An actor's dreams and doubts: Advent Calendar - December 1

An actor's dreams and doubts presents: Rakesh Parangath from India. The best line learner I have ever met and a true friend. The word is his.

The actor in the person I am … or vice-versa.

It's that time of the year again … soon Christmas trees will be on display, buntings will be hung up, greeting cards will be sent out, the holiday cheer will begin it's infectious rounds and another year will come to a close. For me the end of the year always brings a certain sense of reflection, introspection and nostalgia. My reflection, of late, has been on the duality of my life as an actor and as a person. I did the math and realised it's now been 15 years of amateur and semi-professional theatre that I've been involved in. Countless acting workshops, performances in genres as diverse as absurd theatre, nativity plays, college productions, classical plays, contemporary pieces, movement theatre, cause based theatre, foreign language theatre … and through it all the duality that i referred to before seems almost blurred. The actor in me is sometimes inseparable from the person I am.

I've never questioned why I love the theatre so much. I've never analysed that pull that the stage seems to have on me, I've never doubted that being an actor was in my destiny. Acting is as natural to me as living and, as I am different today from the 18 year old undergraduate 15 years back, I am a different actor today than that 18 year old performer in a college production of Martin Epstein's 'How Gertrude Stormed the Philosopher's Club'. I guess a lot of the change can be explained by the styles, skills and technique one picks up through workshops and drama courses and acting classes but as an actor I'm convinced that more of that change occurs because of the life experiences one collects along the way. I ask myself sometimes, as an actor, do I 'collect' and actively seek out more drama in my life to supplement my acting interests? Do I 'feel' more, emote more, observe more, analyse more, do more, travel more, crave the big emotions more, so that I have a trove of emotional and situational richness to draw from that I can bring to stage? Am I being more authentic to my character on stage than I am in my life? Why, that would mean I was truly 'being' my character and 'acting' my life out!

Reflection, introspection and a great big dollop of memories - 15 years as an actor has made my life so much richer than I ever thought possible. I will grow - as a person and as an actor and I can't wait to see who that person will be and what that actor will be capable of.