Secret to ones happiness is to realize the goal and to
experience the world’s wonders while never forgetting your family, or your
loved ones. I have a woman in my life. And together with her, I am expecting
the arrival of our baby.
In fact, I was at a point in my life where I was about
to give up all my dreams. Since I was, no longer, the carefree, single guy with
the luxury of staying focused to the goal, on a mission to fulfill my so-called
destiny. Because all of a sudden, I had a family to look after.
But like the great master Mr. Coelho mentions, ‘when people
forget about their real purpose in life and start moving along the beaten
track, a mysterious force usually appears before them to wake them up and to
put them back on to the track all over again. In my case, the force happened to
be my friends. New ones, I made along my way, and the old. Like it happened to
me this time. And can I ever discount the role my very own father had played in
shaping my destiny – I mean, every time he objected to something I really wanted, I went for it
double strong. In fact, my being in the cinema itself was winning the biggest
battle with him.
It all began a week before the Easter of 2012. Prazi and me
were about four or five months into our marriage and hadn’t taken a proper
break as yet. Like we always wanted. And Easter holidays meant at least a three
day break for her from work. That’s when I coaxed Bibin to let me be away from
‘the adcompani’ and called up Laxman about our visit to his place.
The trip was pleasant. Six hours straight from Kochi in the
Maruthi 800 borrowed from my brother. I loved the drive. Prazi seemed happy
too. We saw places we had only seen in movies. Like Walayar Check Post. And Coimbatore.
And the family of monkeys on the way. And the newly built highway that stretched between Coimbatore and Salem. And the umpteen number of engineering colleges along the route, but not even a single little tea shop. Prazi
took a special interest in reading all the signs in green, along the way. Regularly telling me how many more kilometers to cover. How many more hours to go at the
speed we maintained. Warning me time and again to reduce speed as cautioned by the road safety boards.
Laxman kept calling us, enquiring about our safety at
regular intervals. And by the time we reached Erode, it was late in the
afternoon.
I met his kids for the first time there. I had only seen them in
pictures before. Just as tired we were, both Kishore and Karthi, were as
energetic. They made our tiredness vanish just like that. Both of them took an
instant liking to Prazi, who couldn’t make out even one word they spoke. But
what the heck, neither could either of them. And being kids, they would happily
declare, ‘neenga enna pesharuthennu puriyiliye’. Poor Prazi, all she could do
was to blush. Thankfully, Uma always came to Prazi’s rescue, translating and
coordinating the three of them.
It was on the next day, when all of us had planned to drive
to ‘Ooty', the nearest hill-station, when Laxman casually mentioned that he
wanted me to meet a couple of friends of his. From the Tamil film industry, who
had a story to tell.
We had the meeting at a resort-turned-country club near to
where he lived. Gopu Balaji, the writer-director, began his 3 hour long
narration dramatizing most of the sequences with wide shots, mid shots, tracks
shots, close ups, and sound effects, which in fact, left us with the feeling of
having watched a full length movie of the same duration.
Towards the end of it, as we dropped them at the city centre
and drove back, Laxman asked me my opinion about the story. Even though I felt
confident about Gopu’s abilities as a director, and more importantly, as a
story teller, I pushed the ball back to his court since it was his money at
stake - so ultimately it had to be his own decision. There was a gigantic risk
associated to it. There’s would be no plan B to it, in case it
fails.
And when we parted from Ooty the next day, I didn’t have the
slightest idea that he would call me out of the blue about three months later
and come down to Kochi to give me the shock of my life. He was taking up the
project despite my cautioning.
He grinned sheepishly and said, ‘I sold a portion of my land
to raise the money,’ when he met me at the railway station where I had gone to
receive him. He had come to Kochi to ask me to be part of his project as the
executive producer. I was given a week’s time to wrap up my responsibilities in
Kochi and join them at the earliest possible date.
Even though the proposal sounded good to me, I was shit
scared. I still am.
I'm here. And there is no Prazi by my side to tell me, ‘you’ll be
fine eta’. God, I miss her. The doctor had strictly ordered bed rest for her
till the delivery in December. I wish the child be born after Christmas. Capricorns
make great directors. Not that I have decided the career of my unborn child. It’s
just a passing thought. And yesterday when I called her at night, over the
phone all I could hear was her sobs. Poor girl. I couldn’t even hug her to
comfort her.
As of now, a thousand hurdles need to be crossed. Finding the
leading lady is foremost of all. The 'Paranjysothy' team wanted a girl from Kerala. The responsibility was on me to find the right one. But I don’t
really understand what it is with the girls in Kerala that Tamil film industry
continually prefers them. I mean every other Tamil movie features a Malayalee girl in the lead role. No offence, though, to any of the Malayalee girls. They
are all beautiful. But then question is - aren’t there enough pretty girls in
Tamil Nadu?
And despite the auditions we had at Kochi and later at Chennai,
the results weren’t quite encouraging. The girls, that we sort of zeroed in
walked out on us, citing lame excuses. Why the hell did they audition for the
role in the first place anyways? OMG... The perfect heroine, where art thou?
