Back from my Sabbatical !

So another cute guy inspired me to write a blog entry again. (Siddharth, the Striker Diaries, Passion for Cinema).

Life is so unpredicatable. The last two months has gone by in a roller coaster ride. Nowadays it seems like days come and go with a drop of an eyelash. The beginning of December went by in final preparations for Bharat Rang Mahotsav where I was the Festival Co-ordinator for our theatre group. The end of December went by in rehearsing for our new play. Then January arrived, and before I realised the Delhi trip was over and we were in Durgapur for our residential workshop. Things were happening so fast and so many things were happening in such close proximity to each other that it seemed like I was caught in a constant haze. Then came our premier show at Minerva. THE MINERVA. Where once upon a time Royal Bengal Tigers like Utpal Dutt and Ajitesh Bandopadhyay roared on the stage in jam-packed gallery productions. There we were, with a unfinished, unperfected piece of work, which was inspiring none-the less but not with a single member of Uhinee being completely sure as to the final outcome. I particualrly was scared, terrified, petrified. It was Minerva, I had my first substantial bit of acting to do in a production of our Group on a Proffessional Stage, and I didn't have my final set of complete costume till the day of final performance. I was unsure about my exit, unsure about my scale of acting, unsure about my character's mental state of mind. The chorus bits were easy as there was always someone to follow, to take the lead from. But when I stood on that stage with my only co-actor, I felt strangely lonely. The lights were on the two us and when I turned to the audience to deliver a few lines I could make out the fine outlines of the audience sitting in the dark. Like silent sentinels seeking my blood. No, I didn't get cold feet. But yes, I was scared.

When does a person know what he or she is destined to do in their lives?

Does a proclamation come from heaven ? Do the elements of Nature all get together to declare the moment of clarity? Or does the walls slowly close in so that you can only look upwards ?

I know I have no proffessional future in theatre. Nobody has any proffessional future in theatre, not in Bengal, not in India. One has to act in films, one has to work in the television industry, get a government job as a banker or a teacher or a proffessor...but can I?

I dream too big. sometimes Alice keeps me awake, pulling me towards her Wonderland, sometimes Peter Pan whispers soft temptations of Neverland. Then there is always Tagore and Ajitesh and Keya. I do not recognise most of these characters, I still am so conventional that a fellow team-mate's sexual rampage at a team hotel leaves me emotionally broken for days, I am yet to read enough plays. I do not know how to design a portfolio. I do not know how to walk out of this Chakravyuh. Yet I dream.

I dream of a life where there shall be no routine. Where everyday will be a new day to create something out of thin air, with the powers of human imagination and the labour of human body. Where I can someday bring the man bored of his life into a space where he could for a while only breathe, breathe free.

There is no romance in my life at present. And yet there is. Sometimes it all seems like a foolish dream. Sometimes it seems foolhardy. I get angry when I think of tomorrow, about the blankness. I get angry when I am asked questions by my family, my loved ones. And yet I do not get angry. I hear the horns of the buses and autos plying around me on the busy city roads. I hear the birds call on the eucalyptus tree beside my apartment window each morning. I am alone. There is no doubt. But my intellect is not lonely. Only my heart is.