The superstar writes his first column in dna After Hrs on science and superstition. Tells us how he feels pressured by the 140-character Twitter limit and new words like twerking. Read on.

Article 1: Of balance, belief and hashtags.

Just a few days back my friends at the dna paper called upon me to write a monthly column for their newspaper. A Common perception about actors is that they are incompetent at everything other than acting (and some are supposedly incompetent at that too). We aren’t exactly meant to have other interests (well, except of the controversial kind) but as it happens, I do. I like to write.

Of late I have spent time on twitter like we all do and on the internet in general. The combined pressure of 140 alphabet limit and reading new words like ‘Twerking’ (described aptly by someone on the net as ‘masquerading an ass seizure as dancing’), has made me believe that I could contribute to the all round well being of the society with my writings also.

What actually convinced me was, that if Hashtags # (a sign we earlier used for cuss words), can convey emotions, then my words on paper can also seem like pearls of wisdom and its about time my smart, genius side became public. So I decided to grab the axe and hack my foot myself by entering into 12 such potentially earth shattering observations of the world around me.

I have thus come up with the “brilliant” and “original” idea of writing about the 12 Sun Signs. But wait...This isn’t your usual weekly or daily astro prediction column. That is best left to Mr. Bejan Daruwala, Marjorie Orr or Linda Goodman. I just think it’s a good place to start. 12 Columns, 12 Sun Signs, 12 traits I can write about. So I will pick the traits of these 12 Sun Signs and choose one that stands out the most then I’ll write around it. I’ll write my personal experience, my point of view or just something I see happening around me. Confused. Ok, read on.

This month we begin with Libra.

Librans are known for balance and harmony. The word balance tends to convey stillness, but oddly I look at balance as something that we need in life to keep things moving. It’s something that we all have to do...everyone from a tightrope walker to an accountant requires balance. An accountant has to balance debit with credit, while a star has to balance a public life with a private life. Most people have to balance lies and truth, or right and wrong. In my years of experience, one of the most intriguing balances I have had to find is that between Science and Superstition.

In India we are intrinsically tied to Superstition. It’s a natural nuance of our lives. I am a science student (over 90 percent in Electronics if I may add). This does not mean that I can open up a piece of electronic equipment and put it back together again. On that front I am like everybody else in the world: left holding one little ‘gizmoic’ part of the equipment, scratching my head, wondering, “where was this supposed to fit?” but more about this in another column.

Being of a scientific bent of mind, I always take the scientific course of action. If a part of my body is disintegrating or broke, I am more than willing to change it at the hands of an expert, namely a Surgeon. I have had eight such removals and implants done over the course of 20 years.

Thankfully, so far, no surgeon has come to me post operation and quizzed, “Eh, SRK I have this little piece of green spleen left-over from last night’s procedure, can you tell me if it belongs to you or then it could be bed number 42’s.”

So I am a believer of science and its many benefits. Having said that, I would still not go for a bungee jump or do a skydive on Friday the 13th. Hashtag # Just Saying.

Some years ago I was faced with the balancing act of weighing my scientific bent against superstition. One evening I got to know my spine had a prolapsed disc and I had to go under the knife. It’s a big surgery. It’s considered equivalent to a brain surgery (from which I might just have benefitted more!) because it involves the spinal cord.

As it happens, it also proved to be one of the grandest acts of equanimity I ended up engaging in.
Everybody began to foretell doom. They listed all that could go wrong. They said I could be paralysed or rendered voiceless. Thoughts raced in my own head as well. The doctors advised surgery as soon as possible.

I was as scared as anyone might be at the thought of their spine being tampered with so I gave a year to those who said they could cure my prolapse through the prolapse of medical science.

Let me make it clear that I am not trying to undermine people’s beliefs or superstitions. Different things work for different people. If you believe in something then it works for you. A recent study has proved that people who believe in superstition get the job done better than those who don’t, so who are we to question the world of the unknown and its unkown-ness.

To me it was just intriguing that there was such a wonderful variety of cures and treatments on offer for a serious injury like mine.

