Hold your breath my friends. I am going to tell you that I hate a career for which you aspire and dream and my dislike for it. I am sure, it will compel you to hate me and dub me a stoic. These fears do not frighten me to say that I hate to be a film actor. You will surely say that there is much glamour about it. There is good money in this profession and above all it will qualify you to win elections. You will try to silence me by quoting the examples of M.G. Ramachandran, Jayalalitha, Lata, Amitabh Bachchan, Vijayantimala, Sunil Dutt, N.T. Rama Rao and above all Ronald Reagan.
Now before you get me all wrong, let me add that I have my own reasons to dislike it. I dislike glamour, consider it nothing else but hypocrisy and shame. Big money has no fascinations for me because it brings trouble, mental tension, baseless arrogance and what not. Only honest and hard earned money can give real satisfactions. Similarly fast jet set life does not go down with me as I prefer a quiet, tranquil life having reconciled to the type of life.
I do not like the working conditions of the actors. The arc lights, the murky smell of the studios and the layers of make up one has to put on repel me. I dislike fan-mail and I see no logic in going around appending my signature in everybody’s autograph-book. I shudder at the thought of being mobbed should I go out shopping. I would be most unhappy to have gossip writers write all scurrilous news about my private life.
I honestly feel that the actors lead a miserable life. They spend one half of it in trying to get a break and in scaling the ladder of success and the other half in coping with the onset of age and the downhill journey. Indeed there could be nothing more pathetic in life than to be a faded film actor.
