Backing up now...!

Born an idiot with insanity firmly in my DNA and christened with a name like "Mysore Seshaiah Suresh Babu' I learnt early on that there is very slim hope for me in this cruel, competitive, unforgiving and 'normal' world!! ( I presumed that the world was normal and that i was the weird one, but am slowly coming to terms that things are just the opposite!!)

I am a Telugu brought up in Chennai from my childhood , living in Hyderabad with a surname of Mysore!! I give the word 'oxymoron' a complex (for the uninitiated , that's a phrase that has two contrasting meanings..with a classic example being 'Military Intelligence"!! OK, i will dumb it down even further... Military is blindly following orders, while intelligence is independent thought process with clarity!..phew!!). So military and intelligence cannot coexist in this world where soldiers are still being sent to slaughter while looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction and Presidents who have promised change are still sending troops(double the amount now!!) to look for a terrorist that is easily accessible to all the news media and all heads of (terrorist friendly ) neighboring governments!!.There I go, digressing again..but then that could come as a relief to those readers who really dont give a rat's ass to the excruciatingly silly blog about my growing up years that is as dull as watching "an item girl trying to act sincere and really in love with the hero in a trashy, badly made masala film with an over the hill hero'!!

Coming back to the oxymoron..(friends call me a moron who is built like an ox!, ok, enough of self deprecating humor now!!) I realized that I hated my name from the very day i stepped into school!.Not the kindergarden where I escaped because boys my age where still struggling with control on their release of bodily functions in the middle of a class. That probably kept them too preoccupied from picking on me.I have a vague memory of a boy scooping his own brown matter and proudly showing it to the disgusted teacher who banished him with the maid to the toilets!.I didn't think much of it then, but wondering about it now, kinda casts some doubts on the brought up and the parenting dont you think??

School, was another story altogether! on sight i was picked on for being fair, scrawny and short!, but my story didn't end there...as soon as they realized my name in all it's hilarity, they started making fun of it and i went home and cried to my parents..(read that as aunt, as my father was constantly fighting his battles with career in other states and my mother had no clue what to do with these humongous issues like, 'her son being bullied' and such!) My aunt took it upon herself to come to school and somehow managed to eradicate the 'Seshaiah' from my name (which belonged to my grandfather, much to his consternation since he was still alive and kicking(himself!!, for still being alive and under the control of his oldest daughter, my aunt!!)

So I continued my studies till 3rd standard with the name Mysore Suresh Babu' in some school that I dont remember!(it could have been Ramakrishna Mission High School). I supposed to have excelled so much there that they thought (read that as my over bearing, extremely wise aunt!) put me in Oxford English School and there I was tried and tested and then double promoted to 5th standard.So in actual fact, I didn't know a 4th standard! ( I am sure some other factors came into play for this double promotion and I am not going to go into greased palms here!!) My father was overjoyed on hearing this news, my aunt was pleased as a punch at her achievement and my mother was extremely satisfied that her son got to surpass her in educational qualifications!! I was the only one 'quivering in my underwear' at the thought of going into a class much higher than I was supposed to !

That extremely intelligent act of my aunt sounded the death knell of my so called excellence in education and it became a daunting task to keep up with the idiots in class, never mind the intelligent or performing ones!!. On top of it this there was the issue of fitting in...since I was living in an economically challenged neighborhood, I picked up 'Madras Tamil' very early and was very comfortable and the feeble attempts by my mother and the caning by my grandfather to perfect Telugu fell into deaf ears and my derrière got used to my grandfather's waning strength with the cane!

Coming back to fitting in, it's strange how children form stereo types very early in their lives!! I couldn't mix with the local boys because I wasn't fair, I couldn't mix with the fair north Indians because I didn't speak their language, I couldn't mix with the one or two Telugus since they weren't from filmi backgrounds and ostracized me since I was!! The mallu boys didn't mix with anyone else.... My 'Persona non Grata' (Person who didn't matter or an invisible person!) status in school improved when word got out that i was acting in movies and curiosity got them to ask me questions and I was only too proud to answer since finally....somebody was talking to me! That too was short lived thanks to my dad!.And btw, I removed the 'Babu' from my name because it was fitting into a stereo type I wasn't comfortable with. (Hence my screen name being just 'Suresh' and am comfortable with it!) Couldn't help bringing out the 'Mysore' for my corporate job ( which I wanted to and have experienced!), since I had to have a last name, God knows why!!

