Here is the full transcript of film director (@pawanfilms) Pawan Kumar’s TEDx Talk: Art of Quitting at TEDxDSCE conference. This event took place on May 31, 2017 in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
So, morning, went on Google and I said the quotes on quitting, and you get a lot of these. This is just a screenshot of that. And the most popular one being with – yeah, “Winners never quit and quitters never win”. I’m sure you all have heard about this.
So quitting is considered as a very negative term, right? So everyone’s told you never quit. Especially in gym, they would have put it up: don’t quit, go on and on and on.
So my talk today is about Art of Quitting. I initially thought of calling it “Art of Leaving” but then it might sound like something else. And you might think I’m going to ask you to do some yoga. So I’m going to call it “Art of Quitting”.
So when they asked me to speak here, I said okay, it’s TEDx, it’s extremely prestigious to be up here and speaking, I should really talk about something that I’ve prepared for. And I took about 17 years to prepare this presentation. So I’m going to take you through that.
When I look back at my life, which technically started in 2000, I see that to get here what I’ve done is a lot of quitting. You know, so — and I thought that’s the most important thing I could speak about at TEDx.
So the first thing, in 2000, I got into engineering, like many of you here, was extremely passionate about engineering. And also something else happened in my life. I also got into theater and I started learning about theater, what professional theater is and got excited about both the domains: engineering and theater.
What was good about theater is that they could teach me theater. And what was not so good about engineering is that they didn’t really teach me engineering. So they asked me to do — what — six internals a year, over four years, that’s 24 internal exams and then eight semester exams. So in 2002, after visiting two psychiatrists, I really did this, which is I quit college in year 2002. So that’s – yeah, I know, but don’t get too inspired, don’t get too inspired.
I quit college not because I wanted to do theater. I quit college because thankfully at the age of 19.5, I had this clarity that this is not the way I want to learn engineering. I didn’t want to just learn for internals and exams and pass, because by the fourth year they were saying that you need to now prepare for campus interviews. So I thought this is all – this is it. My life is just going to be preparing for something that someone already prepared for and just got to follow that.
So in 2002, I quit college. And I was very, very inspired by a person. I won’t name him. I would — let’s call him mentor. So my mentor at 19.5 is very influencing, right? You get influenced by these people who teach you something. So this guy was teaching me theater. And I just loved everything he used to do, the way he used to be disciplined about his work, how passionate he was, and how he taught me theater. So every little thing that I learned about theater when I was 19, till about a year after that — from 2000 to 2002 roughly was from him.
And it was not just about theater, how he put me in most difficult situations. When I said I’m going to quit college he never said don’t quit. He said do you think you can do the next thing. So I was blind — I was blindly following him. What he said mattered more to me than what my parents said. And it was not just about theater; it was about how he saw life, how he saw every little thing to do with work, passion, you know, so how you take life forward from at being 19 and so influenced.
2003, I had quit college. One year of working with him, he used to send me to — as a group, there were many others like me and he used to send us to do workshops in schools. From JP Nagar, I used to travel till Domlur on my bike. And I used to get 50 bucks — paid 50 bucks for that one session of theater. And it was okay because he was saying it and I wanted to do it. And I had seen my life as I would be following his dreams. You know, he is these huge dreams and I would be with him and support him.
So my parents thought that okay, so he quit college, gone. I mean, he’s this bad apple in the basket but they still have to keep me in the house. But they said okay, he’s following someone.
Something happened in 2003, meeting in the office and one of his very close associates really, really insulted me. It was not — I mean, I was very young. It was okay for a senior guy to speak to me that way. Probably that’s what I thought. I felt terrible that how they were putting down my dreams, what I wanted to do.
I got back home, and my dad saw me extremely disturbed. And he said what happened. I said, so this guy, he spoke to me, you know, things like this. And he kind of felt like he didn’t really value what I wanted to do or what I thought was good.
Now what do you expect the dad to say of such a situation? He would say, look, we told you; go back to engineering. You know, you have taken your year off now; go back to do your engineering.
The second thing they would say is, it’s okay.
They’re your teachers; they’re your mentors. They’re supposed to say things like this to you.
My dad was weird. He said, “Do not ever let anyone speak to you that way.” I was hardly 20. I had nothing that I had done on my own. And he said do not ever let anyone talk to you that way. If you feel that they didn’t respect you, do not be with them. And that’s what I did.
I went next, and I quit my mentor, within a year, in 2003. It was a huge bold step, because I had quit college which was such a important space for us, right? How many of you can just think of waking up in the morning and — I wrote in my exam paper this is my last exam ever — and do that and come out, because you trusted this person and then you quit this person one year into it.
So my life was empty. I had no clue where to go. I just knew that I had to act, I had to do theater. That’s all I knew.
