Mysuru: As part of its Annual Members Day, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) had organised an interactive session on ‘How to Succeed in your Life’ by Ramesh Aravind, Actor, Director, Producer, Writer, TV Show Host & Author, at a private hotel in city on Friday.

The actor gave the audience a wonderful insight into several fundamentals of life and success and failures in general, as he interacted with Arjun Ranga, Chairman, CII Mysuru.

As they spoke, the actor was asked as to how his journey with the movie industry began and he said it was rather an accidental entry into the industry. “I was a very serious engineering student and never dreamt I would be an actor someday. It all started with a small skit I performed at Inter-Collegiate Fest, one of the judges for which was from the Akashavani who asked me to perform the same in the radio. There I met someone who called me to Doordarshan to perform the same and in the DD I met someone who asked me to act in the movies. So it is all about the contacts and acquaintances that suddenly bloom from nowhere and you will never know what they could lead to. So today I am here in front of you, with about 150 movies to my credit. That’s what the life system is all about. It’s the time, ideas, the way you market and fine tune your strengths and collaborations”

When asked about his experiences of having worked with the stalwarts of the industry from different cultural backgrounds, Ramesh said, “I have communicated with so many people and have been able to accept each of them the way they are. In-fact in every relation, without our knowledge, we have an expectation that may not be directly stated. The earlier you understand what the expectation is, the faster you will connect with him or her for unless you understand in what level a person is, you won’t be connecting well as beyond all calculations, what everyone wants is genuine love and care.”

Further, when asked about having turned into a director from being an actor and the challenges he faced during the transit, he said:  “we all have to grow as that’s what makes a human what he is. Everyone wants to grow to the next level since success is never just about promotions.  Stepping towards the next level at work is also for the spiritual growth of your inner self. After being an actor, I had to take my next step and that was of being a director and it is very thrilling to try something new.”

“But won’t you have the fear of failure, every time you try something new or take a step forward?” Ranga asked and the actor replied: “there is no way you can escape failure. It will come to you in some or the other way however hard you try to escape. But that’s never the actual problem. Not learning from the failure is a huge failure in itself. I have faced failure many a times and been frustrated too. There were times when my ideas were not respected, my ego was hurt and was stamped ruthlessly. But once I learnt from these failures of mine, I ensured no one stepped on to my toes later. I got to learn a lot from each mistake and that made me be extremely clear about my next step. Failure to learn from your failure is the real failure otherwise.”

Further, speaking of consistency at work and as an actor with stability in the industry, he explained that people like Amir Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Kamal Hassan or Amitabh Bachchan are immensely respected —  because they are consistent at their work, and committed towards it come what may. “They are not one time wonders. It’s a life time of their successes and the hallmark of quality itself is consistency. If not we wouldn’t accept someone as a legend blindly. So we need to understand and adapt to every change from the previous mistakes or failures. Because what worked today may not work tomorrow,” he added and said that being professional and performing a given task on time with integrity makes any man successful.

Arjun Ranga then asked about the work life balance the actor managed to maintain. Talking of it, Ramesh said, “during my initial days, I too carried the work pressure home and gave little time to my family because of the huge work pressure. At such times, family always takes a back seat and we realise its value once we have turned much older. However, what matters most at the end is nothing but your family and the time you spend with it as nothing else is more worthy. Love and care of your loved ones is more than any financial dividend. So we all need to focus on family,” he felt.

He also called upon the audience to help their spouses with simple things like the house hold chores or quality time with children and other family members as such simple things are what going to make a bigger difference on the mind he said.

He concluded his talking explaining about the changing generations and their new habits. “every generation will have a difference of opinion with the previous one. What we expect from our kids is something they don’t even consider worthy at times as they are better informed than us many a time,” he said and added that everything we as parents think might spoil our children may not really be as bad as assumed. They can teach us better things too. So all we need to do is allow the kids their freedom, giving them the correct basic values required. We too as parents may mistake our children and they may not really be wrong since they too would have the natural curiosities. So let us learn to excuse them when wrong and not police them throughout their lives,” he felt.

Lastly, he was asked about what the country could evolve as in future and how to prepare ourselves for it. “I can’t really predict anything because of the rapid pace with which things are changing,” Ramesh said, adding: “Because forget the future, you can’t even say what can happen the next week now. Everything changes rapidly. Learning is endless and keep learning that’s how you adopt to the changing world.” He concluded the talk saying success is nothing but being happy with a peace of mind.

Ramesh meets students of Ranga Rao School