There was a friend of mine in my street who had a brother with my name and was the epitome of mischief! He had a very curious mind ( to say the least!)and every second or third day his parents would take him to the hospital for shoving something in his face, nose, ass and every other orifice he would think of ...at that point in time! At 6 he was everything a mother didn't want in an offspring and I still wonder how she didn't have homicidal tendencies towards him for the amount of ruckus he did. Starting with charging at guests with a knife to calling the milkman, mailman obscenities to killing/maiming any bird, insect, animal that crossed his path, he was destruction personified! No amount of thrashing from his father rectified his ways and me playing cricket with his brother and some others in the street resulted in him running away with the ball (which might have been natural!) and throwing a dead, lifeless, punctured ball back to us (which isnt!) all the while running around in circles! Any body who tried to catch him failed because he was more agile than a mountain monkey! One such time, I tried to grab hold of him, not knowing what is in store for me and what trick he had learnt recently! When I caught him by the scruff of his neck,he grabbed hold of my family jewels and refused to let go...I saw hell, turned blue, was speechless since I knew my mouth was moving but no words were coming out and saw white light!..Finally when he let go after a while thanks to some boys dragging him (and me along !) to release me ,I saw stars and fainted!!

The friends got me home and imagine my aunt asking me questions for which there were no answers from me...I was banished form playing outside for a month and i was more than thankful! It was my first realization that any disturbance to my family jewelery could cause so much pain (though I found out later that it was to the contrary !!)

This was during this time that I got a letter promising a free gift if I filled in a questionnaire.I was so excited by the prospect of filling in something that had the answers on it and having to send it to a postage paid address that it took up, the most part of my 12 th year! I lied to my unsuspecting aunt and mother that it was school work and filled out what seemed to be a history lesson and finally sent off the last of the mail that promised riches beyond my imagination and I was busily dreaming of a brand new cricket bat, a box full of 5star and riches like that when the gift arrived in the mail!.

I, in my immense wisdom, pride of having achieved something in life and glee in my eyes took it to my grandfather and proudly announced that I had won this from answering quizzes and my grandfather was watching me with suspicion while I tore open the package to see......THE BIBLE !! (I had been answering questions from the Bible with answers in the back oif the same letter!) My grandfather asked me everything patiently and proceed to thrash me to the last inch of my 12 year old life asking me if I wanted to convert to which I had no clue, never mind a reply!. After my aunt pacifying a sobbing me, my grandfather promised to teach me 'our roots'... Thus began my education in Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavathgeetha!!.

Till this day I am thankful for filling in the questionnaire and understanding another religion and culture (maybe understanding is a stretch, 'exposed to' would be a better term!!) and to my grandfather for exposing me to my roots,faith and where I came from!! Because I still remember how I disliked my grandfather for banishing my exposure to other religions and still maintain that what we dont understand, we tend to be wary of , mistrust, misjudge and assume the worst and I didn't and don't ever want to be that!

Acceptance comes from understanding!! We are not given a chance by our upbringing to understand by exploring, which is the right of every growing up child!! We need to be exposed to everything and then make a choice...of religion, lifestyle choices and way of thinking...which in turn will determine our way of life!!................A path chosen by us with no one else to blame!!

P.S I Hate Love !!

Now, if at all something grabs anyone's attention quicker than greased lightning , they are the words love and sex!! Since I am done with sex with all of you (I meant as a topic in past blog....!, take your minds off the gutter,you one track minded folks!!), I am now tackling love!(not that its' anything new for me , but then I digress..again !) After the comments and encouraging responses, I owe it to myself to continue the never before heard levels of excellence in mediocrity and mundaneness of my blogging,, so off I go now!(whereto, I have no clue!!)

Coming back to love,(as we constantly and repeatedly do in our lives!) I hereby state the obvious..love is an illusion. I know, I know many of you are nodding your heads in disagreement, but hear me out first!. Love, I believe is a joke that our hormones play on us and the 'Valentine's Day' is a celebration of that joke!(ala April fools day!) Now I sound insanely close to being a pessimist, but I am stating something out of my experience and my neighbours' !. I have believed in forevers many times and have been rudely shaken out of my reverie when the other one says "We need to talk" !!.

Now guys, let me explain something to you...whenever your partner says that to you, trust me you are in deep shit!! Here are a few ways you can screwup...

1) You are constantly busy and you have no time for me

2) You are jobless and dont have drive or motivation..I cant respect a person like that

3) You are home all the time, and on my case! I need space!!

