Old Enough for School

Three years ago I was living the most challenging phase of my life.

I had completed my MBBS, after flunking the Gynaecology paper once. But was not out of college, as I needed lakhs of rupees for breaking the bond of not serving in the army as a doctor. I had not started my Medical Internship and wasn’t planning to. People I hardly cared about were successfully instigating the people I cared about, and both groups regretfully believed I had gone hopelessly insane. The documentary film project, that I had got within one week of landing to this city, was stuck. I was living in a small one-room flat at Dahisar with my Mom and brother, though my little room at AFMC Boys Hostel was still under my name. That sequence of this life’s wonderful movie was full of unhealthy melodrama, albeit without any background score. Worst of all, I was waiting for it to get over, like a helpless protagonist, who can do nothing by himself, except keeping faith.

It was then that I chanced upon a blog by one of my juniors. And that made me think – should I start a blog of my own? Should I use this medium to stimulate my creativity and gain some motivation? A blog of my poems, or just random ramblings about things I see and observe. No, I argued. That would be making my egotistical nature ‘officially’ available for the world. If I start blogging, it should be something about others, rather than me. And then, like it has often happened, Cinema came to my rescue.

I wrote four small posts within the first three days of starting this blog, which I proudly named – ‘Cinema is Forever’. I didn’t know what it was going to lead to, just this – I would dedicatedly use this space to celebrate Cinema, without actively publicizing it.

That was 22nd of November, 2008. Today, three years later, this blog has become an essential part of my existence. I constantly try to come up with something every now and then, working hard to score low on egotism, opinionated views, uni-dimensional criticism, and trying my best not to show off – though I doubt if I always succeed! This blog has become a platform to vent out my ‘reading’ of the medium, and the joy of the same. During my hostel days in school and then at AFMC, for close to a decade, movies had been my most favourite topic of conversation, in the dormitories, at mess tables, in the dissection hall, the hospital wards, everywhere. This blog makes sure that the ritual continues – in a more formal way, perhaps, but with equal conviction and enthusiasm. But even more importantly, this blog, and its modest number of ‘followers’ and ‘page views’, inspire me to a continual study of Cinema and its numerous facets. On turning three, I suppose, this little blog is ready to go to school now!

This post, unlike most, is very personal and uninhibitedly egotistical. But on the occasion of the Third Anniversary of this blog, I allowed myself this indulgence. Many of my earlier posts appear amateurish to me today, and my struggle with the English language continues. But that is the fun of it – trying to do something passionately without the insecurity of being judged, and hoping to improve with time. I should have written this post a couple of days ago, but was busy shooting a short film. After the last day of shoot, I watched two movies at PVR – George Clooney’s ‘The Ides of March’ (2011) and a special screening of Martin Scorsese’s ‘GoodFellas’ (1990). There could not have been a better way to celebrate this anniversary. A post can always come later to share the experience and the unending love for the ‘most beautiful fraud on earth’.