I believe it must be ten years now. Ten? Yeah. More or less. These things hardly make sense at the time, right? Kierkegaard said ,”Life must be lived forwards but can be understood backwards.”

So around the time college – I studied Architecture-  was ending, I had a lengthy existential crisis and back then, I didn’t have the vocabulary to even understand what it meant  but deep down, I knew I was out there looking for something else. It actually was not that uncommon of a problem but when you are young, stupid and ignorant, it’s ego that makes you think that your problems are so unique and you’re the only one going through it. Right around then, I found cinema which had taken hold over me like nothing that came before- or after. With zero exposure to art literacy growing up, I was happy just going through art appreciation and film history on my own. I could not imagine a life in the creative arts because it can be a bit fear inducing- still is. Frankly, it felt like I didn’t need it because I was just happy watching films, reading and thinking about film. As to how it took over, I had one version down in my early draft but then I realised I had multiple versions of that part- all true to some degree and so I decided I can get into them some other time.

My twenties- I turned thirty, last year- was spent doing odd jobs here and there but otherwise, I lived a hermit-like life reading, watching, learning, and making some technical shorts- to learn the basics. It was me painting in the dark but a life in the arts cannot be a solitary one- that path forwards is about curiosity, generosity and connection.

I needed to hear this because for the longest time, I didn’t want to do this because I am not a writer and even though it’s quite obvious, it never occurred to me that writing can be a great tool to do some active thinking about a particular topic and it is by no means the final expression of the author, but sharing that with the world is something one has to get over because that fear can be crippling- it still is. 

With the pandemic, the days and subsequently, weeks go into a time warp- did you realise that this year is giving over already- and this blog can be a way to make sense of the time with regular entries so that it becomes a compendium of my thoughts like a diary over time because this blog is just ‘something to do’ and nothing more.

The voice inside says,” Why should people care about what you have to say?” Then I figured I might not have anything interesting to say but I am someone who is interested. So that means I will have to keep reading, collecting quotes to keep this going.

I hope to post on schedule instead of posting when I feel like it because that’s not how creativity works. It has to be a practice with intent, else we are just being a hack as Mr. Baldwin said, endurance is the most important of all words when it comes to writing. It’s tricky to be a filmmaker with a personal blog because I can’t share a film that I make every week. It’s not impossible but I am not that prodigious, yet.

I am currently in preparation to shoot a feature film. I wanted to document the whole process here with BTS footage, interviews, all that jazz and so by the time it is completed, I will have the process documented- least for posterity. I think it is equally important to tell the story behind a particular project because it helps you understand its ‘context’ in this never-ending depth of ‘content’. More importantly, I hope to meet my cohorts here- to discuss ideas and share each other’s work, because filmmaking is inherently such a collaborative medium- the part I like- albeit an expensive one- that part I don’t like so much. So let’s meet for coffee sometime soon.

And if it has not been made apparent by now, I am no expert on anything. I simply hope to share my learning here and at best, this could become my cabinet of curiosities. As one of my film masters David Lynch concluded in one of his weather forecast videos that he started during the pandemic, “No matter what the weather is,” he said that day, “I wish, for all of you, blue skies and golden sunshine internally- all along the way!”

Peace and grace,
Nikhil.