I started shooting for my new film, titled I Hate Luv Stories on October 25. A full eight months after I finished shooting my last film. I had wanted to take a break, but hadn’t planned on it being such a long one. Just kind of worked out that way. The thing is, since the day I started shooting Jaane Tu, in December of 2006, I hadn’t taken a break. I shot four films back to back, with only a few days’ gap in between. The end result being, that when I was nearing the end of the fourth one, I started to feel…empty.

When you’re working in a creative field, your work comes from within you. And in order for you to put something out, you have to have something inside. I call it a creative reservoir. You fill it up by having experiences, reading, listening to music, looking at paintings…anything. It’s probably different for different people, but I believe the gist of it remains the same; like a car, you can’t drive if there’s no fuel.

Anyhow. So there I was, feeling drained and empty. That’s when I decided I needed to do something more. I signed on to write this column for HT, I went travelling with friends, I co–hosted a radio show…new things. Things which had absolutely no connection with movies, and didn’t help my work in any apparent way. Except that they did!

They pushed me to try things that I’d never tried before, to work at things I’d never attempted, and generally added to my growth as a person. The thing is, we spend so much time on improving our work that we tend to neglect other parts of our growth. Which would, in turn, improve our work.
Here’s what I think; If your entire life is focussed on just one thing, you can start to lose perspective. Maybe not right away, but in the long run? Definitely. You may never even realise ;when it happened, but you’ll find yourself stagnating. So my advice, for what it’s worth, is to take a step back every so often. Learn a new skill, do something completely impractical that will help you in no way conceivable. You’ll be glad you did. I quote one of my favourite movies: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and take a look around, you could miss it.”