My family and friends all suggested different treatments ranging from acupuncture to oil made from the sting of a scorpion. I am proud to tell you that because of the deep desire to keep the ‘BALANCE’ (in caps because that’s the topic) of things unperturbed I tried most of them.

What follows is an account of some of my escapades and misadventures up to the final day of surgery. These are excerpts from my yet unpublished book and as you will read, you will realise there is no stretching or exaggeration of factual happenings. The names of the protagonists have been changed to maintain their privacy and mainly to prevent them from suing or physically assaulting me in the near future.

……The doctor that I went to for, what I will call ‘pin therapy’ is a wonderful doctor. He’s among the leading doctors for this therapy in the world. He also spoke three words of Hindi taught to him by other Indian clients (obviously he didn’t know the meaning of those words, otherwise he would never use them, unless abusing your mom and sister was a part of his therapy).

The thought of him sticking needles in my neck was scary. But I need not have worried. He didn’t want to put needles in my neck, instead he wanted to stick them in my private parts to fix my neck!

As you can imagine it was an extremely hurtful prospect. I was shaken to the core of my being (not to mention, below it).

He was from the Far East and we didn’t understand each other well. He kept repeating, “Take off your clothes, take off your clothes”. So, I took off my shirt, but it didn’t seem to suffice. He continued his chant regardless: ‘take off your clothes.”

Soon I was lying naked on his table and he had these big, big pins in his hands. The rest is too graphic to describe. It was the most humiliating and painful experience of my life.

Ordeal over, I came back marred by blue welts. The only thing that had changed was that now the pain was between my legs and not in my neck. I can tell you it distracted me enough to make me forget my original complaint. Though once I recovered from the onslaught of the pin-pricks, my neck pain resurfaced with a vengeance.

Now and then I think of the good doctor and my upbringing tugs at my conscience. I never thanked him. Maybe I should have sent him a note…in Hindi…just the three words that he had been taught!

……The ‘Energy Experts’ meanwhile, had decided that the reason for my cervical disc prolapse was the direction in which I slept.

So the position of my bed had to be changed. Change is good. Novelty is invigorating; it’s the spice of life. I like change. There were a few problems that came up though. My plasma TV was affixed to the wall keeping in mind the original position of my bed. Taking out those brackets from the wall would have meant re-building it. So the TV stayed where it was and the only way to can watch it was to somehow stand on my head. My bedside lamp shed its light on my bathroom slippers instead of the book that I read in bed. The bathroom door ended up where the TV should have been. Though I must admit, the six episodes of the slightly swaying bathroom door, seemed more interesting than some of the stuff we are subjected to on the idiot box.

The headrest hung inexplicably in mid air without a bed to support it. If I could levitate 10 inches off the ground I might have been able to rest my head on it.

My AC remote did nothing remotely anymore. It needed to be directed towards the fridge to get the AC on. I guess the rays would bounce off the shiny surface and find their way to the infra red sensor on the AC. Strangely the rays did not follow the same reverse path and to switch the damn thing off, I’d need to swing to the bottom of the bed and point in random directions till I’d hear the AC stop breathing.

…I made a frantic call to my surgeon in England. I told him I was coming over to his hospital in the next few days. He was very concerned. He asked, “ Are you in pain’’. ‘No’, I replied, “ I am in my bath tub trying to sleep, apparently this area has the best energies.” Hashtag # Help!

...My friends requested me one last time to see their Panditji before I left for England. They felt his prayers would help me. I agreed because I believe in good wishes and good Karma. The Punditji looked educated and very modern. He asked me about the procedure of the Cervical surgery. I explained it to him in detail. He closed his eyes and said some mantra. Then he looked at me with warm and peaceful eyes, and said, “Are you sure they have to use a Titanium disc?” I said, “ Yeah, it’s the latest invention and really cool.” He sighed, “ Look it is your Karma that you have to undergo this surgery. You cannot escape it. But there is only one thing, Titanium is not your element, can you ask the doctor to use Moonstone instead.”

...The surgery was less painful. It took about an hour and a half. I was informed everything was excellent. As they say in our films… “The operation is successful.”

