The Half Read Books !

Have you ever lost a book? A book which was half read?

It has happened many times with me. Maybe I cannot take care of the books. But then the fact is they attract me. a lot. I like spending time in the book store, only looking at so many books - novels, fiction, non-fiction, comics, crime, fantasy, historical…all genres attract me.  There are a few books which I ordered online or bought from the store; but never opened them. It just feels good that this or that book is there in my bookshelf.

I have a fickle mind; I lose the grip of something after a while. And that naturally resulted in losing the grip of the plot in the book that I was reading. Not one but many. The reasons are different every other time. Sometimes, I get stuck with the words I don’t know, sometimes, I find some work and get too occupied in it for months and the book is left. Sometimes, the book keeps traveling with me in the back pack which was read only during the beginning of the journey before I made some friends in the trip, or sometimes, I just lose the book somewhere.

A few times I remember that I made a list of all half read books and I decided to complete that list before I purchase any other book. But then…I lost that list after a while.

I started reading when I was 16, to dodge the SSC study time, reading anything other than text-books was of utmost interest. Now I am 25. During this course of time I have had more than 15 half read books in the list I made a year ago.

Slowly I know why!

There is this book called “Illusions” by Richard Bach. I brought it home without asking my uncle from his book shelf when I was 18 or 19. I started reading that book. There was this thing in that book which stayed with me even after I lost that book after reading 60 something pages of that book. The book spoke about the ‘book of messiah’ – a book that messiah refers to as his guide during his services as a messiah.  So the protagonist asks the messiah, ‘how do you know on what page is the solution of your problem?’ to which the messiah answers, ‘open any page and what you read is the solution of your problem. Not only in this guide book but you can take any book and randomly open a page and read what’s written in there, you find an answer to your problem.’ This thing stayed with me for a while because I used to relate to this even after the book was long gone.

Feluda by Satyajit Ray
Stories of My Experiments With the Truth by M.K Gandhi
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
While the Light lasts by Agatha Christie
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini
Dongri to Dubai by Hussain Zaidi
Immortals of Meluha by Amish
Learning film making shot by shot
Few books on Marketing
And the Illusions are few books that were left incomplete because I had lost them somewhere.

A few months before, I found The Agatha Christie book in my closet. I read three stories and I lost it again. Then I found Meluha in the stock of DVDs box. I started off again from a few pages behind to get back in the zone…and completed it.
Feluda has captivated my mind entirely right now.
And when I was working too much but I was having some second thoughts about the decisions I had to take regarding my career, some crucial work related decisions, where I had lost myself in the dilemma of many possibilities…  I found the half read ‘Illusions’.

Going by the logic of Illusions itself – I opened the page where I had left and started reading. By the end of the book I had my answer with me.

That’s when I realized, that you buy that book for a reason. It has its role to play in your life. The book gets lost because maybe you don’t need it at that time…the practical cause could be something as stupid as you forgetting the book somewhere, or because there in something more important for you to do  at that time than reading that book. But it comes back to you to show you your way. It finds you when you need it the most.

And that’s when I knew that it’s a small circle of destiny. You sometimes feel incomplete about some things in life. Many uncertainties and incomplete tracks of events keep our emotions and minds hanging. That’s when the half read book finds you to give you one moment of completion.

Because when you complete a reading a book, you get a closure in some part of your mind.
So never feel bad for a half read novel that you lost – it will find you when you need a closure. 

Maharashtrian, 25, Film-maker.

            

Very few will understand what an unfortunate triangle these three dots in the title can make. 

     To begin with there is nothing wrong in being a Maharashtrian today, when the Marathi regional cinema is in it’s own New Wave revolution.  There is nothing wrong in being 25 either (honestly I have no option there). And there is nothing wrong in being a film-maker as well. However, right now these three things complied together in my life is sort of not forming a very good tri-angle to be in.

     Film-maker may sound fancy here, but it is definitely not. Not when you are 25. 

It’s a very odd age to be in this field.

You are usually a couple of big films old (assisted or been a part of it someway). Your position as an assistant director is not changing. You are doing the same bunch of things for every film-maker you are assisting. You are the punching bag of the whole unit. And you get paid terribly less.
Even after all this the film that you worked horribly hard for, may not even release.

     At this age only a lucky few are able to net a big fish that is ready to put money on you to be an independent director.

I have a pile of project offers ahead of me today but my excitement doesn’t even raise its eye brow, let go hopping in joy. Coz again, I know that all I have to do is make lists, co-ordinate and call the actors out of their vanity vans. Oh yes…along with their tantrums. And all this for peanuts (they too have become expensive, but not when you get paid in them).

     The regional cinema has started making money for itself but not the Assistant directors. They are on the pay roll of 1920s.
And because I don’t have excess money, I am unable to put it in the short-film of my own either. ‘All you need is a camera and a vision’ they say. But I have already been there - Made a few shorts that don’t even go close to the look of the film. With the rising competition and mainstream film makers making short films and Web-series, one need to catch-up with the changing times.

     Everyone around me of my age are now repaying their loans, buying their first vehicle, flying abroad, eating at fancy places and almost getting settled.
And here I am, clueless of what my schedule will be tomorrow. I have no money to go on dates, no money to go on a trip to freshen up my mind, no idea how and what my life is gonna make me go through in next few months. 

The only thing too certain at the age of 25 in a life of film-maker is ‘uncertainty’.  

     Sitting home for months, writing stuff you don’t know who’s gonna buy, which of all of them will ever come to life in the form of cinema or any other art form, which of those will get any exhibition at all and reach up to the audience so that they appreciate or criticize.

I think of watching a film, I feel like making one.
I watch a web-series, I feel that given a good team even I can pull this off.
I watch a short film by mainstream film makers and feel that, they have the people to put in money for them and thus it looks like a feature film.
I think of reading and I could only see the words in the form of frames.
Thinking of doing anything leads to only one thing that is lack of resources to make a desired product or to too many things that you require to make the film when you don’t have too much money.

     I am unable to plan it out coz 99% of times plans do not work. The 1% that works is usually what you prefer the least in the lot. The uncertainty and the failing plans make me really unsure about myself. Many a times I start getting a creepy feeling that I have started losing faith in my concepts and ideas. And then I struggle to get that faith back. I lose my moral. Defense mechanism fuels it more and I start arguing for my limitations with myself. Even my girlfriend has answers to everything under the sun and I am clueless about almost everything around me.

However, two things don’t die - The Passion and the hope.

A passion, to still go through everything and making it big one day. And a hope, that this too will pass.

     I treat this phase of life as the 25th to 39^th over stretch in a one day cricket innings. How much ever boring and slaggy it gets, you need to go through it to live the fun that’s going to come.

And then sometimes the best films in my list and their dialogues keep me inspired. 

“Above all: don’t lose hope.” – Life Of Pi

“Hope is a good thing to have, maybe the best of things and good things never die.” – The Shawshank Redemption.

“The genius thing that we did was, we didn’t give up” – Well that’s not from any film but I like it any way. Read it as a text quote in TVF Pitchers.

And then I feel that being 25 is not that bad after all. At least it sounds good.