I am a procrastinator by nature and at all given times I live with the stress of having to do too many things which I have pushed aside with the gentle stroke of one excuse or another. While I do take credit for all the good things that happen to me, I also blame my own self for all those things that could’ve happened but didn’t. But today, I have taken the liberty to make everything wait because I need to pen a few thoughts down.

The politics of the world doesn’t affect me anymore. I’m finally numb to what goes on and I think the youth in me which used to make me react to everything that was wrong around me, has chosen to slip into  middle age which convinces a restless soul that there is nothing one can do. From a proponent of the doctrine that we can collectively change the world, I hear myself telling every shaken heart that there is nothing we can do except find peace within ourselves.

This, when I said to my friend Renuka who spent two days with me earlier this week because she wanted to get away from the sorrow of having lost her beloved husband Simon to cancer after having lived with him for 13 years in bliss, I realized, resonated within me as well.

The loss of Simon Gilbert is a great sadness for all who knew him. He was a burst of illumination and to me, he was that honest truth, I hated to face because Simon spoke from his heart and was never afraid of telling the truth or afraid to make you confront the fact that you were running away from it.

A documentary film maker for BBC, and an artiste par excellence, Simon met Renuka in New Delhi while shooting a film many years ago and fell in love with her instantly. Both Simon and Renuka, Ren as he called her with affection, were in post divorce blues when they met each other and decided to go to Goa for a holiday which they never came back from. From the guest house they lived in for four months, they moved to an apartment and stayed in the idyllic beauty of Goa for the next  13 years of their togetherness.  I met them in 2002 while on holiday, through some friends. We took to each other immediately and kept in touch regularly since then.

When I told him the story of my first film White Noise, Simon loved it, and told me that he would like to edit the film. I told him that when I am ready with the screenplay I will share it with him and take it from there. When I sent him the screenplay to read, Simon called me up to tell me that it was no longer the story which I had narrated to him a couple of years ago. I was upset and adamant but he was even more than me, because he told me that I had got carried away with my partners and destroyed the tapestry on which the original piece had been sewn and also that he was no longer interested in editing the film unless I was ready to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the screenplay.

I told him that commercial compulsions did not permit me to do that and he told me to then drop the project because it didn’t make sense to go ahead with something which was neither what I had started to make nor what I believed in. Finally, he didn’t edit my film. I went ahead and made it the way it was and the rest is history. Simon’s voice came back to haunt me when during the distribution phase, a well known buyer in Cannes asked me why I had made White Noise, and I found myself searching for an answer which I didn’t have.

Later, after the film was released, Simon and Renuka saw it in Goa and called me. Ren loved it, and Simon said, “Well done, Bebu, (a name by which the closest to me call me) although I wish you had listened to me and not been in such a hurry to make this film.” I smiled to myself and told him that I wished I could’ve done that too.

Then, a year later, I called Simon and Renuka, and told them that I would be reaching Goa in a few hours and was going to get married to my friend Anil Bahuguna there. I told them that I wanted them to be there for the wedding as there was going to be no one else present, besides another good friend of ours ofcourse. When Simon met Anil, the day before we were to be married, he took me aside and told me that I was making a mistake and what I was doing was especially not fair to the guy I was getting married to.
Renuka was angry with Simon for doing that but Simon told her, “Bebu is running away from something and neither does she know what she is running away from, nor has she any clue where she’s going. She can’t take another person along with her into her own abyss of darkness.”

Another year later, when Anil and I separated, Renuka and Simon called up to ask me how I was doing, and Simon said, “Bebu, take care. Come to us and stay for a few weeks and let it off because what is going on in your head needs to be sorted out.” I said to Simon that I was fine, to which he retorted,“But you always say that Bebu,” and then he left it at that.

When Anil was no more an year later, Renuka and Simon called again and Renuka told me that they are with me and that I should go to Goa and spend some time with them.I asked her to pass the phone to Simon and Simon asked her to tell me that he had nothing to say.

Recently, while Renuka and I sat and killed a bottle of Vodka between us on the first evening that she spent with me after Simon’s death, we only talked about Simon.  Renuka is alone without Simon but somewhere I could see that Simon’s spirit lives on within her. I could feel his presence and I could communicate with him through her. Such are lives that live away from the chaos and quagmires of this world,  and inspire one to believe that while there is nothing we can do to control this world going mostly wrong, we can find peace within ourselves.

Simon’s  memories show me the way, now. Whether we listen to such friends or not is irrelevant because those who choose never to mislead you make you believe in yourself and in the fact that every moment of this life is worth living.

Vinta Nanda is a film maker, writer and social activist.  She has   written, directed and/or produced trail blazing TV shows like Tara, Raahat, Kabhie Kabhie, Aur Phir Ek Din and Miilee and also   made several documentary films on women’s issues. Her first feature film, White Noise won acclaim at the Kara Film Festival, Pune International Film Festival, Florence and Seattle Indian Film Festivals. Vinta blogs on www.vinatananda.blogspot.com and has written for The Times of India, Tehelka, Indian Express, Mumbai Mirror, Sahara Times and Mid Day. Vinta is also the President of the NGO ‘The Village Project India,’ is producing two TV shows and will be producing and directing her next feature Zindagi Paradiso shortly.