Pragati Mehra

In the real world some realities hit you so hard that you realize reality isn’t exactly what you thought it was! Confused? Well, that’s exactly how I was. Every actor has a dream to do something they haven’t done before. If you are a TV actor, you want to do theatre and films and vice versa. If you are doing a fiction show then you want to do a non-fiction also known as reality shows… though it’s not everyone who is fortunate enough to get the opportunity they are looking for. But a few chances came my way…

As a kid had heard stories of temples built for superstars down south; like the one made for Rajnikanth (Rajni Sir), Chiranjeevi and Khushboo and always wondered ‘Amitabh Bachchan <em>ka mandir kahan hai… mujhe dekhna hai</em>”…am sure he too has some shrines dedicated to him but still looking for directions.

Every city has its own flavour, a distinct identity, so does Mumbai. And there is a certain section of people one only gets to see and meet here and they are called Jaywalkers. Before I get into the psyche and description of this species let me tell you jaywalking is an offence by law! (I too didn’t know that). In Mumbai everyone has a mind of their own and has such a strong individual streak that logic or rules don’t mean anything.

That time of the year when Gannu Bhaiyya comes visiting practically every home in this city. My romance with the elephant god started few years back when I moved to Mumbai. I was made part of one such celebration, though didn’t really understand the significance of it all then but fell in love with the abandon with which <em>Ganesh Chaturthi</em> is celebrated in this city…fasting for some…feasting for some and fun for all..

Raindrops falling on your roof, going tip tip tip on the asbestos parapet…slowly it gives way to a thunderous uproar. Open the window and the first breeze of fresh air woooshes right inside with the pristine white curtain -- a la Sanjay Leela Bhansali film -- flying away in frenzy as the first ray of dawn (or was it the 10th? How does it matter) crept in.

Just when everyone wants to hide their age we as a nation are proud to celebrate our 63rd birthday! Happy birthday, free India, happy independence day, fellow countrymen! Internationally we have been able to position ourselves as a competent nation, as an emerging superpower but to me it looks like our leadership has taken the meaning of superpower literally and in a different direction completely. To them it means once in power you become SUPER…

Morning papers screamed ‘Julia Roberts is a practicing Hindu!’ Good for her but the unnerving part is we feel good about our religion and heritage only because an international celebrity has endorsed it! What is it they know and have figured out that we haven’t been able to in all these years?

We grow up with tales from childhood and in our heads those incidents become folklore. In an age when infants learn to crawl and walk…am given to believe I started to talk just when I was only eight months old. I had already begun to speak complete sentences. For my doctor it was like ‘<em>kuch toh alag hai</em>’.... only to discover over the years “<em>ki hamari beti bolti bahut hai</em>” and so I got the title, ‘<em>Basanti ki beti</em>’.