It was a photography assignment,okay,just a photography assignment!We,my friend and I decided that for our shoot,we will pick up twelve personalities to represent the twelve months of the year for our calendar which was our assignment.There had to be a mixture of the good and the bad and then I came up with the question as to why were we keeping things so confined,so divided so we decided to keep a grey personality,someone who has two equally strong streaks within himself,so strong that it become tricky to classify the personality in one category.And then we struck gold,a personality with a double life!!!
The concept has never intrigued me more than ever before since then.What must it be to live a double life?To be someone one instant and then transform into someone no one would ever think you even capable of visualizing?What leads to this sort of personality?Imagine sleeping in the night of a Peter Parker and waking up to the morning of a Spider Man or living the day of a Bruce Wayne and terrorizing terror in the dark as Batman?Closer to life,you have Michael Jackson.A person who till date is easily the most popular artist on the planet with billions of lovers and fans but enter the 'human being' Michael Jackson and what do you see?The man died in loneliness and longing for love and some true friendship.How can the same person be living in two such drastically alternate realities?How can someone captivate and rule over hearts and yet die a lonely death?Love and hate,fame and anonymity,glory and fall,they are supposed to be opposites right?But how can they be so when they are not even complete without the other?They are meaningless without the other.Absolute is nothing.You cannot be Spider Man unless you lose your parents,uncle,fail to confess the immense love you feel for the girl you are head over heels and lastly ridiculed and criticized by society.Batman is the 'Dark Knight'. To be him,you have to lose your parents,have all the riches of the world but no one to share the joys of it with.I think artists come closest to these fictional superheroes,almost every artist must face this double life situation. It is a well known fact that artists do have some personal eccentricities,somethings that kind of distinguish them from the crowd and hence they might not fit into the conventional society a well.But it is also their eccentricity that leads to their recognition.And you don't necessarily have to be a Rahman,Tendulkar or a Jackson to feel and experience this.Let me explain.
There is this dancer friend of mine.We bond over dance amazingly and that led us to talking about many more things.Eventually I got to know him better and I saw this weird dichotomy in his life.He didn't have many friends,forget a girlfriend.He did try his chances at love but somehow he never made it.He so wanted that one special person in his life,not necessarily a girlfriend,just someone who would do anything to make him happy,who would pamper him at times.He never said it in as many words but his face spoke volumes at times.He is a decently good dancer,not the ones who dance to impress but to express.Dance is his passion,he is his most truthful self when he is dancing or choreographing.Being around him at that time,you can see the real side of him.He,at times,literally rules the dance floor and everyone on it.There was this girl in our class that he used to like a lot.He couldn't say it to her directly but he gave enough cues for anyone to understand.She never noticed them but he was a friend to her.When they danced together,we couldn't help but notice the chemistry between them.There definitely was some!She used to be honest and very jovial with him,just the way he wanted.The eye-to-eye contact,the feel they brought to the dance,the delicacy with which he lifted her,it was all there for everyone to see.He had people talking to him politely,laughing and joking with him.In short he got everything he wanted in that space but things changed when he stepped out of it.
Why did that happen,he asked me and I had no answer to give him.But now I think I do.The answer is probably he just didn't find acceptance.He wasn't liked the way he is.He had to do things he otherwise wouldn't to find a place in people but he didn't have to.If he could accept people the way they were,he had every right to be accepted in just the same way,isn't it?
Phew!!Exhaustive but still intriguing.Everything has it's pros and cons and in the end,this kind of a personality too has it's own.Resistance to what can't be changed is totally futile,as I can say from the example of my friend.Ohkay,I think I should stop now.My friend back home needs an answer to a question that has disturbed him for sometime now.
The concept has never intrigued me more than ever before since then.What must it be to live a double life?To be someone one instant and then transform into someone no one would ever think you even capable of visualizing?What leads to this sort of personality?Imagine sleeping in the night of a Peter Parker and waking up to the morning of a Spider Man or living the day of a Bruce Wayne and terrorizing terror in the dark as Batman?Closer to life,you have Michael Jackson.A person who till date is easily the most popular artist on the planet with billions of lovers and fans but enter the 'human being' Michael Jackson and what do you see?The man died in loneliness and longing for love and some true friendship.How can the same person be living in two such drastically alternate realities?How can someone captivate and rule over hearts and yet die a lonely death?Love and hate,fame and anonymity,glory and fall,they are supposed to be opposites right?But how can they be so when they are not even complete without the other?They are meaningless without the other.Absolute is nothing.You cannot be Spider Man unless you lose your parents,uncle,fail to confess the immense love you feel for the girl you are head over heels and lastly ridiculed and criticized by society.Batman is the 'Dark Knight'. To be him,you have to lose your parents,have all the riches of the world but no one to share the joys of it with.I think artists come closest to these fictional superheroes,almost every artist must face this double life situation. It is a well known fact that artists do have some personal eccentricities,somethings that kind of distinguish them from the crowd and hence they might not fit into the conventional society a well.But it is also their eccentricity that leads to their recognition.And you don't necessarily have to be a Rahman,Tendulkar or a Jackson to feel and experience this.Let me explain.
There is this dancer friend of mine.We bond over dance amazingly and that led us to talking about many more things.Eventually I got to know him better and I saw this weird dichotomy in his life.He didn't have many friends,forget a girlfriend.He did try his chances at love but somehow he never made it.He so wanted that one special person in his life,not necessarily a girlfriend,just someone who would do anything to make him happy,who would pamper him at times.He never said it in as many words but his face spoke volumes at times.He is a decently good dancer,not the ones who dance to impress but to express.Dance is his passion,he is his most truthful self when he is dancing or choreographing.Being around him at that time,you can see the real side of him.He,at times,literally rules the dance floor and everyone on it.There was this girl in our class that he used to like a lot.He couldn't say it to her directly but he gave enough cues for anyone to understand.She never noticed them but he was a friend to her.When they danced together,we couldn't help but notice the chemistry between them.There definitely was some!She used to be honest and very jovial with him,just the way he wanted.The eye-to-eye contact,the feel they brought to the dance,the delicacy with which he lifted her,it was all there for everyone to see.He had people talking to him politely,laughing and joking with him.In short he got everything he wanted in that space but things changed when he stepped out of it.
Why did that happen,he asked me and I had no answer to give him.But now I think I do.The answer is probably he just didn't find acceptance.He wasn't liked the way he is.He had to do things he otherwise wouldn't to find a place in people but he didn't have to.If he could accept people the way they were,he had every right to be accepted in just the same way,isn't it?
Phew!!Exhaustive but still intriguing.Everything has it's pros and cons and in the end,this kind of a personality too has it's own.Resistance to what can't be changed is totally futile,as I can say from the example of my friend.Ohkay,I think I should stop now.My friend back home needs an answer to a question that has disturbed him for sometime now.
