FAX AND THE CITY

I like it tht blogs were invented. I can now be the Carrie Bradshaw of our desi metropolitan. On the blogosphere, no one can make you do ‘a few changes here and there’ like they do on television, and you know anything goes.

A few years back I met someone online, one of those platonic relationships in which we were
simply each others muse. We belonged to different countries, had absolutely no intention of
ever seeing each other hence, we could talk in ’stranger’ mode. I used to be a graphic designer back then. Working for an ad agency that felt like home. But all hell broke lose when one fine day he told me he thought my writing was simply amazing, that I should write more often, and think about doing it professionally. I don’t think it ever occurred to me that perhaps he was simply being polite.

So when someone asked Xill to write a book, i was extremely impressed when i heard him be modest about his writing and dint take it seriously. I mean I for one am a huge fan of his writing! I wish I had adopted similar attitude back then. Because its a whole new world out there when you are writing for people who generally agree that I am the best thing that happened to television since caffiene, but when I do write, they want to take all me out of it and write what basically everyone else is writing.

Because its different when you write about the general frustration of existence and survival and its your answer to YOGA. Anywho… As I was saying, back then I began showing my muse my short stories, wrote to him about my personal dilemmas n sumwhr in thr it dawned on me – I wanted to make movies someday. And boy was that ‘revelation’ a kick in the butt.

For as long as i can remember i have made movies. None of them have ever made onto television screens or film theatres, but they have been made. In my bedroom which I once turned into a dragon moat; in my head where I was a mixture of Xena – warrior princess and Beauty of beauty and the beast; In my attic which my brother and I once turned into a camping site. The various hotel rooms in which we were best friends and spy-mates of James Bond.

I remember printing out fake boarding cards on our dot-matrix and spelling out our names with the wierdest Irish surnames.

Even though my brother and I both were into this imagination game, he was smart enough to take up Cost Accounting when he grew up. And i was the dumb idiot who took my imagination to another level. A level where it was no longer simply mine. It was my producers’, or directors’ or what nots.

It was too late to begin studying again (once you start earning money you need to keep earning money somehow) and no one wanted to hire me as a director obviously – so I got into writing as a start. Just to learn the ropes. Learn the ropes I did. I went in to learn how to implement my creativity and learned how apply office politics. Yes people, we live in a world where television is more about ‘how to win your boss’s donut’ than it is about making your passion come alive. Thankfully though, everyone in media even is not like that. There are lots of people who actually do it for the passion and people who encourage you.

 Whether n how I ‘learned the ropes’ is an entire spicy paperback on its own, but one thing in my life had changed for good – my confidence in my ability to write. And all because one person gave me a good review.

Right now though, I can see so many things that are changing. The creative people are winning over the politically correct ones, because you can see so much improvement. I dont quite feel so bad about all this right now.