The One and a Half Month

It has been a hectic month and a half. It started in Feb , with the premiere of Namma Metro. The premiere was not easy. I was not completely happy with the way I had performed. I had till then always enjoyed the claps. Applauses and cheers from the crowd, but suddenly it all seemed to be gone. I had gone berserk at the very thought of injustice I had done to the job I was responsible for.
It was not easy to digest the fact. Doubts lingered, was I finished? Am I done with the acting business? But I couldn’t tell this to anyone, I couldn’t destroy the mood of the group. The group in general was ecstatic as the premiere was otherwise a success. There were fresh talents which were discovered, new attempts, new struggles had discovered the spots and pars onstage that day.
Any artiste especially an actor, I think is extremely egoistic and always wants his or her audience to praise the performances. When that doesn’t happen, a self doubt appears. Atleast it came to my mind. I knew I was a commoner down stage. But had I become that onstage? I had stepped onstage just not to be that. Nor does any other actor. I believe we go onstage and act to discover ourselves, to know who we really are. In the process we try to put on so many other guises.
Well I had to chew this deep down without allowing anyone even notice. We had a row of shows coming up. Next was our Malgudi in Chennai. Chennai if I recollect was the toughest show for us. It was not only the first time we were stepping out of our den, but also financially crucial. A bitter fight and I had vented all my frustration. Probably I would never recover but serendipitously for me and not so much for the group, we had to in the last minute remove one of the stories and we were left with no other option but to add a story where I had to perform out of my skin.
And there came Chennai. Thankfully it was a houseful. We performed and we performed pretty well considering a huge gap from that last time we had gone up with Malgudi. I was still not at my best, but I was not bad either. I felt somewhat ok, somehow reorganizing myself.
Then there was the monster, Pune. Chennai was atleast South India. But Pune was totally unknown, stakes were very high. More than half a century thousands of rupees were already spent. Group was very confident. But I was not so much. Except for the last story, the other story where I was acting was not so well received in Bangalore. I felt that was the fate in Pune also. I was afraid, afraid of letting down my people.
We performed twice continuously in Pune. The first show, I was nervous! Nervous wasn’t a word I knew onstage. But there I was, standing anxiously waiting, praying to god to do some miracle. And indeed it happened. All that it took was one laugh and a clap from the audience some 2 minutes after the story started, and I was on. I was not my real self, I had once again transformed. I didn’t think, I just did. If the first show was an icebreaker, the second was a jubilant one. I had by then regained my confidence. I can only say that people loved it!
Soon after that we had a show of Namma Metro in MES, my homeground, my alma mater. Wow, what an occasion, but there I was again stuck with the role I didn’t do any justice that first time around wondering if I can pull it off. It was in that audi that I had cried literally over a show, around 10 years ago. I was almost in tears even that day.
I kept calm, didn’t want to do a Rangashankara. I went onstage, before which I had imagined myself as an old man for the hundred times which was also my character. I went there deciding to take it scene by scene, with a grit to make people laugh atleast once. I was successful infact more than once, aided by the dialogues. I cant explain how many times in between I wanted to getup and do something else, something that people react. But I held on, didn’t want to upset the show. At the end, it was worth holding on. I was happy that I didn’t do injustice but yeah, I couldn’t do more than what I did. Atleast some people thought I was good.
Yes, I did realize after all that I still had it in me to go back onstage and enjoy acting, enjoy being someone else. It was just another patch, a test I had to face.