What was humiliating was the hospital dress code.

I believe a patient in a gown means that he or she is very ill and quite helpless. They need a lot of care and medical attention. It is a sort of uniform that tells you the person wearing it, is deserving of your sympathy and concern. No one expects a Stella McCartney, but at least...at least it should not make you dissolve into a merciless giggle.

Picture a hobbling and helpless patient crossing you, walking slowly away from you. You’re following him with your eyes, visibly moved, at this point your gaze misses his helpless expression entirely and lands unceremoniously on his butt. What purpose does this revealing and utterly humiliating outfit serve? I ask ye all fine people of the medical profession.

Even when I had gone for my knee and ankle surgery in Austria I was forced to wear this silly outfit. I could very well have been in shorts or Bermudas and got my knee operated on. It’s not as if my butt needs to be flashed for easy access to my knee. I think this aspect of clothing needs to be relooked at by the Medical Faculty around the world.

It requires immediate, scientific attention.

As I said, the complete collapse of everyone else’s attempts to cure me through their well meant suggestions, eventually lead me to my spinal surgery. This of course did not deter them from claiming credit for its success when I got home. The horseshoe nailed outside my room in my absence had apparently cast its magic spell on the surgeon.

The ‘Energy Expert’ was convinced that his switching my furniture around had filled the gap in my spine and my friends swore by their Panditji’s imaginary Moonstone too. Maybe it was the Energy Balancing, maybe it was the Surgery, or it could have been the shoeless horse; who knows?

Perhaps faith and science are deeply interconnected. Maybe we just don’t see the balance between them yet. Everything science proves today, it disproves tomorrow and faith in an idea often brings it to its empirical fruition. Superstition is the belief in a supernatural causality, we cannot completely abandon it unless we fully understand the complexity and vastness of nature.

I think it is safe to say that there are uncountable things in this world that will always remain beyond our understanding. Each of us chooses our own beliefs and lives by them and all of us are limited by our own condition. The trick is to respect each and every form of well meaning course of action, belief, superstition and still look up to man’s quest for knowledge (the yearning for scientific discovery), to back it up. That’s what I did.

I chose Titanium over the eeeww Moonstone and it worked for me….TOUCHWOOD!!!

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/column-the-shah-rukh-khan-column-of-balance-belief-and-hashtags-1903292

Article 2: Shah Rukh Khan sheds some light on the mysteries behind Scorpions and Scorpios

I looked up Scorpios on the net and found that they are the cars Rohit Shetty gleefully sends flying into the air. On further research I arrived at Scorpio the sun sign. I found that being a Scorpio implies the following list of qualities: determination, fearlessness, sensuality, poise, loyalty, ambition, intuitiveness, a jealous and controlling nature, secretiveness, resentfulness, ruthlessness and a tendency towards mystery!

Much as I would like to pontificate on all these wonderful (or not so wonderful) traits, I (as a true blooded Scorpio) am supposed to possess, I think ‘mystery’ is the one that lends itself most to fifteen hundred words on a good November morning.

As a kid, I was an observer of people. I remember observing that a legendary uncle of mine would assume a morose, pondering posture now and then and stare deeply into the universe as if it held a great secret only he could decipher. “Interesting,” I thought, “it gives him an air of mystery, I wouldn’t mind being mysterious too” so I began to stare deeply into space and pretend I was morose now and then as well.

It worked wonders!
The grown ups began thinking that I was a deeply philosophical little boy. This gained me some positive attention while I was actually just contemplating sibling strategy (like how to overhear the girlie talk my sister shared with her friends in her room).

I learnt two important life lessons very early
1. Mystery is a clever psychological device; an excellent camouflage for all sorts of idiosyncrasies. It is most useful if wanting to fend off annoying conversation. Better still, if attempting to acquire an enigmatic aura or generally throwing your weight around.

2. If life were revelatory and bare, it would be deathly boring. So a little mystery is essential to a compelling life.

Thereon I decided that device or not, looking at life in terms of mysteries was a far better approach to it than taking it merely for what it appeared to be saying to me on the surface. I began to search for stories in everything and in doing so I began also, to understand the magical world of story telling that I later came to inhabit professionally.

