It is okay not to have a plan | Mithila Palkar | TEDxNITSilchar

Follow your passion, and everything will fall into place. It is okay to not have a plan. Listen to Mithila as she tells how life happens to you when you are busy planning other things.

Mithila Palkar is a popular singer of Hindi and regional languages and an actor. In fact, she is more of a singer than an actor. She hails from Mumbai and born and brought in this city of dreams. Having her schooling and college from Mumbai, she went on to employ the social media cum video uploading site – YouTube. She did her college from MMK College and since her school and college days, she was active in cultural activities particularly singing. So, when completed her college, she knew what to do and thus with some struggle, she was able to make her video song album.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

(Clapping) (Tapping) (Banging)

(Singing)

(Song: "Hi chaal turu turu on the Cups")

(Singing ends)

(Applause)

Some of you must have seen
the video of this song online,

and I'll tell you the story
of how I made it.

But before that,
I have a question for all of you.

How many of us over here
have had celebrity crushes?

(Murmuring)

Almost all of us, right?

And I'm sure some of us

must have done something crazy
to reach out to these crushes.

This friend of mine, one day,

decided to pack his bags
and leave his home in Baroda

and come to Mumbai
to meet the love of his life.

Ameesha Patel.

(Laughter)

Well, OK, so he decided to do that.

And he knew that he wanted
to meet her in a different capacity,

not as a fan, because ...

pride.

And the easiest way
to get in touch with her

was to get into showbiz, and he did.

Eventually, over the years,

he realized that this was actually
something that he liked doing,

and he stuck to it.

It's been 10 years now
since he started acting,

and Ameesha Patel now is ...

(Laughter)

history in his life.

So, you know like they say,

life happens to you
when you're busy planning other things.

This is a classic example of that.

Things don't always work
according to plan.

So let me tell you something:
it's OK to not have one.

I did not have a plan.

I had a passion,
which I decided to pursue,

and eventually,
everything fell into place.

You know, when I was five,

my family used to encourage me
to sing and dance in front of guests,

at family gatherings.

And I used to be shy at first,
maybe even awkward,

but I gave into their requests.

I realized that I was enjoying
being the entertainer.

But this is the same family
that conditioned me to believe

that the mantra
to live a successful ideal life

is you grow up, you graduate,
and you find a "decent" job.

This typical middle-class
Marathi family of mine,

as expected, was not very thrilled
about my acting aspirations.

Actually, back then,

maybe even I wasn't very
convinced about it,

because I didn't have a role model
to point out to and say,

"Hey, if she can do it, I can too."

Plus, I was comfortable
with having a plan:

you grow up, you graduate,
and you find a "decent" job.

Remember?

So, while pursuing mass media
in my graduate school,

I happened to volunteer
at a theatre company,

and got to be a part
of a youth theatre festival,

which I helped organize.

I was happy because I got to
be around the theatre world,

and my family was happy

because I was doing event management,
which was real work.

When I started working on this festival,

that festival turned out to be
a turning point in my life,

because when I witnessed
actors perform on stage,

I realized that that's where I want to be.

I realized I wanted to be the storyteller.

I wanted to be the story,
and I knew that if I did not pursue it,

I was going to be extremely
restless and unhappy.

So I gave into my gut,
and I decided to convince my family.

But it took some courage

and a lot of cajoling from my family
to finally give in,

hesitantly so, but they gave in.

I thought it was not that bad a beginning.

I had a bumpy start,

because I knew I wanted to be an actor,

and that was that.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do films,

or if I wanted to be part
of television commercials or daily soaps,

or if I wanted to stick to theatre.

So I decided that I'd
figure it out as I go along,

and I tried to do all the right things,

like, I started looking for work,

I started auditioning,
made sure I was on the radar.

You know, as Mumbaikars,

we are trained to face rejection
every single day,

thanks to Rickshawalas.

Because no matter where you want to go,

you will have to go
through at least three rejections

before some kind soul comes along.

Little did I know

that these Rickshawalas are preparing me

for the rejections
I will be facing in my life ahead.

