Guru Sishya

To get your film liked by people is a huge task. To get it made so you like it is tougher still.

But the wait to find out what your guru thinks about it is pure agony. Ranks all the way up there with boiling-in-oil in hell.

When that guru is a person the whole of India celebrates, and whose work sometimes has moved you to tears - you know your work is right now being fed into the one of the sharpest and the most creative minds around.

So you wait in fear, and avoid him. For days.

Then suddenly he walks in and now there's no easy exit.

You walk up to him, arms sweaty and fingers meshing in stress.

Over tea he slowly tells you...

... how he loved the film, and how proud of me he is.

There are very very few precious moments in my life... and its gonna be rarer still, as success and failure will visit me with boring regularity... but this moment: casual, over a cup of tea, in a nondescript dirty canteen.

Thank you guruji.

From a man of your stature, you can only spread joy to other students like me. First with your inspiring work, then with your pat on the back.

Thank you guruji.