Mystery has a knack of building upon itself. It begins with wonder and intrigue. The human mind is impatient with intrigue. It’s need to resolve, understand and simplify arises.

Hypotheses are developed, and theories thought up in an attempt to explain the inexplicable. But explanations have a curious twist. Invariably they read the myths of life at particular levels leaving other depths unresolved. This allows for new stories to come forth and lend themselves to exploration. Mysteries abound where we most seek answers and answers lead to new questions in a cyclical process. You figure one thing out and another pops up on top of it. Let me explain this revelation with a few of the mysteries that confound my intellect.

Hotel Californication
Like for example: Who designs the hyper space age hydraulic weapons masquerading as benign shower jets in glitzy hotel loos? The bathroom environs are enticing. Veined marbles, great smelling lotions in miniscule bottles, all lead the unsuspecting fellow craving a bath into their evil fold. As he strips and gingerly enters the shower cubicle he is confronted by a shower system that looks like, Mangal Yaan (the satellite being shot into Mars’ orbit, by India). All the knobs, handles, function keys, delete and escape command buttons, confound the simple man looking for a simple bath. He can’t figure out, which one is to be pulled, pushed, turned or pressed. He approaches the most friendly looking switch with caution and looks up in anticipation (because that’s where a shower normally begins its downward journey). Instead a murderous assault of water missiles is unleashed onto him from deviously placed nozzles that aim at odd places all over his body.

Before he knows it he is playing a paint-less version of Paintball with sneaky little water jets firing at him from all sides. If he is of a more agile disposition (like me) then he ends up doing the hitherto unknown Kathakali Rain dance.

There is an old quote stating something to the effect that… Marriage is like getting the mix of hot and cold water right in the shower. These space age showers might just give matrimony a whole new meaning!

And while we’re on mysteries I want to know why my whole body shouldn’t be immersed in the bathtub for a nice hot soak. If I push my chest inside, why do my knees stick out and vice versa. Is that too much to wonder? Should I shut up before Apple comes out with a user friendly version.

“Slide to immerse knees at the same time as chest.”

Having Kathakali danced his way through his shower, our valiant hotel guest may now turn his attention to the mystery of those infernal panels they affix on the bedside with little symbols indicating which button controls what light. One minute it’s Diwali, the next a throbbing nightclub, the third plunges him into abject darkness and the curtains will have suddenly splayed so that the entire universe might envelope him in its mysteriously morose stare.

I will not even venture into describing the furry shoeshine contraption they have lying in wait innocently beside the cupboard. It reminds me of a little grey monster from Monsters Inc. waiting to gobble you up feet first. All that will be left of the guest, is a shiny burp. Shudder.

And are you all with me on this one. The tightness with which they tuck the duvet into the grooves on the side of hotel beds. Snuggling into them is like getting into a pair of jeans two sizes too small. If you haven’t asphyxiated by morning, chances are you will end up having a massive case of ‘Toelio’, bent toes!

It’s a mystery why they can’t allow you to get into bed without warring with the Duvet Bin Laden.This is one reason you will never find me asking the house keeping in a hotel, to help me knot a tie around my neck!

Textesterone
Textually speaking, another modern mystery confronts us all today.

The ‘short hand’ typing for short messaging service and social media. Internet language or Netlingo as it is lovingly addressed.

It’s the language of the 21st century, they say. For 20 centuries, we barbaric humans have developed languages that will civilise us. Dictionaries that will enlighten us. Shakespeare’s sonnets that will make us fall in love (if we understood them, that is).

So I would like to know who had the brilliant idea that we need to condense and distort them into Netlingo? I’m not arguing about languages like Basic and Cobol that enhance the usage of machines in our lives and modernise us? I’m talking about the stuff that regresses us to our barbaric, grunting days.

So now we communicate in abbreviations. Short form. Text speak. Txt spk. They claim it facilitates communication.

I heard Martha Stewart analyse the current human posture in her programme, something like this.