See, the thing with auditions is

that no matter how good or bad
you were at it,

regardless of your performance,

you should know that if an audition
has to translate into an offer,

that is not in your control.

What is in your control
is to give your best.

And let me tell you,

not a lot of those auditions
actually translated into offers,

but it turned out to be some fantastic
learning experiences for me.

It was not just for my skills,

it was because I also learned
to build resilience.

So, I'm sure this is something
that we all have experienced.

Failure makes it very easy to give up,

and if failure strikes multiple times,
it becomes even easier.

But I realized that I shouldn't give up,

and I kept at it and I'm glad that I did,

because, like with the Rickshawalas,

you never know who will
actually give into your plea

of taking you to your destination.

But just because six of them
said "no" to you in a row

doesn't mean you'll give up
on going home, right?

You will have to find an alternative.

You will have to hustle.

Nothing is going to come easy.

Not having a plan actually
turned out to be quite useful for me,

because when I was in the middle
of trying to figure out what to do,

I chanced upon the internet.

When I started with the Internet,
which was about a year and a half ago,

we'd all been used to watching
comedy sketches online,

but the concept of web series
or web shows was pretty novel;

not a lot of people
had given into it, yet.

I thought it was
a pretty interesting idea,

and I thought I'll make
most of this opportunity.

Over a period of time,

I had built my network
of friends and mentors,

who have been and still continue
to be my biggest support system.

So they backed me up on this decision,

and I decided to take the plunge.

When I started my web journey
with my first web show,

which was a news satire comedy show

on a YouTube channel
I still continue to work with,

I realized the power of the Internet.

Because the show got a boost
from all over the world;

from different parts of the world
people started writing to us.

That cup song,
that happened on a whim, too.

I was just chilling,
one fine afternoon at home,

and I was playing the cups
and singing different songs on it,

and I decided to make a video.

So I called my friend and said,

"Can you come over?
I need somebody to hold the camera."

She got her phone camera,
and I'm sitting at my house,

and we recorded this,
and I uploaded this video

with the "tring, tring" of the bicycle
in the background -

if you listen to it keenly,

I don't know what all other noises
you'll be able to hear.

But I put that video up, anyway,

and the attention that it got
was unexpected.

This something that I did
without too much planning,

just for fun, turned out
to be a game-changer for me.

It opened so many more avenues for me,

gave me so many new opportunities

that it makes me wonder
what it would have been like

had I spent the time to think
and plan how to make a perfect video.

You know, a lot of us

are forced to make
very important decisions

very early in life,

and we're not even sure
what we want to do; I wasn't.

And that is OK.

The answer lies in experimenting
and doing so fearlessly.

Everyone does not have
a chalked-out path.

If you decide to be an actor,

your journey and my journey
is not necessarily going to be the same.

You know, some prying uncles and aunties,

or some family members or family friends

had asked me this:

"Your sister is a scientist;
how come you chose to do this?"

I mean, my elder sister,

I do look up to her,
and she does inspire me,

but I didn't have to become
a scientist to prove that.

In fact, I don't think
I've told her this, either,

but there was a point in my life

where I wanted to do
everything that she did.

So, she used to have
long, silky straight hair; she still does.

But when I was a little kid,
I used to have really short hair.

So I used to tie a dupatta
around my head with a hairband,

just to pretend to have hair like hers.

I wanted to go to the same school
as hers, same college.

Eventually, I realized that it was OK
to not do what she was doing,

and she was still going to be proud of me.

Albert Einstein once said:

"If you judge a fish
by its ability to climb the tree,

it's going to spend all its life
believing that it's stupid."

You might not be good at one thing,
but you will be better at three others.

I learned this the very hard way,

but you cannot make everyone happy.

What you can do, however,
is make yourself happy,

and that is very, very important.

So be brave, have faith in yourself,

figure out what makes you happy,

and go do it.

Get a job, leave a job,
dance, sing, fall in love,

carve your own niche.

But most importantly:

learn to embrace the randomness.

Thank you.

(Applause)