4) You dont want to go out with me as often as I would like

5) Every time i go out, you want to follow me..you dont trust me?

6) You dont make love to me often enough, are you getting it from somewhere else?

7) You want it constantly..you are an animal,,thats all you need me for!!

8)You make me feel like an idiot in public..I cant take your hogging of conversations!

9) I need a partner i can look up to..this dumb silence in public wont do!

10) I hate your job !

11) I hate my job!

12) I need romance in my life..you are not romantic at all!

13) I dont like PDA (public displays of affection)..stop being clingy!

So on and so forth! There are countless ways you can screw up and this goes for both sexes! (lest I be branded a woman hater!!)

The truth is guys, most relationships are over before your realise they are.The days of us watching our parents stick together because of social pressure, economic binding, children's well being,(In some case, genuine bonding) etc, etc are long gone..! They are replaced by economic independence and exposure to other cultures where being 'free' is fashionable and together does not necessarily translate to forever!! I have seen most of the permutations and combinations of relationships and their demises(of mine and others!!) So it is with the great wisdom of having brought couples together where some have stuck on , some have faded apart that i pen these words!.

Trust me when I tell you that I have no regrets and have the utmost respect for the women who have come into my life and though not near, have stayed in my mind forever cherished!.Some have educated me, some have made me a better human being, some have been my pillars of strength, some have been my babies, some have been my mother hens!I am what i am today because of them and I am proud of what I have been through and its all been good!

Love is a very powerful emotion that gives you a high like no other drug in this world. But love comes with many failings and many sacrifices (sometimes foolish ones!)..from both sides!.Some mistake lust for love, some mistake a crush for love, some mistake need for someone near for love, some even love for the convenience of being in love. The only love that I have come to understand that can stand the test of time and goes beyond the realm of selflessness and goes to the extent of sacrifice is the love a mother, a parent has for the children!. That is eternal and 'forever'(meaning till you last in this planet!).

Please do not mistake me as a non- believer of love and romance.I love being in love as much as any other guy!.Who in their right mind doesn't want togetherness, romance,passion,support and understanding??. What I come to say is that we might not get all from the same person, might not get all for a long time..(read that as, till you die!) It is not out there and if it is, it is rare!! So, forever is very very longass time to expect your partner to be turned on by your words, actions and a constantly aging body!! Ok, some might say, that is where fondness kicks in and that is enough for you to stay in the relationship... Right!, is that why there are so many cases of adultery all around us?..because you are fond of your partner, but get your desert from somewhere else (read that as sex!, for the delicate minded readers!!)

We are bombarded by ads like fast track where they promote changing your watches as often as you change partners (or is it the other way around?, I wonder!!). You really think it is not making all of us wonder if there is a forever, if there is a true love and if it will stay true and if we are really capable of being monogamous for the rest of our lives?? When i say monogamy, I include the mind too! Our minds also need stimulation and we might not get it constantly from our partners..do we let our minds stray?..watch out..the body follows the mind!! We need variety in bed too which after a few seasons with one person,after all the permutations and combinations of wrestling with each other(I word my words delicatelyhere!) , becomes predictable and ends up being a chore to the women and just a release for the men!!

I am not giving you a grim picture..I am playing the devil's advocate (and pleading his case,heheh!!) and telling you like it is and like what I have seen and felt! Maybe there are people living in ignorant bliss worshiping the ground each other walk on..but you know as well as me those cases are far and few nowadays!! Some wise man said..'marriage is an institution, but then, who wants to live in an institution??( as in mental institution, for the wordly pun- challenged!) All I am saying is,(looks like I have said too much and pissed off too many people already!!) enjoy it while it lasts..when the time comes, use the same dignity and class you have shown when getting into it , while getting out of it too!!. There is going to be a demise in the magic, there is going to be a falling out, but it doesn't have to be ugly! I always move on in my own merry way unmindful of how many people call me a 'loser" because i know...tomorrow is a brand new day!Lest i sound like a serial relationshipper (I dont even know if there is a term!?). I have been completely monogamous(one at a time I say!!) I have been at my best behavior and I have been blessed to still have them care for me!.

The point of this tirade (should there be a point ??) is to accept and embrace what God has given us and to some of us lucky ones, he gives many, unlike a couple that is in the throes of ignorant domestic bliss,caused by lack of imagination or opportunity!(this is certain to get me stoned!, with the rock variety, not the fumes variety!!) when I look at a happily married couple, I wonder which one is happy and which one is married!!