Bent over a device, with no way of hearing any other sound except the skrillix music in our ears.

What is to become of us? Instead of speaking to each other, we will write using a nonsensical array of letters. Texting will become our only form of communication and if we do speak, will we speak as we read?

But what we will read, will be gibberish. BYBO…CYA..OMG…JSU…LOL…ROFL. When you read it, it will sound surprisingly like grunting and heaving sounds. The ones we made when we were apes. Will our highly developed senses then embark upon the discovery of language once again? But we already have more than the languages we need!!!

Doesn’t this make everyone wonder? Everyone except the rappers, I guess. They are ok with whatever abbreviation you use as long as you prefix or suffix it with F@#*.

But what’s even more mysterious to me is that people are now ‘Sexting’. Which means sending naked pictures on phones and the net and making out on the virtual plane instead of plain old Kashmiri rugs. Cyber6 it’s called. Cyber Sex to the uninitiated.

Does anybody understand the enormity of this?? Soon we’ll all be cyber6ing and we’ll forget how to procreate. We are slowly destroying mankind…one message at a time. Don Altman said, “The digital frontier is a nurturing place where verbs and nouns are not only born, but in fact bear off-springs.”

Yeah that’s very cool, but picture a world overrun with little verbs and nouns in pretty prams instead of the Farex babies we have sort of become so accustomed to.

A wonderful author who goes by the name of Josh Gondelman, has done an exercise on the net, of converting famous movie quotes into text speak. Some of the results will bear testimony to my outcry of disbelief at what is happening to us:

GONE WITH THE WIND
“Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.”

Becomes….

Seriously my dear, WTF!!

FIGHT CLUB
First rule: “You do not talk about Fight Club”

Becomes…

1st rule: STFU

JERRY MCGUIRE
“You had me at hello”

Becomes..

You had me @ ’sup

I rest my case. There can’t be no great debate about it. Or should that be…no gr8 db8 abt tis.

Which brings me to the abiding mystery of why human beings need to complicate the simplest things in their endless endeavour to uncomplicate their own lives.

This also works in reverse: people get confounded by the camouflage of mysteriousness in a way that even the most mundane things become mystifying to them given the right context. Being a so-called superstar you end up surrounded by people who contextualise the silliest things into justifications for their own ideas of you.

If anyone else were to declare they never used soap to bathe with, it would create an insufferable stink, as a superstar, it just adds to the repertoire of legends being woven around you. “And he doesn’t even use soap” they’ll whisper in a revelatory tone (I don’t by the way, but I’ve been told I smell fantastic, and there is no mystery here, I just use a lot of cologne.)

I’ve seen people use mystery to make themselves look truly superior and far more interesting than they actually are. It works like a charm. Especially when they fall for it themselves!

There are those who begin to refer to themselves in the third person “He cannot wear these clothes in public” they’ll say, as you look around wondering which exhibitionist flasher exactly they’re referring to. Or then they’ll allude to their own body parts as if they belonged to a mysterious collective of body parts, “The arms were aching after like two hours of exercise bro.”

There’s another one they fancy, the one in which they mysteriously dissolve their own agency into public will, “The people want me to do this” they’ll proclaim expecting to be taken seriously. What people?! I wonder. I also wonder that if they took their head out their own caboose long enough, will they realise there is no one telling them to do anything.

It’s a mystery to me why it’s never enough to be human or ordinary or just plain strange. Why do we have to cloak ourselves in the farce of extraordinariness just because we (mystically?) succeeded where others failed before us.

But then everything is a mystery to me and I like it that way. That’s the way I have been brought up. It’s my uncle’s fault. All of it

Like which armrest of my seat in a theater belongs to me?

Ownership is a mystery.

Why must we pluck flowers instead of admiring their beauty?

Why set luminous gems into jewels?

Why trap birds in cages instead of watching them soar into the sky?

Why show off river fish in your tacky little aquarium when they could be swimming currents downstream?

Why try to change people we love and then fall out of love with them because they changed?

