The dream is the same. The dreamers have changed…
This festive season as I sit down to write this piece, so many filmmakers, producers, actors, and technicians all over the country will be getting ready to release their movies in so many different languages. This will be a period when all these people will perhaps be forced to oscillate between dread and hope. The dread of not achieving the dream, and the hope of turning the dream into a reality. This is the dream that has been the life-blood of all those giants of Indian cinema, and on whose shoulders the Indian entertainment industry stands.
I’m reminded of Guru Dutt‘s assistant Raj Khosla, with whom I began my career as an assistant, and whose narrative has also been chronicled in Epic Channel’s Khwaabon Ka Safar. “I love filmmaking, but I hate the film industry,” he had said. “Even my mentor Guru Dutt would go through anguish every time his film released.”
I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about till I myself became a filmmaker.
It is indeed true that dream merchants are made of different stuff. They are audacious people who have the guts to venture out into unknown waters without a compass or a map. They have the ability to walk alone, and to fashion their vision against the headwinds of status quo. The defining attribute of these dream merchants is raw, unbridled courage. Not many have it. No wonder, the world is full of spectators and very few performers.
The world belongs to dream merchants who bleed and fall and rise again
My friends, the world belongs to these dream merchants who bleed and fall and rise again and continue to entertain you with their need to tell stories which add magic to your otherwise drab life. Without these dream merchants, life would be one dark nightmare.
This festive season, I raise a toast to all the dream merchants of past, present and future.
Catch stories of India’s greatest filmmakers who dared to dream! Watch Khwaabon Ka Safar with Mahesh Bhatt on Mondays at 10 pm only on the EPIC Channel. For more information, visit The Epic Channel on Facebook and Twitter.
This post is in partnership with The Epic Channel.