Lastly, I am what I am by design, not by choice...which is what most of you out there are and this blog is in celebration of people who have given their best and have been left out in the cold, ...confused, scared of the next step, wary of everyone new, not knowing whether to move ahead or retreat! Take heart, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!! Shit happens and it has happened to you too!! Every relationship comes with an 'expiry date'!!.

Accept, embrace and move on...someone who deserves you is out there!!

GOOD LUCK IN LOVE AND GOD BLESS THE NEXT ONE!!

(P.S..I hate love is titled thus because I have had to do it so many times and still haven't got it right!, so I will keep trying :p)

Back again ! Child Actor !!

I was at the ripe old age of 3 when i had my first acting experience! A friend of my dad came home and took one look at me and fell in love..(no not the child molestor kinda love!, but the kinda love that erupts for a producer when you see that you can get a cute child actor for free!).After much persuation, I was fully bathed, snot cleaned from my runny nose, powdered on my face beyond recognition(as was the style those days to make kids look presentable!), wore same cloth/design shirt and shorts(as was the style those days!) and packed off to the studios with my over bearing aunt(my dad's sister who happily fulfilled the void of not having a mother in law to my mom and terrorised everyone in the house!).My aunt was proud as a peacock about my acting job and off we went!.After many waiting hours and a few tantrums (not from me, from my aunt!) later, I was called and made to sit in between the late Gemini Ganesan and B.Sarojadevi for a song/scene, I dont remember, but the photo is still proudly displayed in kalahasthi at Bhavani press, which belongs to my grandfather.Dunno if it still exists, but the last i saw, the photo was still there!.My father then decided that I was going to be the last minute replacement for a child artiste who absconded and cast me as in "Yellelo naane' , a kannada film (superhero genre )directed by my dad which didnt run in theatres the time it was taken to be made!.
A few years later, another friend of my dad, producer Coganti kutumbarao (father of director K.Vasu), saw me at home making faces at the mirror and acting stupid( a trait at 6 that continues till date!) and decided I was going to be the child version of N.T.R. in his film Deeksha. My dad said no, my aunt said yes and that was the end of the arguement and no guesses as to who won!. So off I went to Bharani Studios (it belonged to the late Bhanumathi and sadly it doesnt exist today!). I was made to wear 2 inches of make up, red lipstick and rouge all over my cheeks making me unrecognisable to ...myself! After the make up man finished his handiwork and showed me the mirror, I shrieked, wailed, cried and wanrted to run away!. the make up man got offended that his artistry was not appreciated and told my aunt that it was a black and white film and that is the way it had to be and walked away! My aunt believed him and dragged my ass to the set and there I was at the ripe old age of 6, fully comprehending that there are about 80 odd pairs of eyes looking at me and expecting me to utter the lines, cry, run to my dead father played by some unknown actor and cradle his head in my lap! phew...I was a petrified dish!! I realised this was not a "smile and look here, i will give you choclate" excercise i had done earlier!.
This was serious stuff!! Surprisingly, I managed it after only a few rehearsals and I guess I was doing fine till the director decided to get creative!. He called me aside and said to me in his gentlest voice.." imagine that is your father, imagine the person next to you is your mother, crying for your dead father!" How will you feel? and then proudly looked at his assistant directors as if to say, thsi is how you draw performance from a novice!! They in turn looked at him in fake admiration(for fear of their jobs!). The smug director's face quickly changed, when the words he spoke to me hit my comprehension and I started a long wail followed by crying, rolling on the floor and sobbing my eyes off! No amount of cajoling and pleading worked on me and the director , clearly hurt that his plan backfired asked me to be taken to the make up room where I was supposed to be cooled off and my aunt, who didnt know what happened and when I told her that Director uncle told me that my dad is dead, she took off on the assistant directors and they didnt dare say a word coz she literally chewed their heads off and took me home! I cried all the way to home and only on seeing my mother did I stop and a bribe of few ice creams later, drifted off to sleep!.
A few phone calls, apologies and bonding of the friends , all was resolved and oof i went to the studio...again!! this time, there were no real life examples and i guess i did my job well enough to be flooded with offers! This time, my father decided he was going to stop this nonsense , lest it would affect my studies( like i was an ace student!! moi was struggling in school from day one! ) and told my aunt some story about how all child artistes grow up to be short and the lights affecting their growth! my aunt believed it and my acting career that began at 3 ended at the age of 6, just when i was beginning to understand the nuances and thrill of it! Actually, I kinda liked the pampering of the film people,the sets, the lights, the adrenalin rush of a take and the focus of everyone on the set on that singular moment.....!
Thanks to my dad,I was put firmly back to reality,(maybe he sensed the comfort with which i started leaving home to the studio!!) He packed me off into the world of school, studying and books that made no sense to me!!
So I merrily continued my excellence in substandardness of acedemics!!