I believe that we spend too much of our lives trying to know and find explanations for things. Why do we have trouble accepting the unknown in our world? It might be nice to let things be sometimes. Relationships. Love. Nature. People.

Whether we know something or not, it actually does not make a difference in the larger scheme of things because however deep our knowledge might be, it is still immensely limited.

Someone has said, “Knowing, is often just a cover up. Ideas, concepts, theories or mere facts are delusion or disguises we use to hide our fear of the inexplicable. When something is accepted in its entireity as a mystery, it actually means we know it deeper and more intuitively. Somewhere within our souls we are in a mode of ‘the accepting form of knowledge’. It encompasses our being as a whole.”

It’s like magic. If you understand the way it is done, it gets reduced to a trick. Its important to let the magic be magical to enjoy it to its fullest.

Letting mystery be, requires courage and the security to live it without being afraid of the unknown.
Acceptance of mystery leads to faith in life itself without fear. Mystery allows us to have Faith and ‘feel’ our way through life instead of deconstructing it.

Like the Faith most of us have in God.

Ken Kesey puts this most aptly: “I am for mystery, not interpretive answers. The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek mystery instead of the answer, you will always be seeking. I have never seen nobody really find the answer, but they think they have.

So they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.”

Or as Arthur Stanley explains it, “We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about ‘and’.”

Though I am a Scorpio, I still believe that it is better to go through this life without finding an answer. Because the answer as Douglas Adams told us, could possibly be 42. And if 42 is the answer, wouldn’t that leave us a tad disappointed, to say the least.

PS: By the way, even though I believe in what I have written above, I still desperately want to know... Who let the dogs out Who ?

Article 3: An honest man is always a child, says Shah Rukh Khan

Sagittarius: The Sagittarius is really a centaur — the lower half is horse, the upper half is a man. The man is holding a bow with an arrow aimed upwards toward the sky. This symbolises the Sagittarian’s drive to overcome basic animal instincts by aiming his thoughts into the divine realms of the heavens. Sagitterians are frank, honest, straigthforward, fearless and generous. Some of these strong traits, however, may border on to eccentricity or tactlessness in archers. Candid as they are, they pride themselves for being able to call a spade a spade.

Honest and straightforward. Two words which conjour up images of uprightness and candour. I jumped at the opportunity to write about these traits, as I think of myself being quite straightforward. Actually everyone does. Also, because straightforwardness is one of those virtues that I believe, is most over-rated. Those who pride themselves at being blunt are often just covering for being obnoxious and what’s more, their bluntness is usually selective. They use it as a tool to allow themselves the prerogative of judgment that is simply another way of saying ‘I am better than you are’. Unfortunately, anyone who lives within that delusional mind-frame is in for a rude shock!

I’ve noticed the same people who choose to be ‘blunt’ with me when the chips are down turning turtle and gushing away at more suitable times. I so often meet these blunt people at parties, who say with tremendous self importance, ‘I don’t watch Hindi films. I don’t find them intellectually stimulating blah...blah...blah...’ More often than not they have the famous Amitabh Bachhan hairstyle, sidelocks and all... a Krrish cut suit and I am sure if I lift their sleeve up, their forearm would have a tattoo with the legend, Mera baap chor hai. But more about this dichotomous species in some other sunsign.

The other thing I find very amusing is when someone talks to me in a ‘straightforward’ manner, in front of a bunch of onlookers just to be able to prove that they can. Living a public life often means that people will come up to me feeling entitled to say the strangest things. There are times when this is endearing but others when it is downright rude.

Endearing: ‘Hey my grandma will be so happy I met you. She always says, look at SRK, he has so many limitations but still works hard and has done well for himself.’ Nice. Encouraging. I smile and say thank you. ‘Give my love to your grandma, she is right.’

Rude: ‘Hey my grandma really likes you. But you are so thin and small. In movies do they do special effects to make you look better??’ Not nice. Discouraging.

I don’t smile and walk on. From behind I hear her again. ‘Hey, we are the ones who made you. Don’t be so PROUDY’. Rude. Bad upbringing. Or drunk.

