Today, I managed to log on to the internet from atop a pile of POP (Plaster of Paris for the uninitiated) thanks to a Wireless router that I invested in during my student years in America.I'd like to think I get online with my laptop and do serious writing but all I really do is chat up hot chicks that I loose interest in, the moment they seem to like me. This night was no different; so here I was trying to "write" and I met a "friend" online, 'Saket Chaudhary.'
Now, when I say friend, I don't mean the backslapping, grown up sneaking-and-watching-adult-films-with kind, but the kind you know and call friend like you call every grown- up, Uncle or Aunty in our country. To cut a long story short, we've met through the Internet and have a mutual passion for film and life. He is the director of the film "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" and I'm still pondering about the "Struggling Ke side Effects."
He also writes a blog. I've glanced through his blog before (http://saket74.blogspot.com/) and I quickly read through his homo erotic post of 300. Today, I went through his whole blog and I must say that I was VERY impressed; enough to inspire me to write my own. I meet a lot of people in my line of work; some that quote Scorsese and others who can't even pronounce it - the truth is, it’s a world filled with bullshitters.
This guy is not one of them. I've pitched some of my film ideas to him a year back; he discarded all of them saying that I had spunk and a quirky weirdness but no commercial sense. I don’t take criticism too well, I guess. I watched his film and honestly thought it was an ordinary American sitcom stretched into 2 hours. My friends loved the film; I thought it was strictly OK.
I distinctly remember thinking to myself on the steps down from Surburbia, Bandra, that he had rejected some excellent ideas of mine, ideas that I thought would make great films, far better than what he had made. His film didn't speak volumes of creativity to me; I've grown up watching American television and it was no Big Deal. I scoffed arrogantly to myself.
I think its been a year or more now. A lot has changed.
Today, I read his blog. I was "blown-away."
Today, I think that he’s a far better writer than he is a director.
Today, I realize that it takes a lot to get a film made and he did the best given the resources.
Today, one massive break-up and lots of introspection later , I understand pain, in literature, in film and in life.
Today, I think some of my ideas back then were weird, really really weird...
