Friday, March 23, 2007

The D Day


"The D Day", so commonly used phrase nowadays. But hardly any day can be considered as D Day, that was my thinking uptil now.

I was wrong, its better to call few days as D-Days in your life. You will get few of those in your life no matter if you want them. Few days back was the D-Day for indian cricket team, the only chance to revive in the world cup 07 and they missed it! Anyway if I start talking about cricket...I will go on and on and on and there will be no end to this universe. So lets just stop it!

Acting...sounds easy aint it? That was my impression when I first went to auditions for the play. getting through the audition rounds was just the taste of what it was going to be later on. But I decided to go for it. It seemed easy...thought all one has to do is, remember his/her dialogues, have some face expressions and deliver. Well I was totally wrong. Everytime I went for rehearsals, the same dialogues over and over made me think, No matter how differently you try, everything was always the same, you are never right! It seemed like there was no end to this. Director's notes and harsh comments conveying exactly how bad your acting was, were like just icing on the cake. Thought that this was getting into my nerves. Then there was a light!...Everything started to fall in place, everything started looking great we were having fun.

The day of the final dress rehearsal at the theatre, I went into the audience seat, looked at the stage...reminded me of the Tilak Smarak, the center stage in Pune almost as good if not better than the Broadway theatre in NY. That was overwhelming...Gosh everything seemed like fun until now...but I realized this is some serious shit. If I dont do this right in my first try..its gonna end in hell. Reminded me of the phrase D-Day. Well may be I can use it here.

Imagine 750 people staring at you....and you are dumbfounded! An amateur actor like me....made them waste their 15 bucks (Dollars mind you not Rupees). Yes imagine how those people would have thought. Let me help you imagine, it will be something like..."I cant believe we paid to see some stupified crack like him on the stage mumbling the words even my pet dog could have expressed better!" That thought rushed through my mind only for a moment when I stood up to deliver my first dialogue facing the crowd. But then there was the first laugh...someone from the third row on my right side actually laughed and the rest followed at my so called funny shayari! What it turned into was a laugh similar to one in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge. That was it! I felt like I was on top of the world. And everything that followed was easier than I thought if not exactly a cakewalk.

It was over....Did I conquer it? Did I rock? Did I at least impress anyone? Did I not screw up? I dont know. Your friends are always encouraging...but do they really feel so? I dont know. All I know is...I had fun!

I look back...was it really the D-Day?...NO!

-Manish


Friday, March 16, 2007

First Few...


I always wondered what the heck is this blogging about!

Is it about letting people notice you? Is it for losers who can not get noticed in real world? Is it for those who dont have better things to do in life so they waste their time on web, posting things that are never read by anyone? Or may be they just hope that those blogs are read by people and those people will know you better?

What a crap!

I dont understand. But here I am writing my first few words. And what better way to start writing by using the system to bitch about the system itself. Anyway I am part of it and I realize most of those things I mentioned, are applicable to me. But you know what, I will readily accept all those things.........unlike you guys.

Well...I realize I have used enough foul language to freak out some of you who have lasted long enough on this page. Good luck reading through the rest of this crap then! Dont keep your hopes up, I am sure you will be let down in every sentence that I write.

I have been consistently losing my friends to this dark black hole named BLOGGING. As it caught up to me, I think I am getting indulged into it as well. I remember similar phase last year, but that time it was ORKUT. Now I am so addicted to it that its the first page that I open in my Firefox. (Thats right...I dont use IE as 90% of you people do. Yes.....KILL BILL!!)

There are so many things I want to write about here. But I guess I will let the time pass by and see how much excitement remains in me to actually continue this blogging thing.

I will write about my READING HABITS here as my first try.

First of all, the reason I chose this topic is because I dont have much to write about it, so it will be over in few. Anyway I believe, in my life I have always had a choice when I was offered books. A bestseller hard bound beautiful book under a lighted christmas tree wrapped up in red scented gift-wrapping paper wanting to catch your attention or a really weathered cricket bat lying in a corner that you can hardly notice in such a dark room. The choice has been very easy for me as I always went with the cricket bat. And I took it as my pride as well, may be because I have always been good on the playground. Infact I have proudly mentioned to few people, "I can read but I can not". Not that I was bad at my schoolwork and so I had to switch. I have had good grades and have made it so far to earn myself something in my field. But I think the book reading just hasn't been my cup of tea until now. Be it a textbook, which will promise you to get 100% if you read it through or a sci-fi thriller, which will take you for a ride of future, I havent had enough interest in them until now. But now that I am going for it, I hope that reading a book is as satisfying as taking a wicket of the best batsman on the opponent side by your in-swinging yorker. As satisfying as bowling a nerve-cracking bouncer to a trash talker from some country that you hate the most. I hope it is as satisfying as scoring the winning goal for your team after 90 minutes of tiring soccer game. I hope it is as enjoyable as seeing an expression on your opponents face after you smash an ace on his face. As satisfying as when you make a new record for 400m sprint. I hope its as tiring as when you go on a crosscountry for 25km run and actually finish it. I hope its as memorable as the state level final game. Or atleast I hope it is as satisfying as that walk out of the gym after a heavy routine workout.

It may be or may not be, I dont know but it doesnt hurt trying. So thats what I am gonna do, I am splitting my time between things that I like and things I hope I like. Its been good so far as I finished reading more books in last month than I read in my whole life until now.

I feel that I always created the second choice, now I am trying to catch up.

Wish me good luck in this new venture.

-Manish