I want to turn and say, ‘Aunty Ogre, thankfully you didn’t make me. My mom and dad did, on a romantic moonlit night. Besides I look thin because you are fat and frumpy and you are, very LOUDY’. I don’t. I am too dishonest to retort. Instead, I walk on hoping that a piano falls on her head and squashes her and her alligator skin handbag with it.

There’s no beauty in being offensive just to make a point out of your straightforwardness. It’s ugly in fact. Ugly like Aunty Ogre.

Honesty on the other hand, is a quality that Sagittarians and people of calibre do have and ought to be proud of.

When I watch the news these days, I see people peddling their honesty, making a business out of it. There can be no greater dishonesty than this in my view. To be honest demands an inner truthfulness. It’s not about being able to say things to people to their faces. It’s about knowing who we are inside and abiding by it with the humility to understand that failing, confusion, and imperfectness belong as much to us as they do to everyone else. There is nothing exhibitionist about being honest, in fact its beauty lies in its quiet introversion.

If we look around us, whether it is politicians asking for votes or the media asking us to believe tall stories or debates on TV that are judging others on the basis of claiming their own integrity, or for that matter even ads marketing products or superstars selling dreams. People are constantly being asked to buy into honesty. The paradox is that the entire structure in which these ideas are presented to us is actually inherently dishonest and external.

Everyone knows lots of politicians will bend the rules when it comes to it, everyone knows the media runs on an economy of advertisement revenues mostly, everyone knows that ads are soliciting business and superstar’s lives are not dreamlike yet all of it “sells” in the name of honesty. It’s almost as if the entire world has tacitly agreed to be part of one enormous lie for fear of acknowledging its own truth. Very sweeping, extremely angsty and a generalising statement. But we are writing on honesty, right?

I like honest people because they don’t shy away from the truth of their own ordinariness and fallibility. That is the most beautiful thing about them. In fact, it is the most beautiful thing about the world we live in: that it is imperfect and its imperfections give rise to creativity and beauty. It is through this very imperfection that life is constantly renewed and replenished.

Even science has proved that were it not for imperfection, life would not have to adapt and regenerate, new species would not be born and the world might not have evolved as it has over millennia. We would all be honest, straightforward Amoebas at best.

Being both a creative person and one whose profession renders him public, I straddle the line between perfect and imperfect in a nearly surreal manner. I deal in dreams, dreams are the epitome of perfection, but I do so in the flagrant flourish of my imperfections on a moment to moment basis.

Scenario in a movie : The night is young. It always is. In the movies we are obsessed with youth. The stars shine bright, they always do. in the movies we are obsessed with stars too. I hold out my hand and look at the woman in love with someone else, and say, “Look into my eyes. Deep into my eyes…now come close…closer…closer…closer.” That’s it. With the appropriate music playing in the background the most beautiful of ladies have jumped into my arms and we have teleported to Switzerland for a song.

Real life scenario : It’s hot and stuffy. Lunch time. Parking lot of a building, badly in need of a paintjob and some pending corporation permissions. I hold out my hand and look at the woman in love with someone else’s boyfriend and say, “look into my eyes. Deep into my eyes…now come closer…closer…closer…closer. Chances are that I will be slapped. Or if not, then the girl will tell me honestly, “As much as I would like to look into your eyes, deep into your eyes, the problem is your sensual, big aquiline nose is coming in the way.” And that will be that. I will cross the rest of the parking lot, explaining to the watchman, I was only asking the lady from the sixth floor for directions. That’s the good part about selling dreams in movies. Everyone, including my heroines, know how to look beyond their noses, and more importantly… mine.

I sometimes imagine a world in which everyone acknowledged their fallibility.

Imagine a politician telling you he was actually dishonest. Or at least assuring us that he was honest enough, that once he is bought, he will remain bought.

A news anchor somberly telling you, that he/ she has no interest in changing society, but the debate that follows is good for the TRPs. It’s just my job.

A cola company finally accepting that their diet version does not qualify as a health drink. But drink it anyway because the movie star says so, though he himself only drinks nimbu paani.

