Cutting the Chai has moved to a new domain: cuttingthechai.com.
You can get in touch with Soumyadip at www.soumyadip.com.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Lights, Camera, Action


"What do you want to be when you grow up?" - The second most common question which bored grownups put before clueless kids. The first of course is - "What is your 'good' name?" Pestered kids like me would come up with a new ambition at regular intervals to lend some variety. In my early years, I wanted to be a grocer because my infant belief was that grocers never needed to purchase anything. Slowly as the lure of the lucre dawned on me, I switched my loyalties to the bank manager. Again addiction to action movies made me opt for another vocation - the army. With time and maturity (?) the fighting spirit died out.

But the magic of the moving pictures accompanied with sound remained ingrained. I wanted to make movies. My friends amused me demanding lead roles. Some of the nasty ones wanted villainous roles with a few rape scenes (at that time only flowers, birds or fireplaces symbolised copulating couples on celluloid and only villains had the liberty). But education ruined all my plans. I started off to become a geographer, went three-fourths of the way in economics and finally landed up becoming what my blogger profile says.

Filmmaking is too uncertain a profession and I wouldn't definitely land up being the next Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen or Satyajit Ray. That's what my father a connoisseur of the art house stuff felt. He and the vast enormity of my paternal and maternal family extensions felt that I should rather attempt for what is the ultimate dream of the dowry-demanding, bride-burning, female-foetus-killing Indian heartland - the Indian Administrative Service. For better or worse I never attempted that and nor did I fill up the forms for the film institute.

The desire still lingers. But today, nobody asks me - "What did I want to become?"

10 Comments:

Bionic 1 said...

So whats going on in India dude?

I'm all excited, my wifes making steak tonight. ;)

aklanta said...

As everyone knows you will not to be fooled by their heartless interest about the dreams you have had about your future...

K said...

Heck, I never wanted to become what I have become, but for better or for worse I have become something. WRT Movies - I always saw myself as a viewer - an avid viewer - never understanding the intracacies of camera movement or editing because I never wanted to. For me - movies are a story - which like a novel is meant to be enjoyed while watching. Just like diseccting a novel can remove the fun, its the same with movies. Superbly done techical works of art can seem extremely boring to me - but a movie done with zero finesse - Feroz Khan style can still entertian you. I don't want to make a movie.
I wanted to be everything that my fantasia thought up - but I ended up as something else.
Heck, zindagi, kya kiya jaye!

dwaipayan said...

dont ber a IAS officer. u'll end up like agastya of "english,august".. and r not u happy with ur present job? i think u should be a writer or a poet. that will really suit u. by the way,what do u want to be????

Abaniko said...

you remind me of toto in cinema paradiso. if you don't want to go full-time in filmmaking, why not pursue it as a hobby and produce/direct inexpensive short films?

Soumyadip said...

Thanks for the suggestion Abaniko. I had contemplated that. But the expenses involved make me wary. Nevertheless I'm going out and getting myself an inexpensive digital camera and I have also planned for a holiday next month. When I'm back you may find a few moving images on my blog.

dwaipayan said...

best of luck

Abaniko said...

I look forward to seeing your work on this blog.

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