Sunday, February 18, 2001		Life Ties

There is a choice if we are willing to see it
By Taru Bahl

RAHUL’S parents realised that he was attractive to the opposite sex when on Valentine’s Day he was deluged with love messages from girls. Phone calls, greeting cards, e-mail messages, bouquets and fancygifts were sent through messengers, drivers and courier boys. In some cases, the girls themselves delivered their gifts to him. Although he was average in studies, he made it up by excelling in extra-curricular activities. Moreover, he hailed from a business background and, therefore, didn’t have to worry about his future. While his classmates slogged in private coaching classes for taking entrance tests, he casually took admission in a local college. His proud parents presented him with an open jeep and life was one merry circus.

With girls swooning over him and male class mates drilling it into his head that he could exploit his dashing looks to scale the peaks of success without doing much, he began to harbour starry visions of the future. When a Punjabi channel auditioned for actors, he sent in his name and was selected. His friends goaded him to try his luck further by going to Mumbai. They were convinced that he was cut out for better things. His parents didn’t need to be convinced. He quit his B.A mid way, invested in a trendier wardrobe, collected a useful dozen addresses and flew to the city of dreams.

Initially, he stayed with relatives who had contacts in the film industry. He was fortunate to get a break with a team of advertising professionals who had got together to make a commercial film in the true Western mould and were looking for a macho new face to fit the cowboy image. Rahul fitted the role well.

Since the film was not backed by big time financiers and was to be completed on a shoe-string budget, Rahul was signed for a token amount. Coming from a smaller city, he was completely taken in by the mystique and aura of fast-paced Mumbai. He could see that this was one place where money made the mare go.

After pack-up, he would hit the city discos and bars. He had made friends from the world of fashion and considered himself lucky to have found a foothold so fast. He moved into a paying guest accommodation and was itching to buy an apartment. Maybe a film or two later he would manage that too. Meanwhile, his daily expenses were still being paid for by his parents.

Six months went by and not even half the film had been shot. Rahul was getting impatient. The promotional campaigns launching him as the face to watch out for were not happening. The film was stuck because finances had dried up. He would come and sit on the sets, throw a few starry tantrums and return home with a long face. Since he had signed a contract with a film producer for not taking up any other assignments till his movie was released, his hands were tied. There were a trickle of modelling offers which he had to pass. Frustration was setting in.

To add to his woes, his parents sent him an SOS. They had run into major trouble over property matters. For the first time he looked at his father’s ‘business’ closely and was shocked to find anomalies. Not only were his businesses not straight but there was no proper documentation or record of incoming and outgoing transactions. Most of the business was done in good faith with ‘trusted’ partners. With two of them ganging up, his father was left high and dry. All he had was the ancestral house and a few scattered land holdings. The culprits were above the law since there was nothing that could pin them down on paper. While his parents could fend for themselves, they were not in a position to support and pamper him. He returned to Mumbai more panicky than before.

He opted out of the plush PG accommodation and shacked up with four other wannabes in a downtown area. He stopped commuting in taxis and opted for local trains. All the things he had earlier taken for granted were now valued. This new awakening, backed by sincere efforts, were still not translating into lucrative assignments. The film seemed stuck for good. After a lot of pleading, he was finally released from the contract. He started doing the rounds of other filmmakers and television companies and was willing to take up second lead and two-bit character roles.

It was a question of survival. All his model friends deserted him the moment he couldn’t foot their drinking and partying bills. Mumbai suddenly looked seedy and murky. He began to hate the place, its double standards, deception and painful contrasts.

The thought of returning home did occur to him but he rejected it outright. How could he return home with failure written all over his face? He had been goaded into the glittering world of showbiz. He had believed that he would take the city by storm and return to his hometown to a welcome befitting a hero. How often he had dreamt of being gheraoed by reporters, photographers and frenzied fans. His fate now seemed sealed. Not even a miracle could turn the tide in his favour. Just the other day, he had been offered a role in a pornographic flick. His junkie roommates mocked his puritan values, saying that beggars couldn’t be choosers. Around this time, the thought of putting an end to his life took firm hold on his subconscious. Again and again, he would find his mind drifting to suicide as the only way out.

One day, while sitting on the sets of a television producer waiting to say his lines in a two-minute role, he got talking to an extra who had come 25 years ago from Jalandhar. Hearing Rahul’s story he told him categorically: "Go home. You don’t belong here. You are lucky to at least have that choice. Scores of uneducated people like me come with visions of a fairytale future but are forced to accept whatever is doled out. They have no family or place to go back to. I was handsome, too, once upon a time but I have not gone beyond being an extra. Even this work is not easy to come by. But you have a choice. You are young, you have a loving family who will accept you and you can restart your education. Life will give you a chance of rebuilding your future. Don’t look at your return as a humiliating defeat. Treat your Mumbai innings as a learning experiment."

Rahul considered returning home. What was the worst that could happen to him? Friends would laugh at him, call him names? The Press would use his story to drill sense into other glamour- struck youngster? His family would label him ‘a poor little thing’? From where he mustered the courage to board the train to Delhi he still doesn’t know, but he decided that he could face that initial rejection rather than live as an extra for the rest of his life.

Within six years of his return, he had turned his father’s land holdings into a virtual delight. He experimented with strawberries and exotic vegetables. Rahul today is a successful progressive farmer exporting to the Middle East. He often sits back and wonders what would have happened had he not met that nameless faceless extra who changed the direction of his life and made him see that he indeed was lucky to have the option of making a choice.