The most frequently asked question I face is: How do you manage to do so many things at the same time? People think I’m being modest when I reply that I do pretty much nothing. But that’s exactly the way I feel, and have felt all my life.
Yes, I write. But I also find the time to listen, to read. Books, magazines, blogs, tweets, newspapers. I read all that comes my way. I am tardy responding to mail but considering the number of letters, emails, sms, tweets I get, it’s not surprising. I request those who write in not to feel terribly offended if they get a delayed reply and my email signature candidly confesses that since I travel a lot, those in a hurry should get in touch with Maria in my office who will answer them much quicker. There are people though who see me quietly sitting in a corner of the neighbourhood bookstore, deeply engrossed in a graphic novel or in a movie hall near my office watching Wanted all by myself. If they’re polite, they leave me alone. If not, they come and ask me a million questions which I try to patiently answer. When I tire I ask them to tweet the rest. 140 characters are easier to handle than a Spanish inquisition.
The questions are predictable. When’s my next movie? Who stars in it? When am I holding another show of my paintings? Why was there such a long gap in between? (There has been no long gap.) Why am I not back in Parliament? (It was just the other day I took a sabbatical after six long years there.) When will the recession end? (They laugh when I say I don’t have a clue.) Why don’t I write my autobiography? Why don’t I restart The Illustrated Weekly? Why don’t I write more often? (As if two weekly columns and a blog are not enough.) Did I really have an affair with what’s her name? Why do I shun TV? Other FAQs are: Will I never write poetry again? Why don’t I bring back The Pritish Nandy Show? Should Tharoor keep tweeting after all this? Why don’t I cast Shah Rukh in my next movie? (Ready answer: I’d love to. Go, get him?) Is Rangita really 19? (No, she’s 30. They laugh when I say this.) Am I really a vegan, non-smoker, teetotaller? (A virgin too, I say in a hushed whisper. The conversation collapses.)
Imagine a grey haired man well into dotage walking up to me and saying, Hello Sir, my father was in college with you. He says you were brilliant even then. (All I can mumble is Sorry, you’ve got it wrong, I’ve never been to college, at which he laughs so heartily his dentures fall off.) Worse, someone walks up to me and says Mahesh Bhatt has claimed that the way to self realisation is through Krishnamurthy. You endorse that? (My reply’s: Mr Bhatt should stay away from Shekhar Kapoor’s ex wife.) The querist walks off in disgust. People have stopped me at public places and told me how much they loved my film Ankur but feel I’ve deteriorated since then, making silly comedies like Sajjanpur. One even asked me why I’d stopped cricket commentaries and am promoting hearing aids instead.
Questions, questions, questions. We Indians love asking them. Wherever we go, we are bursting with questions. Be it a seminar, a AGM, a political meeting or even a mall where we encounter someone who looks vaguely familiar. I’ve even been asked by perfect strangers (in front of my family) why I copy Pritish Nandy’s shaved head and beard. One of my FAQs of God is not whether the Sensex will touch 20,000 again so that I can redeem my remaining mutual funds at their acquired cost or if I will ever bump into Scarlett Johanssen alone, in a nightclub. It is: Why am I such a query magnet? I wore a swine flu mask long after others threw theirs away. I’ve pretended not to recognise people I think I know. I’ve worn, like our Bollywood stars, fake Prada sunglasses at midnight but nothing helps. The queries come in like rapidfire. When is the next Moksh coming up? Will Govinda go back to Parliament? Will the black money in Swiss banks return to India?
It’s this endless curiosity which makes us so unbearably lovable. I’ve never seen a nation, a people so desperate to know. No one stops me on the Champs Elysees to ask me when Qasab will be hanged. No stranger sits down in front of me in a Munich café to inquire if Kaif is Katrina’s real surname. No one walks up to me while I’m listening to a local band at sunset on the Naples waterfront to ask if I am born under the Tula rashi. That’s why I miss India so desperately when I travel. I miss the spirit of inquiry that makes us the world’s most inquisitive people. No wonder we love the RTI so much.
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