CRACKING THE CODE:MY JOURNEY IN BOLLYWOOD

by Ayushmann Khurrana

When there’s no humility, there’s enough room for stupidity.

And it’s a law—true passion without any expectation of result always bears fruit.

If you are preparing for something, there is no way you wouldn’t get a chance to prove yourself. And success is when preparation meets opportunity.

I think one has to be practical enough to weigh talent and aptitude on an unbiased scale.

They say you’ve got only one lifetime and you should spend it chasing your dreams but you can’t keep chasing them for the rest of your life and end up becoming a frustrated, bitter human being. What good is your life then?

The idea is to derive satisfaction by making an endeavour to not let your passions die.

I have seen many lives go waste and it is extremely heartbreaking to see young people wander aimlessly while remaining irrationally hopeful. I feel that the code lies in being pragmatic along with being emotionally, idealistic.

The moment you deviate from being yourself, you become a wannabe.

Life had taught me over time to respect each stage of my career and to give up on assumptions.

Outgrow and prove your mettle for one medium before jumping on to the other. This way, not only will you gain experience but also earn the respect of the other medium and, materialistically speaking, definitely earn yourself a higher package later on.

Code #2 for me, which is to be pragmatic along with being emotionally idealistic.

I reiterate that all this didn’t come naturally to me like it did for some. I was always prepared, and that’s the difference. Till date, I rehearse and rehearse like a maniac. Be it a press conference, a radio interview (that I now give and not the other way round), events or film shoots, I prepare every day of my life. Tahira and Rani (my manager) are two people who know of this eccentric side to me. I have no qualms in accepting that I am a hard-working, prepared actor. And by doing this knowingly or unknowingly, I was and still am following the first code.

In fact, if I am not mistaken, only one other person from our batch of forty-five bagged this salary. When she scaled up her guess to 30k, I grinned and asked her to go higher. ‘More than 30?!’ she squealed. By now she thought I was just faffing as, in her own innocent world, nobody could ever draw such a salary, let alone ‘go higher’ than that. So she finally gave up. When I told her that I got a grade of A+ and that meant 60,000, I was greeted by silence and then incessant screams. That was a particularly memorable moment for the both of us. And I believe that was the last time we discussed money as such. One always remembers their first crush, their first love, their first job and definitely their first salary.

Code #5: I can’t really elaborate on this one. It is as direct as it gets: NEVER LET GO OF AN OPPORTUNITY!!

When you are nervous, you don’t really try and be funny or witty or entertaining. And if you try, you’ll most probably end up making a fool of yourself. Hence, I stuck to routine.

There is no point in being one of many; no point in running towards fame; absolutely no point in doing PR; no point in being ordinary. You have to rise above the rest in your given circumstances. Only then will people take notice of you. I ran around and after. I am confessing that I did. This code can perhaps save you from the embarrassing moments that I went through. Hold your ground. Let your talent, your work, speak for you. There is not a chance you’ll be missed if you strive for excellence.

Code #7: There are no permanent friends or permanent foes, only permanent interests.

Code #9: Aspire for the next thing when you think you deserve it. Once you have proved yourself worthy of the current situation and have become big for it, only then try outgrowing it by venturing to the next level. It’s part of a progressive growth ladder, and also a predecessor to a success story.

Code #10: Critiques are your best friends. They bring out the best in you. Never shun them, criticize them or run them down. They have an opinion because of some reason. That reason will eventually be the reason for your growth.

Code #11: Sometimes you have to make a choice that you may not be comfortable with initially. You have to make a conscious effort to push yourself to avoid becoming stagnant. I could have easily chosen India’s Got Talent Season 3 as it was completely in my comfort zone. It was home to me but it was time to move ahead.

Code #12: It may be an overused and abused maxim, but it becomes life-altering if paid heed to: ‘Wisdom lies in learning from others’ experiences.’ I have known it to be true and am therefore sharing the same with you. Become more than just a reality show contestant or winner. It’s only then that you are truly noticed.

I just went along with the flow instead of trying to control it, leaving Tahira behind. It was not a conscious decision to revel in the newfound glory. To be honest, I didn’t even enjoy as much, because I knew I didn’t have my wife along to share it with. I was as lost as a teenager buying his first packet of condoms at the chemist’s.

But at that time, despite the roaring success of the movie, I wasn’t happy. Personally, I was suffering a lot. I just couldn’t give time to or share my success with my wife or my newly-born son. It was a messed up phase for me. Even though our relationship of twelve years perhaps helped us sail through this phase, the disconnect existed, not just with Tahira but with myself, too. I had always wanted to be an actor, but I’d never thought about the frills the job came with, and about how much they would affect my life directly. At that stage, one truly becomes a loner.

Even though I haven’t reached formidable heights in my career as of now, and I know that I still have a long way to go, but in retrospect I feel that the best time of my life was when I was working with MTV and had got recently married. Tahira was working as a lecturer at a mass communication college. We used to visit the malls, watch all the movies together, shop, eat, go for occasional holidays, and the little fame I had was enough to make my wife proud of me and for me to be only hers. But then again, the present is what I always wanted and what I signed up for, albeit without knowing about its repercussions.

Code #14: Had I waited for the script of Nautanki Saala to be written before signing it, perhaps I could have avoided the misstep it turned out to be. Patience and wisdom is something that even the patient and wise strive for.

Code #15: Of all the codes that one cracks, the emotional code is the most important one. You could be the richest or the most powerful human being in the world, but if you are not at peace with your emotional side, everything else is worthless. I am not even talking about how you feel for your spouse or your partner; even if you are single, and are at peace with your inner demons, you are mostly sorted.

That evening, sitting all by myself, I was cracking the most important code of my life, the most essential self-note too. I learnt that one should always follow one’s instincts. No other factor should influence your decisions other than your conviction in the script. The script is the king in our line of work. I remember being awestruck on meeting Rohan Sippy in the same office where the epic Sholay was narrated. But these things shouldn’t be the reason for taking on a project.

I have learned a lot from my failures, and I am sure I wouldn’t have been half as sorted if I hadn’t. As the lines from Emily Dickinson’s poem Success is Counted Sweetest say: Success is counted sweetest By those who ne’er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.

It’s your choices that make or break you. If I have put in a hard day’s work in something, I will take it seriously. Good cinema brings out the happy child inside me. I will do everything it takes to make my film a better one. No, I will not teach the director how to shoot a scene. I will just hope that my enthusiasm rubs off on everyone involved in making the film.

All the actors seem to have signed up for the so-called ‘mutual admiration society’. This is another pointer in cracking the code: It makes sense to coexist without stepping on anybody’s toes. There is only so much that we all can do in one lifetime. We can hope and pray that the best offers come to us, but that’s about it. Who gets what or how much is beyond our control.

The bottom line is that success begets success and happiness begets happiness. There is no point holding a grudge over your peers’ success.

As I was saying, the ‘meta’ code is to know your best and your worst qualities, and then making peace with them.

A secret to cracking the code is to make your own codes. One man’s medicine is another man’s poison. At a holistic level, the code remains the same—be truthful to yourself. You can lie to the entire world, but at the end of the day, it is just you and the person in the mirror. It is just your eyes staring at the roof, gaping at a vast nothingness, moments before you fall asleep. If you ensure or even try to ensure that in that dark moment you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you have cracked the code. Congratulations.

The one thing I have learnt is that it isn’t about how much you take; it’s about how much you give back. I guess that’s all I have for you in this book. See you at the movies! Ayushmann bhava.