My Life as an Artist

On 15th June 2001, when half of the nation was stirringly booking seats for Aamir Khan's pastoral Lagaan and remaining chunk was going bizarre for Sunny Deol's Potboiler Gaddar, a teenage boy was impulsively striding in a parking lot of an apartment. He verified the time, which increased his heart rate and his pace of walking. He wiped the sweat of his temple and started taking giant deep breaths. He folded his hands, looked up at the sky and started murmuring something. The shining stars and a clear view of the moon in the polluted skies of Delhi, brought an enlivening, innocent smile on the face of the teenager. He went to the washroom and changed into the Kurta-Pyjama. He looked into the mirror and found that his white cheeks had turned red, like a cashmere apple. Holding his pyjama tightly he went up to his mother. She adjusted the elastic and asked him to calm down. He replied, ‘I cannot, it is my first performance.’
The chap was participating in a ten-minute abridged play. He was playing the role of a disturbed husband (a story of every home I guess), it was a comedy and some laughs were expected. There was only one laugh though, which mellowed for 600 seconds. His bliss found no extremities, when he saw the security guard of the other society standing on the divider and laughing. He performed again after six months. This time he played a double role, one of a villager and other of the epic goddess Sita. People loved it, but girls suspected his orientation, however, he replied, ‘an artist is an artist’.

Thereafter, he joined an engineering college and remained secluded from these endeavours for the next couple of years. His vitality had bridled in the mechanical world of vernier callipers, electrodes, capacitors, resistors and the god’s forsaken exams.
During the third year, the wheel of fortune turned. There was a freakish C ++ professor, whom he always imitated in the Hostel. During a personality development workshop, his friends asked him to imitate someone. He stepped on the podium and lorded over the spectators by his performance. They flattered him by commenting that only difference between him and the professor was the professor’s French beard.
He then started imitating actors and TV personalities on stage. He participated in a personality contest and came third. He lost the contest, but garnered everyone’s praise. He participated in the same contest next year and lost again. He was disheartened after the loss and refrained from participating in the final year. However, his father consoled him and asked him to give a last try. During his last performance, there was a hustle in the campus. The students had populated not only the amphitheatre, but also the corridors outside the classroom. His batch mates were chanting his name, but when he came on stage, everyone became quiet. He looked around, observed everyone’s expressions and felt proud and immensely satisfied with what he had achieved in the previous two years. He performed and won the competition in the last year of the college.



He joined a software company and kept the passion burning. He performed in his company’s cultural event. He also shared the stage with euphoria group during the annual prize distribution ceremony. During the second cultural event, the organiser hugged him and said, ‘you have secured my prestige’. None of his friends had come that day, for their own personal reasons. He sat in the front of the mirror in the changing room and read their apology messages. He looked into the mirror, smiled and clapped for the artist, wiping the few tears on his face. He often looks at those pictures and especially those in which the audience is laughing and having a good time.
He moved on and decided to leave mimicry, forever. He gave auditions in his organisation and cleared all rounds. However, on the day of casting, he came to know that the drama was in the regional language and he did not stand a chance. The irony, his company won the first prize. He flung his bag on the bed, sank his face in the pillow and cried.
He started searching for other theatre groups in the city and then he found a group, which could satisfy his hunger for art. He started doing English plays, which changed his outlook towards acting. He improved his walk, speech and expressions. He met people, whose way of thinking compared with that of a genius or an insane. I believe both go hand in hand.




Therefore, you can call me an insane or a genius, but I have decided this is the path for me and I am destined to walk on it. Someday I might be able to break the shackles of this mechanical software world. I have taken the first step, and for the rest of my journey I need your support.