Let's talk about SEX baby !!

Deep within the bowels of my ...mind (lest you guys assume i am going somewhere else!) there are a million thoughts!..about nothing and everything!. lemme start with my favourite topic..sex!.(Ok, now there are many antennas going up, I know!! Is he going to offend me by writing blasphemy? Is he crossing the line? Is he going to keep this blog clean or is he going to fall by the gutter?) Chill people..read on and decide! I am writing this after much confusion and clarity of chaotic thinking!
Woody allen said...sex is beautiful between two good looking people!, the trick is finding the right 2 goodlooking people and fitting in !!
Sex is dirty....if it is done right!!.. we spend so many years of our lives thinking about it ( all the hours of the days added together) wondering(for the uninititated!), pondering ( for the worriers of their performance earlier!), fantasising( for the newcomers!,pun intended), dreaming(for the love struck!), anticipating(for the starved kinds!),worrying( for the fat, over the hill kinds!),
dreading (for the many years married and/or the younger partner kinds!) readying ( for the viagra kinds;)) anticipating (for all!) ...we all spend time on it..but no, we dont wanna talk about it because it is taboo!..puhleeaase,..let's be grown up about it for a change. it is there, it exists , we all do it, we all did it and we are gonna do it till we die if we can help it!
I am so happy to see the days gone where women pretended to do men a favour by going to bed with a man! women pretended to do it because they are supposed to sacrifice for their man! women were told not to as much as squeal/let out a squeak.. when in bed with their man! Mothers told daughters to ration it lest the husband took it for granted! I am so glad to see the revolution come by and women come to terms with their individuality, their independence, their feminism, their wants and desires and not be afraid to voice them out and take what they need... from life and from the bedroom!. (here's to celebrating them and their freedom!) Sex is nothing but an expression of love !!
There are many men who still question women's virginity, look at their desires with suspect, question their experiences, judge their normal needs, balk at their desires and verify and compare their performance/ manliness caused by deep rooted insecurities!.
Well they are a dying breed that is still alive and thriving in this civilization! I really hope and pray for their extinction..or at least for that mindset! Dont get me wrong here..i am not condoning or talking about premarital sex ( and getting myself into shit load of trouble!) I am talking about a woman, today's woman...whether she is from the village or city, she has the right to have a healthy sex life and be happy with her partner who she chooses/chosen for her !
I was doing a lot of frantic pondering while i was doing my hurried yoga and then clarity collided with my confusion and created chaos in my already housefull pea brain! So decided to talk about sex and how normal it is for everyone and everybody! Vola.. no more taboo, no more whispering about it, no more unrequitted passion! We are all human beings and we all deserve happiness!
There are men who havent heard of the female orgasm and see her as a child bearing vessel! Trust me, I hear men talking and I hear women talking too!! MEN, get a life!! they have far outrun us in the thinking department, looks department(needless to say i guess!) achievements department (look at our president and the real president of the congress!!) look at our +2 results!! they have out run us, out gunned us, even out manned us!!
I guess any clever man would now say..ma'm what would be your wish? I will follow, you lead !! I am not deriding men, just asking them to relinquish the archaic dominance we have held for all these years and learn to treat the fairer sex as the stronger sex and the logical thinking and multitasking (which we cant do to save our manhood even !!) race of humanity! Respect them as we did our mothers, but let us not mistake them for our subserviant mothers!, A mistake I see a lot of men do and expect to dominate them like our fathers did our mothers (our mothers didnt have options,..due to lack of education, lack of support from their own parents, lack of finances, lack of role models!)..! A timewarp mistake that has caused many a divorces in our/this time !!
Respect the woman, respect her needs, respect her wants, respect her mind, respect her heart, respect the fact that she goes through hell, to give you children with your name... and you will have peace !! Forgetting which, men. you will be faced with ' hell hath no fury than a woman scorned'
I have been borne by a blessed woman, a blessed woman bore my child!
I have slept with women and not had sex!
I have had sex with women and didnt want to sleep with them !
I have loved some women but didnt lust after them!
I have lusted some women but didnt feel love !
I couldnt afford some women, but some offered to buy me(which i refused, of course!)
I have wanted some women for life, but life didnt let me keep them with me for life!
I have been wanted by some, but i didnt want to be kept !!
I have loved and lost! ..only to realise, that I have always been loved by the ones I have lost !!
SEX,. my friends, is not between two legs, it's between two ears !!
Hope i have not offended anyone and if I have, thats a bonus !!

back to FLASHBACK !

