Ram Gopal Varma Blog #39. My Reactions to Reactions.

1. What drives you?
Ans: Most times my Land cruiser and sometime my Honda.

2. What can people do when it’s too late?
Ans: There’s no such thing as too late if you truly decide what you really want to do. Right from our birth we are taken forward to get into a trap of expectations and commitments towards our family or society or God or country etc. Fair enough. Many of us have no choice but to heed them because of our physical or emotional obligations. The only alternative we have is to make the choice and psyche ourselves to make the best of it but one thing you should not ever do is to crib or complain or feel frustrated as then the whole point of living itself is lost.

3. Overlooking heart and feelings is a disease Ayn Rand and many of her followers suffer from.
Ans: I don’t know about her followers but through her writings I believe that Ayn Rand has more heart and feelings than anyone else I have know, heard or have read of.

4. Kids speak the truth because of lack of understanding the consequences and very old people speak the truth because it no longer matters.
Ans: Beautifully said. But then there is also a cracked guy like me who speaks the truth because of an obsessive desire to project myself plain pure and dirty.

5. Why was Tom Hagen kicked out in Godfather? I didn’t buy the logic of him not being a war-time consigliore.
Ans: Corporates (of which underworld companies are one) by nature operate on result. If an employee is given authority, funds etc towards a project and if he fails in delivering the expected result he will be kicked out. If Hagen couldn’t see the attack of Solozzo coming or couldn’t prevent the death of Sonny, he had to go. He was given a position to deliver results and not explanations. You and me as readers might feel it’s too harsh a thing for what we feel is not Hagen’s fault, but being in the shoes of the Don and Mike I think it’s highly understandable.

6. How do I break my monotonous boring job and be you?
Ans: By taking a decision.

7. Featuring a character derived from the various nuances of your personality might make a compelling film.
Ans: I don’t know about compelling but it will surely make a madcap film full of contradictions.

8. I could not go past Ayn Rand.
Ans: Reading a book is like visiting another person’s world. The more worlds you visit the more richer you become in your insights. By sticking only to Ayn Rand you are just carrying forward what you learnt only from her, thereby defeating the very purpose of knowledge. The knowledge you get from a book or any other source should be just a stepping stone for the next level. You should not ever carry what should carry you.

9. How did you react when Aag was a flop and Phoonk was a hit?
Ans: I Aagghed and I phoonked!