TERRIBLE TUESDAY: TURNING POINT
It just started of badly, I got up an hour late and missed the perfect breakfast time and had to eat my breakfast at 9 am. The sleepy me went off to bed again after eating my breakfast and got up at 11 and by 11:30 I had my lunch and deliberately missed my apple which was due at 10 am. (I am on my diet and that’s my eating schedule; 8am – breakfast, 10 am- apple, 12 am- lunch. In short I have to follow a two hour regime diet). At 12:30 I have gym and I reached there at 12:42 and my instructor asked me to go back home, he gave these instructions on phone and refused to talk to me. I was terribly pissed. If he would have come in front of me I would have surely bashed him and broke his tooth. I went on complaining to everyone present in the gym like a second standard kid. I did realise it but I did not care much and went on with my cribbing with how unjust and unfair he is and how much dadagiri he does, and how much he has made me wait at times and I never complained. I was so mad at him that I refused to go back and sat there for 45 minutes waiting for him to come but hard luck he dint show up and finally I left for college. I went to college and met jinit near aarey booth where I met a guy who had worked in GSM last year. (I don’t remember his name; in fact I don’t know a lot of names in this post). He started to ask that why I had come to college? (This particular question pisses me to no end and anyways I just dint want to go to college but since parth called twice I went there so he doesn’t feel bad.) Getting irritated with his question I requested jinit to take me to rehearsals as I had just 1 hour with me. As we headed towards first floor auditorium I met mirpuri mam. I was so happy to see her that I still can’t control my feelings but she was so much in hurry that she did not wait to talk to me and rushed off, I stood there for few seconds to gulp that down. When I went up I met juhi with whom I was thrilled to talk. Later I went up and met parth, jinit and vinati who were practising for spoof. Divij was acting like a wannabe trying hard to direct but eventually everything was done by jinit with the help of others. It was a scene to watch, one could see Dasu part 2 in Divij. I couldn’t see the whole rehearsal because I received a call from parth( the guy who is an assistant director in the new weekly series starting on star one.) I had refused to work in that series but he forced me to take up the opportunity and within a fraction of seconds I said a yes. After keeping his call I was shocked to take the decision so quickly, as I had spent the whole Monday discussing with different people about my confusion whether to do television or not, regarding money etc. But all this happened in fraction of second and later I was again confused and stressed out. I asked jinit and vinati whether to do it or not and vinati refused and parth and jinit said please go ahead with it. In last two days I had realised that the biggest problem of life is in choosing. I went down stairs to meet rahil without completely seeing the rehearsal. Rahil as usual encouraged me for my decision and held his full support. Later I came home and told mom that I had accepted the offer and she was equally happy with my decision. I packed my food and took my bag and headed off to andheri for look test. While travelling in train I again started having double thoughts about my decision, and then I was scared what will anshul think, I just told him last night that I wouldn’t do it for that money and blah blah. I messaged him that I had accepted the offer. His reply to the message was shockingly pleasant. He replied that star one will now be called star two because now they have got another star as me. It was such a sweet message that it started giving me diabetes. I started assuming that he must be thinking that let this child make mistakes and come back. Later she will know what not to do, but I know from know what not to do. I don’t want to do television all my life, in fact not even a part of my life. May be I am doing this because I just want to act. I want to explore. I want to work desperately. I want to move on and grab opportunities as they come to me and this one has genuinely knocked my door. A thought passed by so fast that i was almost freaked out questioning myself, that why am I doing it? At that moment prince called and his thanda reaction about me doing television gave me a heart ache. I must have collapsed with nervous breakdown but I was lucky to find myself alive when I got down on andheri station. Till I got out of the station I was so disgusted that I felt blank for few seconds. I kept on walking and I suddenly realised I was wet. It was raining very heavily and phew! No auto. I waited for 15 minutes but no rickshaw wala agreed to go to adarsh nagar. Finally one rick guy called me and asked me to join the share a rick at Rs. 30. I disagreed but he left me with no choice as no rickshaw was ready to come. The most interesting journey of the day began. At every signal this guy offered cigarettes to random people like chaiwala and florist and beggars and even the guy who sat next to him. The guy in the rick asked the driver why he wasn’t smoking. Driver replied, “Main nahi peeta, sirf pilata hoon. Ek ek sutta sade chaar ka hai( Rs 4.5). Par sab lok apne dost hai, aur dosto ke liye main yeh sab nahi sochta.” The guy who was smoking said, “kyu saari duniya ko galat adat daal raha hai?” he replied,” main kaha daal raha hoon, woh log pehle se peete hai”. The two guys got off on their destination. Then I was alone in the rick with that crazy driver. I started chatting with him. Our rickshaw moved up and down on the muddy broken roads. He started his gyan once again.
- “Yeh raste dekhe? Kaise lage madam?
- “ gande”
- “Inpe chal payenge”
- “ bohot barish hai, aur nahi mere paas chata hai, aur main aapko tees rupye de rahi hoon toh chalungi kyu”
- “Agar meri rickshaw band pad gayi toh?”
- “toh chalna hi padega”(kya paka raha hai)
- “yeh international roads hai, yeh Europe ka road, yeh paaaaris ka. Aur yeh Europe ka tabela”
- (I smiled)” aap cigarette nahi pite?