My growing up years have been pretty traumatic and nerve wracking for me and to onlookers, pretty tame and ...lame !! As soon as I was put in school, seeing the sea of humanity was overwhelming for me and very very early on, i realized i was no Einstein !! I could have been blamed for many things, but being smart or intelligent wasn't one of them in school! I wasn't clever enough to sit in the front row and wasn't rebellious or daring enough to be allowed to sit in the back row with the adventurous boys who everyone admired for their being pulled up, scolded ,caned or dismissed to the principal's office !I started in 'OXFORD ENGLISH SCHOOL', a private school where everyone spoke Tamil (what an oxymoron for such a posh sounding school name!) I quickly became the butt of ragging and jokes by the tall boys and the fat boys who loved calling me 'vella kakka' (white crow) because I was fair skinned and I have never hated my skin as much as I did in school ! It was an all boys school and I was spared the embarrassment of being me ,probably because I blended in! ( I was awkwardly thin with a gangly walk and a chicken chest with narrow shoulders which my friends constantly reminded me of ...and my self esteem was uncomfortably below sea level !!)

Somehow i managed to pass (excel, in my book!!) by keeping my marks at a 40 + level and the only thing I did well was in English, thanks to my voracious reading! I read everything, from newspapers to comics to weeklies to novels to ....porn ! (that came later, but we will get there eventually !!) I used to read so much because i was bored out of my skull, being a lonely child! I had nowhere to go, wasn't allowed to go anywhere by my overbearing aunt and a scared mother who thought i was too good for the neighborhood boys who constantly bullied me! In the mean while my dad quit Devar films because he decided having 14 fractures in 6 years while acting with animals that threw you (elephants) mauled you( tigers) and scratched you (monkeys) and bit you (dogs!) was enough! He decided to go to Bangalore to become a director! btw he started as a camera assistant, assistant director, editing assistant, dubbing artiste, actor and then became a director and then promoted himself to a producer, where he lost all his money and some of my money which i would earn in the future, but we will come to that later!!

Before he left to stay in Bangalore for a few years, he decided to test my educational skills and took out my school bag and started asking me questions from my school books which i had kept for purely ornamental purposes and not to do mundane things like studying!.Needless to say, he was appalled, frustrated and angry with my stupidity and promptly proceeded to arm himself with a coat hanger (wooden, thank God!) and thrashed the living daylights out of me, with my aunt trying to wedge herself in between us and my mom keeping a respectable distance from the proceedings!! I was extremely relieved he was going to Bangalore and decided that very day i was going to be smarter...at not getting caught!, not studying or education !!

With my father safely and temporarily out of the picture, I continued my excellence in academics getting average to passable to 'almost pass' and 'barely pass' marks in all subjects..! My bench mates in Oxford English School were 'Puttanna' and 'venkat', now known as "ShivrajKumar' and ' kadalora kavithaigal Raja" ! I didnt think much of them and they returned the favor by thinking I was a complete loser!.We kinda bonded because of our below average scores in all subjects!. Ten odd years later we met each other...at the film fare awards where I received the best new comer award in Telugu, Shivraj kumar received the best new comer award in Kannada and Raja received the best newcomer award in Tamil ! We bonded again and were surprised to realize all us ' losers' (who have been written off by all the teachers barring none )had made something of our lives and it was a tearful and joyous moment in my life to see my school mates up there receiving awards and I was proud to be there with them !!

Life was going well (by that I mean being invisible, obscure and under the radar of teachers who completely underestimated me and rightly so !! )for this awkward 'almost' teenager when my parents had a brilliant idea of putting me in the next compound... Shrine Velankani School, a co-education school and my real troubles began ! My pathetic exposure to girls (no, i didn't expose myself to them like in my childhood, but showing my face to girls was enough to make me cringe then for this totally self conscious geeky pubescent boy!!)

All that and more in the next installment !!

Today!!

