He closed his eyes, recollecting the memories of his last trip. They never faded away; they remained with him...always. The music rang in his ears. The sound of the flowing river ruffled his soul. The coldness under his feet, the narrow, curvy roads, the hills, the snow, the trees, the tourists.
Every single image in his mind was as beautiful as it sounded. Something so grand about them yet very comfortable. And him being a small part of all those images gave him the peace of solitude. They always put him in deep thought, if he hated loving something, those were these moments, of self questioning, and weaving a tale of unfulfilled something, he was scared if it was something bordering on self-pity. He wondered how such beautiful images could invoke sadness in him. Probably they didn't invoke sadness, but threw him in a strange pool of thoughts. He then looked at the paper, not in his memories, but was now in his hands.
He felt numb, blank and couldn't help but think about the images that provided immense calm to him at moments like these. At moments, where he felt clueless. He was done remembering his lines for the two minute role of the TV show he recently landed up with. It was the role where he comments on the lead actress poverty and gets trashed by the hero with some powerful dialogues, because apparently his character was not worthy enough to be punched at, it was sketched to show the other face of the hero, his kind yet powerful side. They said it was some kind of turning point. He once again looked at his lines and nothing of it made sense to him. He wished he could just walk away from everything but he couldn't. How difficult it would be just to walk away from everything.
He had to do the scene. He needed money. He smiled mirthlessly at the irony of his part. He was going to play the role of a jackass who commented on others inability to pay for expensive things. It was his tenth such role. Exactly tenth. The first time he landed up with such role, there were no bounds to his happiness. He picked up a book for inspiration, to get into the skin of his character. He read about a similar grey character so that he could portray his role with perfection. He tried learning various shades of bitterness or the intensity of the venom he could spit through his dialogue delivery. It was amusing.
Now he felt tired, extremely tired and helpless. Hopeless. It seemed as if he was left with some handful experiences, which no one was interested to hear. Because people listened to them only when the person was audible enough. But he wasn't and he knew that, every day he tried so hard just to be audible. How hard could that be? Just being audible?
He kept looking at the lead actress who seemed least interested in doing the scene. She kept chewing a gum while rehearsing her lines. The lead actor was the recent heartthrob of television. The 'Twinkling Star' . The hot alpha male. During every interview, he narrated his story from a struggler to a 'star' or 'heartthrob' with the best humble face he could put up. At the end of every interview, he kept his hand on the heart and thanked all his fans and how much he loved him. HE said they were his life.
He didn't know how exciting it would be for the hero to narrate his struggle stories and feel elated about how the new show had changed his life and how humble he was to still remember his roots. He had no idea how he felt while giving those interviews. He had no idea if the hero was really thankful for everything from the bottom of his heart and was really that humble or if it was him who was just feeling jealous of the Twinkling little star. Plain jealousy and bitterness.
"Cut", he heard. He sighed heavily when the star sat beside him and smiled at him. He watched videos on his brand new mobile.
"How do you feel? To be so popular?"
He asked the question without thinking, he just wanted to ask him. For once, he wanted the most truthful answer ever.
The star's eyes twinkled while smiling. "The serial that used to air earlier, in the same slot as ours? The lead was the most popular TV celeb ever. Now no one knows his whereabouts. He has just narrowed down to some old eye candy sorts of TV actor, who came and went away." "The lines in here..."he said pointing at his lines. "I don't understand them, most of the time... I get myself deliver them just because I have to, I sit through them because I just need to deliver. Some lines, I feel are pointless. None of this, I understand." The hero laughed and walked away.
He sat quite for a while, his answers still ringing in his ears. He couldn't say if the hero was thankless or greedy? He couldn't say whether the hero was the most unsatisfied person of the lot, getting appreciated for something, which he himself didn't understand at times. Unable to break free from everything he was doing. He was either being plain greedy and thankless or was utterly unsatisfied with everything. He didn't know which words suited him better. He wasn't in a position to fill in the blanks.
He looked at the heroine; she looked beautiful after the makeup, lazily chit-chatting with the channels that covered back stage drama of the serials.
He read his lines once again. "Is dress ko pehenne ki aukaad nahi, par dekho toh chali aayi, ise kharidene" He had to deliver the line. He, the supposed intelligent struggler, who talked literature and discussed intelligent stuff with his other struggler friends delivered those lines with a blank face and it didn't matter to anyone. No one spoke about the bitterness or loneliness that didn't lie beneath his blank face. No one spoke about the intensity his eyes lacked while using the most crucial word of the scene. "Aukaad" which was repeated twice or thrice with intense background music that kept ringing in the heroine's ears, tears welling up in her eyes.
But he, for sure had beautiful description for the blank face he showed. He tried to feel happy about the scene and tried to be thankful for at least getting some kind of role without wandering jobless. But he just tried.
He packed his bag, looking at the hero and heroine staring into each other's eyes, their eyes twinkling, with the most played background tune being played once again. It was something similar to Raahi...raahi...
Raahi...it kept ringing in his ears. He sighed heavily. Tomorrow again, a new beginning, he would once again wake up from his sleep, just to struggle and who knew tomorrow he might get a role of a desperate junior artist, he really wanted to play such role. It has become his dream role. He somehow felt extremely uncomfortable in the suit he wore. It was itchy and tacky.
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No hitting, if you found it cliched or boring. I have been enjoying writing such lines lately. It makes me feel happy. 😃
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