Or a Bollywood superstar, who instead of a no smoking message at the beginning of the feature states in the black and white public service film, “I made this film to make more money than I already have, not because I have limited resources, but because I am greedy and have limited talent. Enjoy.”

If only we were less insistent upon “telling the truth” than we were upon understanding our own truths and just quietly trying to live them. In fact, if we were just able to view people’s actions through the prism of their own truths, we wouldn’t rush to judgment and condemnation as we so easily do. Perhaps we would cause a lot less hurt too.

It’s like the paradox of trying to “teach” our kids to be honest when in fact they are actually already more honest than we are just by virtue of their innocence. To experience that innocence and honesty, all you have to do is look into their eyes. They are happy to be just, ‘alive’. Then they grow up and begin to discern the dynamics of lying so we begin to classify lies for them: “Saying I’m not home when someone is on the phone is ok, but saying I didn’t steal the candy when I did is not.”

“If you get into a fight at school, you come and tell us first. Don’t lie about it. But when you see mom and dad fight at home, it’s our family matter. Don’t tell anyone. As a matter of fact, mom and dad never fight”

They grow up further and realise that a lot of the beliefs they built their childhood on were possibly untrue. And soon the truth becomes a disappointment when it ought to be that which frees them and renders beauty to their lives.

Perhaps we should let them be. Not try to “teach” them this and that all the time. A child is, after all, the most representative truth of the natural human capacity for purity. Children come into this world devoid of a framework within which to judge others. We build this framework for them, most often, we do so in the shadow of a similar framework our experiences have created in our own minds.
Unfortunately, in our quest to protect and teach them, we strip them of their inherent honesty. I’d have liked to give my children the gift of honest eyes to compliment their honest hearts. At least until they grow up enough to think themselves capable of figuring the world out according to their own notions. I’d have liked to let them look at the world through the eyes they were born with, without the contamination of adulthood. (I haven’t still let onto my kids, that Santa Claus does not exist, so anyone reading this, keep it to yourselves.)

Having said that, once we reach adulthood, it does become that much more difficult to live our truths. How many of you have tried the honest answer to your wife’s query, “Dear, do you think my bum looks big in this dress?”

How many of you at the end of a romantic first date suggested a cup of coffee back in your pad, instead of an invitation for a sexual congress in your car?

How often have you asked people, “How are you?”, when frankly my dear, you don’t give a damn.
I know I have done it often. I have done my base voice hoarse whisper, talking to girl on the phone. I would paste a picture of Brad Pitt, as mine, on the Facebook, if I wasn’t so well known. Drat!
And how many of you have secretly loved the machismo claim of Mike Tyson privately, but have distanced yourself from it publicly. The one where he honestly states, “I want to rip his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs…”

The truth is that we all have our moments, where ‘Honesty is the best policy’, is just a quotable quote. We just need to be honest enough to accept it and without being judgemental, move on, because ‘when you judge others, you do not define them, instead you define yourself’ (Earl Nightingale).

I do try though, now and then to be honest. I end up slapping someone who gets on my nerves or making a nuisance of myself in packed stadiums because keeping silent for the sake of propriety is not my thing!! Once in a while I am even honest enough to chance my life and reputation upon a dream, as I did in the making of Ra.One or Paheli.

It’s a paradox that in these moments of total honesty, I find myself removed and alone from the rest of the world. I have to pretend I regret them to redeem myself, but since we’re honestly discussing honesty here, let me confess. I don’t really feel sorry for being me. The pursuit of perfection, whether it be in anything, honesty or lies included, is inherently a flawed concept. Our standard of life is not defined by becoming a God or the devil. We are humans. We have to be flawed. We are at best meant to bridge these two extremes. I am flawed, I’ll be honest and say it, besides, I’ll be damned if I don’t make the sequel to Ra.One someday or maybe not… honestly, I don’t know.

B-Town’s Famous Sagittarius celebs
Rajnikant
Arjun Rampal
John Abraham
Dharmendra
Dilip Kumar
Dino Morea
Diya Mirza
Govinda
Shatrughan Sinha
Shekhar Kapur