As the wheel starts to roll, the voice outside grows crazier and more vivacious. The crowd gets berserk as the car moves into them. They want something and they want it real bad with all their heart. They are screaming out something in particular and as their adulation rises to even greater heights sweat starts rolling out from the pores on my forehead, waking up from my sleep with a blitz I soon realise that they had been calling out my name.
The interview had turned out to be quite well. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting the host to show some avuncular generosity yet I feel he went kind of soft on me. Perhaps it might have had happened so because he somehow could possibly feel my situation by being in my place mentally. 4 back-to-back flops in a period of 2 years was enough to take me off the spotlight. At one time I was the next big thing in the film industry and then people were no longer enamored of me. My charm, my charisma, dialogue delivery, my comic timing could no longer gravitate them towards the box office. Producers stopped picking up my calls and why shouldn’t they? I was the cause of a massive Rs 600 crore loss that the industry had to suffer. My life was turned upside down. It’s kind of funny, the way in which that girl from the audience during the talk show had inquired about how I became an overnight success. Overnight was what she had presumed it to be! I had struggled to control the growing aversion but I somehow managed to respond with a smile, “Well, I had been lucky.” While on the contrary luck had never been on my side. I was not even lucky enough to have a minimal acquaintance with my father. I wish if he could have seen me growing up, taking my first step and how I became a celebrity. The journey had never been easy. There are hundreds of people who come everyday to become somebody, and out of those hundreds only a few become somebody. I had been one of them, it hasn’t been much long and I still recall those days when I used to walk around the city in hunt for my next meal and those sleepless nights when I would think of the red carpet with cameras all around. How badly I wanted my life to be all about lights, camera and action. The best part is I got it. I had it all, fan following, producers lining up and everybody in the industry wanted to be associated with me.
I was young and foolish and maybe that’s how all the newly rich are. My care free approach to all problems and my addiction to be in the highlights of the day – always inside the mind of the people had made be a cheap publicity seeking maniac. My tantrums and aggressive behavior had often been mentioned in the news. My personal life had been laid out in the open, discussed with the public without my consent and their opinions had a tectonic impact on my self and yet they expected me to remain calm. I hate them all for having pulverized my real self, for getting into my life and for making me this sick lifeless person that I am now. I want to feel alive again. I need reincarnation. I want to live with that one day again and again, the day when I was a headline news and I ran to my village, to my sweet mother and I can’t forget that moment when tears filled with joy rolled down on our cheeks. I had made her feel proud and now her son is a broke – a bankrupt actor with no talent left. The pressure keeps increasing with every day passing by and all that I have at the end of the day is regret and disappointment. The revolver always looked nice in my grip be it in reel life or now in real life. It makes decision making so glib and you see, life is a choice but death is a decision. Now with the gun pointing at my temple I feel a different kind of rush and a whole new sort of energy has taken over my body. With my fingers around the trigger I see that door in the empty room swing open into what I guess is a better tomorrow. Just about to pull the trigger and out comes, ‘Hey Ma! I’m going to make headlines again!’
Hitro marku 