To each his own.
Eight years ago, when the movie “Tamasha” was released, I watched it in the theatre and found it difficult to sit through the movie. It wasn’t because I could connect with it at a very personal level and I felt sad, but it was because I was bored to death. The movie was going nowhere; there seemed to be no valid reason for all this drama.
A few months later, when the movie was on OTT, I rewatched it—pausing it multiple times, rewatching some parts—and ever since, this movie has become my go-to watch every time I am looking for some inspiration. The point I want to make is some movies are not like the beer you would want to chug with friends at pubs but are like red wine you would want to add to your collection, only to open on special occasions while you are alone, perched comfortably on your couch.
This is not the first time I am writing about this movie. Three years ago, I wrote for a feature in Verve magazine on how “Tamasha” is a reflection of my mental health. How I was forced to reflect within myself when the autorickshaw driver said, “Andar se kuch aur hi hain hum aur baahar se mazboor.” But today, I want to write about something I realized much later.
A number of my friends have criticized the movie for glorifying storytelling and other creative jobs and personalities while dissing jobs like product management and other technical/process-driven career paths. For many years, I also believed in it, and why not, I am that Ved too. I was four years old when I proclaimed that I want to be an artist. Painting, writing, dancing were my life. But the adults and peers in my life made me believe that bright students like me should pursue engineering or management. “Arts” is for lazy students. Remember the movie “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani” where the character Aditi tells Naina’s mom that she’s pursuing Arts because she doesn’t like studying?
Unfortunately, this realization didn’t come on time to me that the subjects you choose in college depend on your choice and not your IQ level. What did I do then? Sulked and drowned deeper into this quicksand of getting validated by society until I was at a dead-end, landed in clinical depression, and was unemployed for a year.
It was only when I hit rock bottom, I could gather the courage to start from scratch. I tore down all the labels I had—my colleges’ brand name, my degrees, and my previous experiences. I started as a fresher, all over again, but I was never unhappy. Today, I have found my middle ground between spending my time writing, sitting in a cafe in a hill station and working mindlessly 15 hours a day. Yes, I feel intimidated by the young crowd around me who got it right the first time. I also feel jealous of my peers who are way more successful and who also got it right the first time. But I get to sleep better and negotiate better with my anxiety and depression.
Oh, I digressed from the topic in hand. I always do that, but my story is very important here because this is exactly what Ved’s story was. It was never about storytelling or not being a product manager. Ever wondered about the irony that Tara, whose family probably owned a tea business and whose office atmosphere felt like a graveyard (from one or two scenes in the movie), told Ved that he was boring? However, I guess she was actually talking about the lack of personality this new Ved had. Because even when Tara was grieving during the four years of waiting for Ved, she had a life that she enjoyed while the few months spent with Ved were like a clockwork—they did the same things over and over again. This was the Ved Tara despised. Had she been uncomfortable with Ved being a product manager, she would not have entered the relationship in the first place.
So, was Tara the reason Ved changed? Nope. Tara was probably the reason Ved was miserable. Tara was the reason Ved was disturbed; he was introspecting. Tara was the reason Ved could not pretend to be the product manager for long. But the main character in Ved’s life was the old storyteller. The way I aspired to become an artist after watching an Odissi dance performance on Doordarshan when I was three, Ved wanted to be a storyteller like the old man who used to narrate stories during his childhood. The only problem was—he had internalized the fact that stories are always the same, for everyone, through ages, across continents. The moment the old man called him a coward and an imposter, asked him what is it that he really wants, did he realize that IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO WRITE YOUR OWN STORY! And that is what I tell myself after every failure, after each mess-up because to err is human.
And this brings me to the end, but not before I write a few lines from an amazing song from an equally brilliant movie, La La Land:
“A bit of madness is key
To give us new colors to see
Who knows where it will lead us?
And that’s why they need us”
So bring on the rebels
The ripples from pebbles
The painters, and poets, and plays
And here’s to the fools who dream
Crazy as they may seem
Here’s to the hearts that break
Here’s to the mess we make”
And with this…… The Bioscoped Life is back…..
The BIOSCOPED Life 