LEADER ARTICLE: I Am Just An Actor

Our great nation was born with the aid of the greatest of midwives ��� great leaders. We Indians have a long tradition of the heroic. We also like our stories to be a grand narrative, with big drama, big passion, big character, big suffering, big endurance, big overcomings. I have provided my fair share of all things big, even a B. With such a publicised life for over 40 years, one has provided an ample and extended narrative footage for the public, for delight in the giddy highs of success, the passion of suffering and loss, the dismay of defeat, on and on.
I feel it, at the very least, is a morally dubious thing that such public attention has been bestowed upon my private existence considering the vast multitudes of our fellow citizens who have anonymously and quietly succeeded, suffered and endured far greater than me. I have not sought it. I have tried to maintain silence because that is all one can do to preserve some sense of dignity and sanity in one's private life. But my preferred silence is apparently at once dignified and at the same time not so. It is an oft-repeated argument that even if one does not hold public office, by virtue of being a public figure one is still obliged to explain oneself.
My speech and actions are either viewed as mere self-promotion, or met with no response whatsoever. This was very much the case after the event of a recent wedding in my family. Kept as a private and small event amongst my immediate kin and intimate friends due to the mortal condition of my late mother, it was apparently an act of self-promotion for many, or a mean-spirited exclusivity for others. I was moved to write at length to the editors of many reputable newspapers, magazines and journals ��� they all know who they are ��� to correct the manifold errors of much of the press at large about the event. Not one copy of my written response was published.
I have a human right to reply to public slander against myself or my family. This right was met with indifference. Faulted in silence, faulted in speech. What sort of double-bind is this, what sort of culture of news media do we have that could find justice in this Catch-22? I am just an actor. Where are our real heroes? Have we become so enamoured of sheer fame, wealth and privilege that we hold this up as transformative for a culture as rich in heritage as ours?
Where is the maturity in our free society that we must glorify such an empty vessel as myself for admiration? I acknowledge the role of inspirational individuals to cultivate our dreams and hopes as a community, but why is there so little public concern about the delicate point at which inspiration becomes reified into mindless and infantile idolatry? Icons remain legitimate as long as they do not become idols. And what sort of power do we really worship in our endless compulsive listings and rankings of our fellow citizens? Power lists seem to me a kind of destructive new confabulation of our cultural obsession with hierarchy so catastrophically manifested in the caste system.
We need to get over this and move on. Have we become so frivolous and superficial in the last 60 years that we have become blinded to undifferentiated power, that it is enough of an end in itself? Power is potential, not an end in itself. What do we plan to do with ours, newly found?
Yes, people would at least feel gratified that there has been some progress towards alleviating the terrible suffering of all forms of poverty that have plagued our population, both material and cultural. But we still have a long way to go. Is this really a time to rest on our laurels? I am an actor. I do not know enough about the various political ideologies on offer to espouse any of them. They just confuse me. I prefer representative democracy in a genuinely free, open and secular society ��� as an ideology ��� than any of the others.
I try to think as well as one can and merely end up with a lot of questions to ask. I do not have the talent, the intelligence, or the training to ask them well, let alone answer them. I call upon our public intellectuals in all walks of life to vigilant debate. I implore them to raise their voices when they sit down and reflect together about what is good and bad in what we do, say and believe. I beg them for loud and clear direction in our public sphere. If they already speak, as an avid follower of Indian journalism, one does not understand why one cannot hear enough of them.
I want to hear more, and from the best of them. Even if they disagree with me. I will defend them until death for their right to do so. The camera rolls on all of us as we face our future together as citizens of India. As human beings in the world, we have had a rather long chance to sort ourselves out; now we have a good chance of running out of time.
The writer is a film actor and producer.