talent

The gift of talent, I believe, is a huge responsibility. It does not really belong to you. It never did. If used for merely acquiring wealth fame and power, talent turns into the devil that eats into your soul. Like a gambling debt, like an addiction. Not to a supreme creative endeavour but to the artificial surrounds of wealth, power and fame.
Talent is Prasadam. It can be taken away if not placed at the altar. Talent is the temple. And when it is lost, as it will be if abused, all that is left is the empty shell of addiction. Talent can never be yours, for it is much more substantial than your ego. And the more creative force there is to talent, the more universal, the more beyond yourself it becomes. It is as if someone loaned you the gift to tap into a universal creativity.
Of course there is temptation. The pull of the mortal and material needs never cease. It’s a constant battle to retain the purity, the innocence, the child like playful quality of creative talent.

The builder

Came out from “Jazz by the Bay’, a club in Mumbai, into Marine Drive. Called the ‘Queens Necklace’, this area is among the most desirable and expensive real estate in Mumbai. Was approached by a really old bent and gnarled woman begging for some money. I asked her where she came from. ‘Sholapur’ she said, but had been in Mumbai for longer than she can remember. She left her village in search of food and a better life. A better life ?…..

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Hollywood vs Bollywood ?

I took part in the NDTV debate and realized we were not talking about the same things. The medium and the technology may be the same, but the culture, both of viewing and of creating are completely different. Our films satisfy a completely different need from our audiences, Over the last 50 years they have developed into a completely different culture than the West. It had become fashionable to compare the two and also fashionable to revile Indian Cinema in the context of the west .. till ..

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