- “nahi”
- “Toh pilate kyu ho? Is se accha seb khilao, juice pilao. Kam se kam maro toh mat logo ko”
- “ maine aadat thodi lagayi hai, woh pehle se pite hai”
- “ aur aap aadat ko badhava de rahe ho”
- “Kharab aadat ko badhava kaha chahiye madam? Main chahta hoon yeh log sutta maar maar ke jaldi mar jaye, phir hum shaanti se jiyenge”
- “Aap unko bachana nahi marna chahte ho?”
- “ nahi nahi, yeh toh mere dost ne di mujhe, bola le pee, main bola mein toh peta nahi, toh padi padi sad jaati is se accha jo peta hai use pila du”
- “Sach? Ya phir sach mein maarna chahte ho?”
At that very moment he bashed with a gas cylinder guy going with his huge cycle. It was my driver’s mistake but he was so cruel that he abused that poor fellow and even hit him. Poor guy, he was holding such a huge cycle that he couldn’t get down to slap him back, and the driver sat in the auto and ran away. I had to go somewhere near Honda showroom, he took me to Mahindra showroom way ahead of infinity and then took 35 bucks. I asked him to return 5 back as we decided 30, he said “arrey itna aage choda na, isiliye”. I laughed and said, “Paanch rupee do”. He gave me 2 rupees back but I eventually took 5 rupees. After giving me 5 rupees he swung in the air shouting, “arrey aapne toh mujhe kangal kar diya”. I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I walked back to the loacation and when I entered the studio I realised I was completely wet. I looked messy, and I was an actor and expected to look tic tac. Without hesitating too much I sat down. All the other actors started coming in. The cast included sumit raghwan( sahil from sarabhai), chachi from dekh bhai dekh( wife of shekhar suman in dekh bhai dekh). Shagufta(she was in parampara), homi wadia, sudheer pandey. The director was yes boss ka director and the name of the sitcom was panipuri. I felt out of the place. The actors were good, but the production guys were extremely bad, rude and arrogant. I felt horrible; why am I doing this? I just wanted to leave. The atmosphere was fake, or maybe it was all in my mind. The script reading for the first episode started. I had an impression that the script is disgusting, but as they went on it turned interesting. It was a pure sitcom, nothing with great dialogues but funny situation. It was a little darker as things went on going wrong, and I just thought of chor ke ghar thieves and p.g woodhouse. I was happy with the script. It wasn’t extra ordinary but it wasn’t disgusting at all. My mood changed. I started liking the experience. I wanted to know more, that how do they work. I wanted to experience more of that faking. While sitting in the rick while going back to station, I thought, this experience is equally important in life. Every one you work with is not going to be an anshul or hussain for that matter. Everyone on this earth is not a good person. I told myself, after college I had heard people experience the real world, now I am experiencing that myself. It’s getting interesting now. The game has just begun. These experiences make your life. This terrible experience had made me write....so at least I am using them somewhere. But the day did not end here. I was standing for churchgate fast on platform no. 4. Virar fast arrived on platform 3. It was so full that not a single person could get in but I viewed atleast 50 people managing to either get in or climb on the train. The train started and it slowly took up speed and suddenly an old man fell on the platform. I ran towards the crowd to see what exactly had happened. He had broken his head and there was blood everywhere. He was in immense pain and he cried so loudly that I couldn’t see his pain. Some men picked him up and headed towards the bridge. The bridge was so pack that it was impossible to go up. Meanwhile churchgate fast arrived. People getting down the bridge did not care much and just pushed and ran so that they could catch the fast train. The men picking up the old man shouted hard with anguish to let them go so that they could save the old man. Women around me started gossiping about the railways and inappropriate amount of trains. They cribbed and showed anguish and while cribbing all of us boarded the churchgate fast train. I wanted to see what happened to that old man, so I peeped low to catch the view. The bridge was not crowded anymore and the man climbed up holding the old man on their shoulders. The women behind me pulled me back and said, “tum ko bhi girna hai kya”. I went and took the fourth seat. I had met nahida on the station and we took the train together. We seated and started chatting. I have never spoken to nahida, she was in my class but I hardly had friends in class. I always had an impression that pooja, nahida and nikki are the good girls of the class but while I was talking to her I realised she was a snob. She was fake and loud and a complete wannabe who loved to say f**k after every statement. She told me about graduation ceremony which made me excited. She made weirdest of expressions which made me sulk and grin. I wanted to throw her out of the window but the windows had grill and I dint feel she was worth the effort of me getting up and throwing her from the door so I let her be. My journey ended and I reached home to grab some dinner as I had not eaten anything after lunch and my 2 hour diet regime was completely destructed. While I was having my dinner parag called to inspire me about my decision telling me that he was happy I took it and it was the right thing to do. I felt like believing him after a long time. One good thing that has happened in past few days is reunion of me and parag. We talk for 2 hours every day as we used to talk before which is the most wonderful thing that happened to me. By the end of the day I realised it was the most terrible day but the most exciting experience I had. I must have gone through all kinds of emotions, and I am happy to experience them. I wished myself good night and exclaimed, terrible Tuesday!
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