of the house develops a soft corner for this foreigner [movie hai bhai]. But the way this is done totally nails it. There is no romance, but admiration and respect. As a storyteller i am interested in the way romance is tackled on celluloid.

The movie does well to exclude any moment of physical intimacy and that is why it is so great. At emotional level we have all experienced the feeling to extreme care and love for someone and that often is a driving force towards physical intimacy. This might not have a romantic tinge to it, for various reasons. This is the trickiest of all situations and I do intend to touch upon this subject in some of my films. 

Here is a plot . Say, there is lot of affection for a friend, this relationship has reached it's zenith.  Few Subplots will follow this plot line. It has either got to get romantic from here or it will decay. The last sentence has been used and abused by bollywood, the classic tale of best friends becoming soulmates. BUT, say you don't want this person as ur romantic half, for whatever reason, but you don't want the relationship to decay! Subplot 1 : Guy proposes[ i m a guy so my pov], girl disposes, reason "he doesn't, love me, it is just a momentary weakness, i know him well enough for it", here the relationship will fizzle out, because nobody accepts refusal, this subplot can further go on if the girl later sees this decaying and wants the guy back and hence "the three words". But the guy won't agree now, one because of his ego and second because he had long accepted the fate of this relationship and so now this has come too little too late. I hope the same story repeats when the genders are exchanged, meaning the girl uses "the three words" first and the guy denies it. Well ofcourse, different genders will react differently to the refusal.

Subplot 2: Both know this is as far as a platonic relationship will go and hence they need to up the ante, but both are mature enough to understand that the first line of action [forcing love on the other person] will not work. The only other option is a "friends for benefit"scenario but here it becomes tricky too .....how to go about it in a way that nobody gets hurt emotionally, most people will either come out of it as a pervert or easy, depending upon who makes the first move. The easiest scenario is to get drunk and let it happen. But what after this.

Subplot 2a) It can't be a one-time thing, can it truly be no strings attached ? If they haven't put a "label" on it some miscommunication will result vis a vis the possibility of any romantic interest for a 3rd party. This will result in jealousy and heart burn. Hence there will come a time when you will have to nudge yourself to fall in love or it will end, and this time with lot of heart burn and feelings of betrayal. This is the classic case of whoever blinks first loses.  

Subplot 2b) It's not a one time thing but both sides know the traps of 2a and hence they agree to discuss about it. I think this is only possible between same sex couples because a girl will expect the guy to understand it without her having to speak anything on this subject, in most cases she would prefer not to even acknowledge the sex thing in the morning, but that won't work beyond 2-3 times. The guy would want to talk everything about it so that the girl doesn't get any wrong picture and this will be a possible doom, if he does it after the first time.  Even if they do it, the choice of words will make or break the relationship and i m sure lot of people would have been in this scenario. 

So talking about it is too risky. 

2c) The only possible scenario in which this will end happy is either they both genuinely understand that they want each other badly enough and this is what love is [mast filmy happily ever after]. A popular movie plot line example "Friends for Benefit"

2d) The physical distance between them increases, may be a change of city or country, in this way they won't actively witness a third party entering their lives, and, can continue their affection whenever they meet [which will be too infrequent to discuss about] but here too, even if they romantically see a third person the chemistry between the two should remain the same, else it will end. This arrangement can cause some problem if the girl lets her "socially conditioned" mind question the sanctity of sleeping with two guys, loving one and liking the other....

Plot 3: They are in a platonic relationship and refuse to take it further, risking the decay, one person marries or falls for a 3rd person. But since there was no closure in the earlier case it will be an emotional roller-coaster [hum dil de chukay sanam] or the famous plot line of Gunaho k Devta [the most sold hindi novel].

The best thing would be to realize the truth "everything that has a beginning, has an end Neo" but then you won't have a story !!!! 

To tackle all the plot lines together can be achieved in the dramatic premise similar to "he is not that into you" 4 couples etc etc ..... don't know when ...but some day i will tackle this subject.

P.S. I don't proof read before posting a blog, you don't proof read your diary right!... So don't judge me on the form but on the content.