I cannot sleep today. My head seems to be on the verge of explosion with my imagination working overtime to paint pictures of the days to come. I always knew I was born to be an actor. What I did not know was that God was working a miracle for me. Ecstasy is an understatement for the elation I feel today after a performance that met with the usual applause to our play, but in addition brought me the company of the biggest name in the Film Industry. Isn’t this the moment I dreamt of each night, isn’t this what my heart yearned for each time I donned the greasepaint and brought alive my characters on stage, isn’t this the culmination of my short but eventful journey in theatre, isn’t this the start of my mission to rule the Silver Screen, isn’t this the fulfillment of my destiny to hobnob with the faces I worshipped. My mind tires me with countless thoughts it is churning out, I cannot rest.
Even as the thought of dizzying Success and Fame thrill me, I know it is going to be a tough decision for me. If acting has been a passion, Tennis has been my lifeline. It’s been my constant companion, a true friend. That incredible feeling of representing the hopes of a billion people and squeezing out of oneself, literally everything to make sure that victory is accomplished is a high that nothing else can compare to. I am lucky to have had parents who’ve supported a far-fetched dream. If they wouldn’t have let me drop out of school, if they would have suffocated me with their concern for my future, I would never have been the success that I am. If I sound proud of my achievement as an Indian tennis player who has made it big, it is simply because I certainly am. If Sania belonged to the top 50, I win Grand Slams. If she was a celebrated; I should be revered. It has not been a cake walk reaching where I am. I have pumped in my blood and sweat into the game. I deserve the rights to call it quits. If there are those , who damn me for the arrogance that makes me drop my rackets to run around trees, it is their problem. I did not play for their sake; neither do I act for them. They are welcome to wish me doom.
I don’t want to be a self-conceited fool. But, it is sometimes difficult to believe that I’ve had opportunities that mortals can only dream of. From being known in school as Einstein re-incarnated, to being touted as the next Sania Mirza and going ahead to exceed the expectations out of me, to falling in love with someone whom I consider the ultimate Film Maker of our times, so much so that acting and theater become a craze, to this day, when I am on the threshold of writing a new success story, my life looks like a dream. It indeed is one, the creation of a reverie!
