And Then One Day: A Memoir by Naseeruddin Shah Read Free Book Online Page A

Anselm’s were angels compared to those at Sem, their kindness did no more for me than the Christian Brothers’ cruelty had done. And as I write this, the disquieting thought creeps into my mind that, for younger actors who may be reading this, I am hardly an example worthy of emulation, and I begin to wonder why I am writing it at all. Is this a story worth telling?
    No matter. I invoke the venerated music critic and cricket lover Neville Cardus who in his wonderful book titled simply
Autobiography
puckishly observes that no one was ‘under any compulsion to read it and is under no compulsion to read further’. For me it’s an exorcism of sorts, and it’s for my children if they wish to understand me better. But whatever they do, I doubt if they can (rather, I pray that they don’t) ever match the complete apathy I displayed towards just about everything in my life at this stage, but I daresay they have inherited some of my qualities.
    Having received my second ‘failed’ report card for Class 9, I went for as long a bicycle ride as I could to avoid going home and breaking the news. I wasn’t terribly distressed, didn’t contemplate suicide or anything, I just rode and rode and rode, with a completely empty head, until I couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. But I had managed to delay it. Turning my cycle homeward at last, I frantically searched my mind for what lie I could possibly tell this time. It still gives me a twinge when I recall Baba’s worried but hopeful face when I returned, a good three hours or so after I should have, and the way it crumpled when he got the news accompanied by my weak protestations about how the marks for the half-yearly exams which I hadn’t appeared for at this school, naturally, had been included in our aggregates and that’s why I had failed. He didn’t say anything. Just quietly told me to go eat. I must confess that on this day I actually felt sorry for him.



Through the looking glass, sort of
    A nd so I went into Class 9 at St Anselm’s with a third set of classmates. But before I go into this, for me, totally momentous year, I must first go a little further into what my years in Sem did for me, and to talk of the only other friend I had there, apart from Pearly and KC—the mirror. No one ever passes a mirror without glancing into it. If there isn’t one, there’s always a windowpane or rear-view mirror or someone’s dark glasses or a desktop or some reflecting surface to look at oneself in. In Sem, there were a number of rather large mirrors all over our locker rooms. On one occasion, tardy in dressing, I got locked in there for the duration of morning prep. I was delighted, I’d missed bloody prep and I was alone. I went around the locker room looking at myself in every mirror there. The most fun was looking into the mirrors in the senior section, which we weren’t supposed to go anywhere near.
    Like anyone else I really wanted to know what I looked like. Try as I might, however, and no matter how long or hard I looked, I couldn’t get a proper picture. I couldn’t see myself sideways, for example, and though I liked to believe I had a profile like John Barrymore’s there my reflection was, a mousy-looking guy with a very small chin and a very big nose, unruly curly hair growing almost into his eyebrows, small, crinkled, frightened eyes. Not even any sign of a moustache. I’d try painting one on with pencil, and when that didn’t work, I’d use my imagination. I’d try a heroic look, an angry look, a sorrowful look. I’d examine my smile. These sessions with the mirror would leave me terribly unsatisfied yet they never stopped. I could see I looked nothing like an actor should, and felt discriminated against by nature. Why did I have only Clark Gable’s ears? Watching impossibly handsome film stars playing larger-than-life figures in the movies, I became convinced that these people were photographic tricks. How could anyone look so perfect, not