I was once asked –

“What do you do?”

I said I’m an actor.

The question was modified and repeated in complete honesty

“No! Seriously, what DO you do?”

I had no answer. No repartee worth giving back to this invaluable question.

We don’t save lives, or fight for country or protect the law or run the government.

So Yes, what DO we do?

We wear makeup, have our hair done perfectly and look pretty. (with the effort of the hair and makeup team.)

We wear enviable, exquisite beautiful clothes, jewellery and shoes.(thanks to a designer.) ( so what if our neck falls off and our feet are cut.)

We travel in big cars, shoot at gorgeous locations, travel the world, stay in five star hotels, have ourselves photographed and splashed all over magazines and bill boards and have someone take care of us all the time.

Even on set we say the lines someone else has painfully written, the Dop takes care of how we look, the sound guys make sure we sound good and the director puts it all together.

And sometimes we push ourselves out of our comfort zone and cry (with or without glycerin.) and dance in sheer chiffon saris in sub zero temperatures trying not to get killed with hypothermia. (The makeup people make sure they take care of our face as it starts to turn blue.) And sometimes work under inhuman conditions (but that’s hardly of consequence)

But, what exactly is it that we do?

We knowingly bare ourselves naked emotionally in front of the camera. On and off screen.

We open ourselves to criticism knowing that all our efforts may prove to be fruitless.

We unzip our personal lives and make it public even if we disagree with it.

We allow ourselves to be scrutinised and judged for what we wear, how we look, what we say, our weight, our age, our marriage, our relationships, our parenting skills even our silences. All this completely irrespective of how we feel personally about it.

Our faces are exposed to the ever prying media at the most inopportune moments even if we hate it.

We and our personal moments are exposed to a sense of ownership to complete strangers much against our wishes.

By default our life is not just our own.

We could be tired, sleep deprived starved, exhausted, unwell, physically drained, emotionally spent, mentally raw, angry, upset, sad, depressed, or dying inside. But if someone asks for a selfie we stand up, indulge in a polite conversation with someone we don’t know, and smile.

Well, That’s what we do.