6. The time when I faced real depression first time.

It was April or May 2014

It was certainly one of those times when I didn’t know what to do. I had no clear future plans I could envision. I was failing again and again in the battle grounds of life and I had no idea why. Why was this thing happening to me I wanted to know but the question was how to know and whom to ask? I called few of my friend, relatives, cousin brothers and elders and discussed my situation. Do you think anyone cares and gave actual solution? No, no one cares. No one has any solutions. Everyone had the same reaction-

‘It happens.’

‘Don’t worry everything will be all right.’

‘You are talented, it is just a matter of time.’

‘Don’t worry, it happens with everybody.’

None of the advices were working. I have been through all these advices. They would have worked in other times but it was a severe blow this time. My second film was down the drain. Four years in Mumbai now with two feature films and a book behind me, I was still struggling to make my ends meet. Right now I needed more than just advice, I needed the fast solutions. I needed someone to tell me in exact words what went wrong and how can I heal it. I don’t need sages cryptical answers and metaphors, I need algorithm in perfect order to follow. I didn’t want to use my thinking who has deceived me more than anyone in the past. I knew there had to be a solution. I cannot be the only one suffering from this problem. Somewhere in my mind I was determined that I have to change every wrong thing in my life. I didn’t know where to start as everything felt so messed up.

I was in my small 330 sq.ft. 1 BHK apartment in Malad west, strolling from one corner of the apartment to another thinking about the right solution. But walking aimlessly in a small apartment doesn’t solve the problem. In Mumbai, I have no one whom I would like to call as my friend and at that moment I don’t think I cared about anyone anymore. I don’t need friends and I hate having people around me. I never had any friends. I preferred living alone. Whatever so called friends I had were so called friend flings, they lasted not very long. I don’t have any friend I reply and look upto or would feel craving to go and meet. I don’t love my company per se but I abhor other people more so I am pretty much left to live with me. People become boring after a while and I tend to leave them because of that and I also I never regret that.

Avinash, the guy with whom I made my first film, was living with me but soon he also became a burden. He was staying with me for time being and I was paying the whole rent. That in my eyes is injustice and I can’t tolerate it. The rent was the biggest tension because I wasn’t earning anything and I had to give some money back to the producer of Lasafot from whom I borrowed 15,000 when my parents came to the city three months back. Mind you, he never gave me anything as remuneration for my work in the film. Whenever I would ask him for the salary, he would say “ arey aap to apne ho, baad man le lena’. I only reason I returned him the money was because I didn’t want to remain in contact with him anymore and fight anymore. I wanted to start a new life and the first thing I wanted to do in my new life was to weed out these stupid people I had collected around me. Avinash doesn’t earn anything either and live with me. Avinash is a good friend when he has no money in his pockets otherwise he wouldn’t even call.  The rent was becoming a nightmare. I had a habit of sending the rent on time because I don’t want to listen to anyone’s ranting on these things. It is not good for my ego. I don’t want anyone to say anything bad about me on my face, it is fine with me if they say it behind my back.

The levels of cigarettes I smoked were increasing. The brand doesn’t matter anymore but there were only limited brands I would go for and they were decided in the decreasing order of money in my pocket. Soon the number of cigarettes were decreasing daily, not because of health consciousness but because the amount of money was decreasing in the bank account. There is no work for a director in Mumbai. There is also this thing that it becomes difficult to work on set as assistant once you become a director. It becomes difficult to assist when you know more than the director and also you can’t tolerate the insult that the assistant has to tolerate owing to its job.

Few days ago, I was the director of a film and today I am back to where he started. A film takes away a lot of mental fatigue and gives a lot of physical tension. I was blaming everyone for my non-existent career. Probably I met all the wrong people. Maybe I need to have better understanding of people. I think I judged them all wrong. My mind was searching for all the probable causes of failure. I also started doubting himself and my career choice. Maybe I am not that great as much as I think I am. I had the option of living a normal life but I discarded it. I was good in whatever I did, the better word is average. I would start everything with full enthusiasm but would lose it somewhere in the middle and then I have to drag myself to finish he task, by that time, the task has lost its value.