I have always been a firm believer in today, as in this moment..Why, because nobody gives a rat's ass what you did yesterday and nobody will know wtf you are gonna do tomorrow!! This moment, today what you do, how you behave, how you respond to people is what matters! AHAM BRAHMASMI!! There are many old timers who make youngsters scamper, scoot,run for their dear lives the minute they open their mouths!! The reason is not bad breath, though that is also my suspicion.. it largely because the old timers start their every conversation with..'in our days", things were so beautiful, 'in our days' things were more disciplined, 'in our days' people treated people better and with respect!!....

If you ask me, i will tell you its all a bunch of crap! ( i will tell you even if you dont ask me also!! :))we all know in the olden days things were not so streamlined nor disciplined, we all know there was zamindari attitude to lower class people..(no one can afford to say the things old timers said to workers and such these days) and those days beauty is very relative to the beholder's eyes..my biggest fear is becoming one of the old timers who thinks the past was beautiful!, only because he was important then and not now!!. I get my sense of importance from my work and not from how people respond to me!

This happens largely to people who have not yet come to terms with loss of 'star status' or have stopped being a Demi-God! (trust me, its all in their heads! these days people are not remembered a few days after they are gone, so thinking 'the sun wont come up without me, moon will not shine without me' bullshit is a very bad defense mechanism of a retarded human being whose insecurities stemming from a far inferior complex that makes them hide behind self importance and denial thereby making their empty lives livable!).These are people who take themselves seriously and not their work! their work doesn't define them, they, their market and their 'glamour' does! This goes for actors, CEO's, politicians and 'desperate for publicity and fame' industrialists!!

I tell my actor friends to travel,. see the world, not so that they get to travel or holiday but to understand how frickin little we are in the wide expanse of this earth and how many, many many people have achieved success, greatness.nobility,immortality, Godliness (is there such a word? I wonder?!) by their work, hard work that has come from discipline, toil and sacrifice! We are in a position where people love us, admire and adore us...let us be nice to people who want to greet, meet and talk to us!. Let us not be snobbish, let us not think the sun shines out of our ass, let us not assume our shit dont stink! is what i politely tell my actor friends!!. Some take it in the right spirit, some dont..its ok! I am not here to change anybody by advise or lecture! I try saying everything with a pinch of humour and trust me, even i have been told off or insulted when i tell facts to my heroic bretheren, by the heroic bretheren!

What is the point of this rambling? (actually, i am beginning to wonder..i have the attention span of a firefly, i meander, wander, go off tangent so much so that i wonder where and who I am?!) I guess the point is that we should never take for granted the gifts that we have been given...trust me,. all of us are given gifts, we haven't learnt to count our blessings yet!. When we do, we will understand its not so bad!! We will also understand that we are part of a process, system,life force, energy of life mass making this Earth what it is! ( actually, we are depleting earth's resources and making it an empty dustbin, but thats another day, another blog!..trust me to wander off..) We are a part of a big picture and we are not alone, we are not special and least of all, we really dont matter that much in the bigger scheme of things!! Greater men have bode farewell to this earth and the earth has not stopped rotating on its axis!

My dad, a very old school man from films used to be careful about everything ( only for things i did, he must have had a ball in his heydays, i am sure!!)

He used to keep saying, you are a 'public figure' be careful what you do and say in public!, you are a'public figure' careful to keep your inaccessible fortitude!, was his constant advise to me! All this was at my ripe old age of 18!!. It kinda got to me after a while and i was telling a friend ' screw this 'PUBIC' figure bullshit man, cant take this anymore!!. My dad heard this and unleashed hell on me and told me off in all the four south Indian languages he knew well and added Hindi and English scoldings and abuses which he didn't know so well!! All this in the guise of me not talking advise in the right spirit and that stardom got to my head!, was his ranting.He accused me of coming home at 6.45 when the shoot got over at 5.30 when it was half an hour's drive only to get home! I was dumbstruck and didn't understand why i was being treated like a girl/object/pocession (you take your pick!) I came to know later that he was being overly protective so that i didn't marry any actress and run away from home!!. He needn't have bothered, because that was what exactly i did!! Well done with the discipline dad!!

There is a lot of murder that happens to the English language on a regular basis in my industry! Here are some snippets or nuggets (depends on how much you enjoy them)

SELF MURDER ...to denote suicide!

PETROTHAAL...to denote betrothal!

COME CASUALTY..to denote come casually!

VAKINI ...vauhini studios

TUPPING...dubbing!

SOOS...juice!

YACT...act!

will provide more soon!!

BACK To The beginnings!

