With this column, The Change Within touches the century mark, which is a celebratory watershed by any reckoning. When I started the column, I did not have any finish line in mind, but I certainly never thought that it would cross the 100 mark, given my hectic shooting schedules and other commitments and your pap-er’s deadlines. But here we are and looking back, it has been an exciting cerebral journey, sometimes of self-discovery and sometimes of learning.
What has overwhelmed me are the responses I have been receiving all through, which shows that we all strive to change for the better.
Change can be leisurely, it can also be a hurried process, depending on the circumstances. In life and living, I have often found that it is human nature to drift along... We largely accept change only when it is forced on us. Per-haps the best example is the Indian industry which took the consumer for granted until 1995. That was when the floodgates of competition we-re opened and foreign brands swamped the marketplace, forcing Indian manufacturers to shape up their products. Consequently, today, most Indian wares are of a quality closer to their international peers than they ever were in our lives.
But in this chase to shape up or ship out, we are losing sight of some old fashioned virtues which were close to our culture and ethos. And prime among them is the virtue of loyalty.
Two decades ago, loyalty was the arbiter not only in corporates but also in human relationships. You knew your friends would stand by you through thick and thin. In the crucible of white-hot competition, nowadays loyalty is at a discount. Employees are no longer prepared to stand by their employers and stick it out and wait for the good times to arrive. Friends turn out to be the fair-weathered variety and ones in search of the good times. It is rather uncommon to find loyalists in these days of hi-bye relationships.
I am drawn to writing about loyalty because last week, my manager Bhaskar Shetty pas-sed away suddenly at night, due to a massive cardiac arr-est when he was watching television. I am in London, shooting, and therefore I could not grieve with his shell-shocked family.
And the one thing that strikes me about Bhaskar, singular in a fickle industry, was his steadfast loyalty to me in the two decades he represented me. In a world where everyone prefers to align themselves with the winners, and where failure is an orphan, Bhaskar never jettisoned actors if their fortunes were waning. He stuck with them, and very often, became a personal well-wisher and guide. In the process, he endeared himself to everyone he be-friended.
Loyalty is not a sign of being plain silly or emotional. It is a sign of strength and steadfastness. We must realise that from our loyalty springs strength. If we are loyal to our families and friends, they will pay back our loyalties in the trying times.