A road with Failures…

It has been more than 5 weeks that I am living with Prajakt & his two flat mates. It has been a great learning experience. Though we talked less, as he prefers to stay inside his room, our late night road trips, early morning (4 am) tea trips & sometimes dinner at nearby restaurants had given me plenty of time to know about him & gain a great deal of knowledge. I have done first schedule of my short film & was disappointed looking at my own work. I had decided to stop further shoot & delete all work to save my embarrassment & failure. I had no guts to confess it before Pj, so I have not told him anything of this decision.

“Hey Aadesh, have you ever failed at anything?” Pj asked me as he entered my room with his Mac Book Pro (he hates calling it laptop/lappy).

“You have no idea of how perfect your timing is” I thought to myself.

“Yeah, many times, but why?” I asked hiding my recent failure.

“I have failed 4 times designing this website for our company, have a look at this” he said showing me what he had done.

“How did you know about web designing? I mean have you done some course?” I asked quite surprisingly.

“I didn’t know it 4 days ago. And I don’t do courses for anything. Read books, seen tutorials & interviews, tried on my own, failed, tried again, failed again & tried till I succeed. And this has been my style” he replied showing me few features of website.

“I like the pink & black color combination, reminds me of some porn sites” I said laughingly.

“Shut up you pervert. I tried to give it glamorous feel” he said. We talked few more mins about other features.

“Why you did all this on your own? You could have hired someone?” I said getting back on my sofa.

“Is this a coincidence or I have to go through same questions all over again whenever I try something new on my own  he replied referring to his earlier experience.”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t realize I am repeating same though I know their answers” I said apologetically.

“Don’t be sorry. Look I have this attitude of concentrating on failures. I like to get lost & then discover new ways to reach my destination. After studying all rules I like to break them to find new methods” Prajakt was easy while explaining.

“Yeah I know your style” I said mid way, knowing him well on this part.

“But not all my colleagues & team mates knew this. They all are good in following directions but never bothered about discovering their own” he said putting lappy on table.

“But how they could have done this in practice?” I asked.

“During our training sessions I asked them to build dolly, steadicam, lights & other equipments so that they will know about working principle of equipments & what to do in crisis. How to get work done when equipments fails”, he explained.

I was surprised to know about this. I almost jumped towards him.

“What?? You ask them to build equipments. And did they succeed?” I asked enthusiastically.

“Some failed, some succeeded. But I was happier. I knew they will fail and wanted to push them beyond their mental ability to think. I succeed in my motives”, he has big smile on face.

“That’s very unusual to hear from you. I don’t think anyone has worked this way with his team”, I said, still amazed by the fact of story.

“One more thing that we did during practice was working under tight deadlines, peer pressure of high performance & improving each day beating our own standards. This tactic helped us during 1^st schedule of our movie. They easily handled the pressure of being on set of Hindi film, being around actress & all those hypes”, he said little proudly. But he smiled suspiciously. I had not guessed the reason but came to know soon.

“So 1^st schedule must be smooth & subtle as all were prepared”, I said expecting affirmative reply. But he has his answer ready with tricky smile.

“No. On the contrary I had cancelled shoot many times without completing shoot. Immediate meeting were called at my flat to get them on razor blade”, he said.

“Why?” I had obvious question in my mind.

“Because they were not leaders I expected but dumb ass followers. They never realized what I meant when I ask them to use your brain. And most important lesson that mind is powerful than money. They thought it’s okay to do as said irrespective of what they think should be done”, he explained without any difficulty.

“I guess this thing won’t happen when I will be working as AD”, I said lazily.

He laughed. We both laughed. I was seriously hoping not to repeat any mistake but to make new one. Then I decide to continue with my short film so that I can do as many mistakes as I can. After all failures are stepping stone to success.