Today’s blog is dedicated to a very special friend of mine. If you’re a regular visitor of this blog, you would have already seen her blog listed in my “Blogroll”, or probably, you must’ve even visited her blog. If you still haven’t guessed, iiiiiiiitttttttttt’s <<<drum rolls in the background please>>> Arch ( a.k.a Archu a.k.a India’s would be best director).
Flashback time: I met Arch during my engineering days in SAKEC; I can’t claim that I knew her then. We weren’t best friends, but we shared a common passion for english movies( though she was 1000 times more passionate than I was). During those blissful engineering days, my idea of Archana, was a nerd who thinks about studies and movies 24 by 7(Just for the record, she was good at sports too, she was also very much involved in cultural and tech fests in our college). I never really knew her on a personal level then. But, her obsession for movies was infectious, her whole face would brighten up whenever the discussion veered towards movies. Sometimes, it was a pain in the neck to watch a movie with Arch, she wouldn’t allow anybody to speak while she is watching the movie. She demanded pin-drop silence during the entire course of the movie. She would glare at us, even if we sneezed or breathed loudly. The rest of us actually had to learn sign language to discuss the movie( okay okay, I’m really exaggerating now…we didn’t do anything like that).Well, coming back to the point, which is : she has always dreamt of making movies. No, let me put it in a better way. She always always wanted to create world class Indian cinema which would win an Oscar. That’s all I knew about Arch during my graduation days.
Eventually, we graduated; and both of us( along with couple of other friends) got a job in one of the leading IT companies. I was transferred to Bangalore and through a strange series of events, even Arch landed up in B’lore. This is where we became close friends, rather best friends. And this is where I began understanding Arch on a personal level. I realized that she was much more than a geek, she is spontaneous, creative, caring and an amazing friend.
But, she was not happy with her job. She wasn’t enjoying it at all. Her interests lied elsewhere. She still aspired to be a movie-director. And she did try her best to get out of the IT rut. I still remember her attempt at MICA, and her disappointment when she didn’t make it. She didn’t lose hope though. She persevered. She started educating herself on Films, took movie-courses on the internet, bought a cam-corder, started shooting short films, sent her films to local film-festivals. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to see any of her short films(Lucky Me…..note to self: delete this bracketed line later otherwise Arch will kill me ). She even got a call from NYFI( or NYFA, I’m not sure but it’s located in Big Apple) but she couldn’t convert the call due to certain constraints.
Her efforts finally bore results today, she cracked an interview for a course in cinematography from MindFilm Screen Institute( an institute launched by ace cinematographer Rajiv Menon) in Chennai. She finally made a breakthrough and I am soooooo proud of her. She is on her way to fulfill her dream and I am sure she’ll be a kick-ass director.
Hey Arch, if you’re reading this, keep in mind that I am not a great writer. I can’t use words like “cacophony” and “anachronistic” in the same line. But, this post is for you, no matter how crude my writing skills are. Congratulations and Happy Birthday again!!!!
- Anup
P.S. The above pic is from Arch’s collection of Dandyman series.
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