A tete-a-tete with TV hottie SIDHARTH SHUKLA who talks about his stint on the big screen…
In real life, are you like the character you played in ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya’?
I’m definitely not a perfect man. Honestly, I don’t think being perfect is necessary. I mean, what’s important is to keep improving yourself. Perfection isn’t the goal. The process of polishing one’s self is what’s important. Besides, I feel, it’s not possible for a person to match up to everyone’s expectations, so the ideal thing to do is to match up to yours.
What is it that makes a boy from a typical middleclass family, born and raised in Mumbai, stand out?
Nothing really. I’m just realistic, happy-go-lucky type of a guy and I take life as it comes. The only thing I try is not to trouble others. I’ve had a journey and I’m here today because of that. So, I’m different but not special. And it’s not that you have to look really deep to find me, what you see is what you get.
Your journey seems very interesting. Could you tell us something about it?
Yes, I think the loss of my loved ones has been my greatest teacher. I’ve seen death very closely from a young age. When I was in kindergarten I lost a friend, but it didn’t affect me much because I wasn’t allowed to see the body. I just knew that I’d never see him again. At such an early age, you don’t even know the impact of death, its only later that you figure it out. And then you forget, because you are in the process of growing up and making more friends. When I was about 19, I lost another very close friend of mine, Amit. His death had a deeper impact on me. Then my father passed away, which was perhaps the biggest blow. I felt an irrepressible sense of loss that could never be fulfilled by anything. There was a lot that I wanted to do, but at the time he passed away, I hadn’t really done much…just one commercial. So that’s a sense of discontent that’ll always be in me.
Has success changed you in anyway?
I don’t think so. I will say that I won’t change. But then, it’s a much standardised thing to say, and one never really knows if he will actually change. But I really hope I don’t. And if your next question is why I am confident about it, simply because I know where I’ve come from. Whatever I’m getting is hardly because of luck. The opportunities haven’t come to me because they were meant to, I’ve earned them.
