Of inputs & outputs

Years ago, a director narrated an incident to me. While he was shooting in Vasai fort for a song, he was engrossed in a deep conversation with someone when he noticed a beggar, sitting close by, staring very intensely. The director smiled and asked the beggar, "Tum kya sun rahe ho? Kya samajh aa raha hai?" Pat came the reply, "Samajh ka toh pata nahi saab, par jab tak kaan sunenge nahi toh zabaan bolegi kaise?" It was a simple sentence but it had a great philosophy, which I still carry with me after all these years. While it is applicable to all walks of life, it is especially relevant to entertainment business where it's not unusual to see people becoming caricatures of their former selves within a decade. It is very easy here to build walls of fame and wealth around you and delude yourself into thinking that the approval of your peers, colleagues and contemporaries is enough to keep you on the right track.

Previous decades for actors and technicians in films were perhaps about being single-minded about your work to the point of being uni-dimensional. Since movies was all about peddling larger than life fantasies, connection with the real world was not a priority and yet the only writers, composers and actors who survived the test of time were those that peeked out of their isolated lives, kept up with the changing times and nurtured themselves. With the entire world now having become a global village and with the changing face of storytelling, today it's no longer possible to be that ostrich. The insulated nature of showbiz in our country may not always encourage the 'go out there and live a life to perform it' philosophy but of late there are people from the business who are moving out of their comfort zones. It's commendable when Kangana Ranaut goes to New York and studies screenwriting, Priyanka Chopra takes a break to come out with a music album, Dino Morea decides to take time off for almost a year to study acting, Sushant Singh Rajput works on fitness videos called Till I Get It Right and a Shruti Hassan, despite her busy schedule, jams with musicians to write and compose songs. While veering away from a busy 'today' to nurture your self may not even be a sure-fire formula for success, it could certainly be a way of keeping your `ear to the ground'! After all, 'Jab tak kaan sunenge nahi… Zabaan bolegi kaise?'