With insanity in my genes and a head injury (which my mother dismisses off as nothing, since it was her fault for rocking the cradle hard enough for my head and wall to meet each other with a resounding thud!!) I steadily grew from a constantly sickly baby to a fully grown up 13 month,once in a while sick toddler!. My mother always wanted a girl child and took great pleasure in making me wear girly clothes and letting me parade around the front gate of my house. To top it, i had long tresses, saved for tonsuring in Tirupathi which kept getting delayed due to my dad's busy non-paying job as an assistant director in Devar films.The pale face, long hair and girly clothes made people wonder if i was a boy or a girl and a few of them kept asking me what i was as they were passing by..

I seem to have taken it for a while and after that got progressively pissed off at the question and proceeded to answer the boy or girl question from passerbys with a lifting of the frock i was made to wear, thereby exposing my gender beyond all doubt and quickly satisfying their curiosity!.After a while it became a game to passerbys to ask me my gender and be flashed by good old me!! (guess i had the exhibishionistic streak then too, though i would rather call it entertaining streak, if only just to save face or look good in my blog!.)

My father who returned to take me to tirupathi came to know about this and wasnt as amused as the passerbys or my aunt and gave me a hiding, with my aunt trying to protect me..(this became a norm for the rest of my growing up years!).The spanking left me unable to sit right for a few days and I learnt my first lesson in being conservative and not display my genitals for all and sundry to see!

(obviously the lesson was quickly forgotten as i grew up into a young man! :) just kidding folks!)

A few months later we shifted to chennai because my father decided to ask for a salary from his bosses and they decided to pay him since he was working as an assistant director/ animal feeder/animal trainer and also stunt double for artistes who were feeling squeamish about fighting angry roaring, murderous tigers or lions!.My father must have wanted to get into the movies real bad to go through all that with wide eyed enthusiasm. My grandfather, Mysore Seshaiah Naidu had a tryst with the movies a few years earlier where he wrote scripts for some well forgotten movies and was sent back to tend to his cow farm.So he had a suspicious view of my fathers promises to become a famous 'something' in the movies someday!

In Chennai, we lived in Theynampet somewhere of which i have no recollection of and then moved to south west boag road which was a thatched house.(it later became a tin shed roof and then became a tiled roof and then it became a building when i bought it with my hard earned money, but i will come to that later!) I recollect my early years there with a strange incident that happened to me.Since our house or tenement if you can call it that had only one bathroom and right across the house were empty fields..(this in T.Nagar where a single ground is now going for crores of rupees!) Early in the morning as soon as you look across your house, you were greeted with a wondrous sight of many many children squatting in the field , grimacing with complete concentration of trying to empty their bowels, some by themselves, some by the egging of their mothers or fathers who were standing nearby(if the child was tiny). (i heard some women and men did it in the early morning darkness before the sun came up, but i sadly never saw that sight!)One day there were guests from out of town residing in my spacious two room house and my mother told me to go to the fields when i expressed my desire to empty my bowels,since the bathroom was full and was going to be for a while since there was a queue waiting.I was trepidious at first but curiosity got the better of me and the thought of being alone with nature and a jug of water completely unattended seemed like a fantastic idea at that time and i ventured into the wide open world..(read that as 10 feet from my front gate to the fields!)

There i was blissfully squatting in the wide open fields with people passing by and an occasional car rumbling by and enjoying the new sensations of fresh air blowing around my ass while i take a shit. Suddenly i felt an unfamiliar sensation on my ass and i turned around to see a very large pig( i was tiny so it must have seemed very very large!) was eating my shit and was trying to reach the source of the shit too with its tongue!! The sensation of its tongue on my ass was what made me turn around and more over, the pig was pushing my ass with it's face to make me move over so that it can have better reach!!.I was up like a spring and was running like a bullet towards the house and into my mother's arms wailing, squealing, crying and reporting the incident. My mother found it hilarious and said there are a lot of pigs who feed on the excrement since it is open fields and and laughed about it for months on..but i didn't find it funny at all and was vary of pigs since then on and it was the first incident in my memory as a child and the house i remember growing up in!!

So,when i say humble beginnings my friends, its not even a joke, but i had my share of fun, joy laughter and love as a child, thanks to an adoring aunt who thought i was the best thing since 'baked bread' or 'the invention of the wheel' and a mother who was curious of me since she didn't understand my weirdness till a lot later in my life!

A little thanks to my dad too for not being around too much since i was terrified of him most of the time! He was a little man with a very big temper!!(probably where i get my temper from!)