Yes,,, I know I haven’t updated my blog for a few days now. I was crippled by what most writers choose to face when they are lazy – writer’s block! I was concerned about what I would write next and I got a text message from Pooja asking me to come for a screening of a short film by a fresh filmmaker, Akshay Roy. She had seen his film `The Last Dance’ a few months ago and was hosting an evening in his honor where she called a few friends (and the media) to showcase this young filmmaker’s fifteen-minute jewel of a film. It was a light but moving short film dealing with the loneliness of two old people. I was in tears with the sheer simplicity of its moments. But that’s not the point of this blog. As I sat there after the screening with enthusiastic youngsters, cynical journalists, eager (for bytes) media persons, I was staring at Akshay trying to figure out what really motivated this young man to make a film of this kind with a handsome budget of four thousand (especially after assisting Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta and Farhan Akhtar). I kept thinking about it the whole night and this morning my music teacher (Sripati Hegde) put it in perspective for me! I happened to show him (my teacher) the three DVDs of Abida Parveen’s concerts (a gift from a school friend). As I was discussing them I confessed that I was feeling a little demoralized after watching her performance because I don’t know whether I will ever be able to achieve even a fragment of what she does at the rate I was going. He smiled, “The first lesson my Guru (Pandit C.R.Vyas), taught me was never to follow him. God puts a special quality in every voice he creates… Even after my twenty years of full time singing, there are certain things your voice can achieve that I cannot reproduce! When somebody teaches you, he is just doing the job of finding that something special and polishing it! So just learn the basics and then follow your own heart… Only people who have done something new have been acknowledged!” and that brought Abida to mind instantly… She is the only woman in the world who sings the dargah devotional music publicly. Till she came along, this form of music was restricted to men! Even the stalwarts of Indian classical music, like Kishori Amonkar and Ajoy Chakraborty, salute Abida’s genius! “And mind you, these are not artistes who are impressed with perfection… they are moved only by originality!” Sripati explained. And that’s when it clicked! What separated Akshay from the rest of his generation was his originality! Of idea, of casting, of production… everything! In a world of assembly line products, he had managed to create something that was simple, moving and yet gripping! Everyone said last evening that he was a talent that would go far… But to discover the originality in your self is also to reject the temptation of constant bouquets and embrace the brickbats! As Bhattsaab summed it, “Akshay’s journey from the alone to the alone has just begun!”
And I thought to myself, very few of us really have the courage to take this lonely journey… and those are the ones who make a difference!
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