Dear Rukmini
“Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep the faith. It will all be worth it in the end” — This was something I read when I was struggling between my dream of becoming an actor and trying to handle my father’s business as I didn’t know where exactly my computer engineering would take me.
After getting launched in 2006 as an actor in Bengal, I felt the same again 11-odd years later, just before I was planning to start the shooting of Chaamp!
Trust me, if I had grabbed on hard to my family in those struggling years in Mumbai, I won’t hesitate to say that in 2017 it was you that I grabbed on to the hardest while going through the highs and low of a first-time actor-producer!
You know that I fight a lot with you... you hate those fights and your heartache I know, but I never allowed you to know till now that these fights are nothing but trying to regain my confidence... to search for the trust that you have in me again… and again… and again! Am I selfish? Yes I am! But trust me I had no other way to gain my trust back!
I will never ever forget how you stood by me when I didn’t have a penny in my bank account and we were supposed to start the film in a week’s time. Surprisingly, we never fought that week. I took the silent resolve in your beautiful eyes to gain strength... to take a leap of faith. To fly! My gorgeous, that week you became the wind beneath my wings!
Today, I watch magnificent posters of you all around the city. My inbox is filled with messages about how gorgeous you look and how lucky I am, to have you as my co-star for Chaamp. The truth is as one part of my heart felt like protecting you, another part wanted to irritate you, to push you to enter the big screen. Today, I stand vindicated and happy... vindicated, as people are falling in love with you and happy, as my choice stood up to the best.
Today is your birthday, gorgeous. May be it’s the saddest of your life since one of the loveliest persons whom you wanted to enjoy these moments with you is not around. There are things which no one can change since the biggest writer-director of all, who stays above our heads, decides these things.
But here I come back to the same line I started this letter with, gorgeous.
“Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep the faith. It will all be worth it in the end.”
I wish you more hard times. I wish you more sweat. I wish you more tiring days. I wish you more pain. I wish you more sleepless nights. I know these words sound terrible while one wishes his most trusted one on her birthday. But my gorgeous, that’s the best that I can wish for you.
I want to grow old watching you becoming an epitome of what a heroine should be known for. I want to grow old watching you being observed, criticised while at the same time watching you embracing those criticisms, working happily on those observations… changing yourself... and flying high.
For a change today, I want to be the wind beneath your wings.
Rukstar, this is your first step. I hope I have managed to respect that entry. I won’t be able to return what you did for me from the time I came to know you. Today it seems like forever.
On your birthday I wish you everything that each drop of my sweat can ever earn. If I ever did anything good to anyone that “barkat” should go to you. I want to see you successful and happy. Honestly, one day I want to watch a bigger hoarding of yours than mine in this loving Bengal of ours.
On your birthday, I wish you health... I wish you happiness... I wish you success. I wish you the brightest of days and brighter nights. I wish you every success that life can offer and once you get those in abundance and still feel like turning around you will find me just behind your shoulder. And the person beside me will always be your dad.
You are my Chaamp, Rukmini. Stay my Chaamp. Happy birthday, gorgeous! Love you, you are the best thing that has happened to me.
Yours truly
Raju
(That’s what my Dad calls me)
Pictures: Pabitra Das