I started reading books but my mind was wandering from here to there. So, I would pick one book, read five to ten pages and then move to another book. Reading needs peace of mind and I didn’t have any. I couldn’t watch a film completely. It is difficult when one does not have any source of income and no plans of future to concentrate of one thing. I needed a girlfriend badly. I could have discussed all that with my girlfriend, if I had any and probably she would give me kisses too and if I had gotton lucky, I might get to have sex. But let’s, not make imaginary assumptions here. What I really wanted was a listener. I was hopeless as there was no one around me. There is no godfather and there is no one to advise me. The advices I was getting were all crap and useless. They didn’t lead him to anywhere. But I think I have discussed that before and now I am just going round and round like a dog runs after his tail.

What was the reason of my failure? People have got successful in much less. I had talent. I read books. I have seen more movies than anyone else (around me). I retrain myself from getting into any relationships so much so that I am still a virgin and haven’t properly touched a girl.

During this time, something really turned up. I was browsing my hard disk and looking for some movie to divert my mind. There was to enough to go out and enjoy and there was also nowhere to go. I knew that diverting his mind was necessary. If I would listen to songs, I would feel like I was wasting my time. So movies was the better option as books require effort. If I keep thinking about all these negative things, I would sure have a nervous breakdown within no time. I think I was so much near to nervous breakdown that I had decided that which mental asylum I would go if I have to treat me. It would have to somewhere in London, if my parent’s money allowed this lavish treatment. At least I will get to be in company of beautiful nurses talking in English accent. Talking about English accent but not talking in English accent, there is something about English accent that I love. Everyone loves English accent especially one a beautiful girl is speaking, like Emma Watson. So many times I have had hard erections just by listening to woman talking in English accent.   

Suddenly my eyes fell on this documentary. I have seen this documentary sometimes back and it didn’t affect me, may be because I didn’t need it at that time. I was ready to try anything to get just one ray of hope. I was atheist so there was no God I could go to help me. They must all be like – “ all aaya ooont pahad ke neeche.”

It was then that I clicked on the documentary and it changed my life forever. Forever is a hard word to use for life change, let’s say at that time and three months from there I had my life changed and kept on changing. The name of the documentary was ‘The Secret’.

‘The Secret’ is a popular documentary which tells you that everything that is happening in one’s life is everything one asks for – don’t shout, one asks for all that sub consciously. It is true and it works. I get to know there was a thing called Law of Attraction, which was of course a made-up law according to which everything that I happening in our lives is attracted by us. Good or bad, we are responsible for it. If you have bad friends, you are responsible for it. If you have no money, you are responsible for it. If people double cross you, you are responsible for it. But there is a plus side to all of this, if we are responsible for all this negative happenings in our life then we can also make it positive by the same principle, doesn’t we. It seemed to make sense to me at that time and i decided to pick one more cigarette from the mild’s cigarette pack and smoked it thinking how that is true. It was here that I really started retrospection about few of my past decisions and fuck, what the hell, I realized it was true. Everything that happened to me was a part of my worst fear and I was continuously playing my worst fears in my mind like DDLJ ran in Maratha Mandir for twenty years. I was brining everything wrong thing in my life and then wonder why the fuck did that happen.

I didn’t stop there. I had kept a diary of my mental records. I opened and started reading it and there were instances of things which I wrote had happened to me. I wrote that Lasafot is not a very good film and I was afraid of people’s reaction towards it so I didn’t want it to release. Same thing I did at the time of my first film ‘Amphigori’ but I didn’t know that these deep fears matter at that time. I wanted Mujahid, the actor and co renter with me and Deepak, the producer of the movie to be separated from my life as both were irritating. It was all written there. I wrote that don’t want money and I want to be great so I got appreciation of everyone but no money. I had ambiguous thoughts about girlfriends as I thought about them more of a distraction then a boon to my career.

There started a journey that never stopped. I decided to reach to the deep-down logics of this ‘The Secret’ and try to know what makes it work. I decided to read and know everything that makes it work because if it works, which it does, I may change my entire life then.