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.