So from 2003 to the next quitting point, I did a lot of theater on my own, because I had nothing else, nobody to follow, I started leading. I started figuring out ways to show what I had with me, right? I had to show people this is what I want to do. It’s a huge challenge that you take up, not just against yourself, with your family, with your friends, who are all watching, you know, because they’re follow — they’re going back to college and they’re looking that hey, this guy got out of college, let’s see what he will do, right? And most of them hope that you fail.
So the next thing that I did till about 2005 was I stayed in Bangalore; that’s about two years, 2003 to 2005. And I did a lot of theater. Started a company called ACTor Productions. We innovated new ways of doing theater. The first time in Bangalore shows happened three times a day for an entire week; that was in 2005 at Rangashankara, a play called Sleuth which was done by us. One week, 18 shows were planned. And so –
And Rangashankara after that has followed up, there are — you must be seeing 11 o clock, 3:30 show, 7:30 show. We did that, and by end of 2005, we were an established theater group. We had an audience following who would come and would want to watch my plays.
And I took the next decision which was to quit Bangalore, to quit my home space, because I felt that at 22, I was now getting stagnant. I was not learning. I needed more to learn and I had created a brand value but it was time to let go of that brand and go learn more.
So 2005, I quit home — homeland Bangalore. And the next quitting was dreamland. So 2005 to 2007, which was another 2 years, I went to Mumbai. Like, Mumbai is known for theater and films, right? And that’s like the hub in the country to do it.
So I went to Mumbai and worked in various domains. Though I always wanted to be an actor, director, writer, I hardly got to do that. What I got to do was lighting, backstage, editing, corporate films, ad films, anything and everything to pay the rent and survive. So you know, so I was just doing all those bits in this dreamland for 2 years.
And how many of you have been to Mumbai? You will see there are everyday maybe more than thousand people who come from all over the country to live their dreams in Mumbai, to become a film hero, to become an actress, to become something in the domain of arts. And I used to see it. I used to see that with 3 cafe and used to see an old man, or used to see a young 35 year old who’s still surviving on samosas and coffee. And I used to think: is that passion, is that what it’s supposed to be there, you don’t give up and you just wait for some magic to happen.
And as I used to do my little work and learn from it and also earn and also find a way to live, I figured that this is not what I wanted to become. You know, I should know when to quit. I should know when to quit and do the next thing that I can do.
So in 2007, I took the big bold step of saying bye Mumbai and come back home. Now coming back home is a huge step, because the world in Bangalore is going to look at you, as hey did you just, you know, not do anything in Mumbai, is that why you are coming back? Did you lose and how do you accept that? But you have to accept it, probably not really listen to it; that’s what I guess I did. I just wanted to come back home, because I had plans, had done it once, I’d created a theater group, I’d created a brand of my own in theater. And I thought I could do it again.
So I came back and in 2008, I did the biggest thing which was quit theatre itself. Now 2000 is when I started learning theater and I was known as Pawan equals theater at home, that he is going to just wear those Fabindia stuffs and you know carry a bag and he’s going to just do theater all his life.
And no matter how much it pays or not — and in 2008, I did one show at Rangashankara and I said this is it. Now I’ve grown up and I want to tell my stories through films. And in 2008 onwards I started working with Yogaraj Bhat. Many of you may know him and it’s in the year 2008 I did a play and I said this is it and went on, worked with him for three long years: 2008, 2009, 2010. We did three projects two of which was released where I was part of writing. I was writing scripts for him and when we were making the films I would be with him throughout as an associate director and learned the ground realities of making films.
Now, one next great thing happened in 2010: I fell in love and decided to get married, very like 26 or something 27 that young, though I look 24 right now. So that young, my wife was equally crazy, and so I met her on a Sunday. I texted her on a Monday: do you want to get married? She said why not and we got married. And that was year 2010 when Pancharangi had released.
What was interesting is what do you do at that point of your life, right? You have gotten married and my mom was not very happy with it. So I decided to leave home and had 25000 bucks in my account. So Yogaraj Bhat was like my father at that point, in the sense that he would — he needed me as well at work and I respected him, we had huge mutual respect for what the kind of work we did: Manasaare and Pancharangi were great films that came out as a team.
In 2010, I did the next big step, which was to quitting Yogaraj Bhat, which doesn’t mean that I walked out of it. It’s just that I said, “Sir, I’m not going to be working on your projects anymore. I’ll become a director myself.”
So with 25,000 and a wife and my own house, I said, okay, now it’s time to go and become a director. Yogaraj Bhat and the entire team was a beautiful safe net, you know, nice comfort zone to be in, because I didn’t have to worry about my money. And he was a huge brand. I just had to work with him and things would have happened. I don’t know why I did these crazy things but I did quit. I got out of that office and said I’ll direct and I’ll become a director myself.
2010 onwards, you can — I can say this now, you can get to know what I have done till 2017 through Wikipedia. So that’s not so important to talk about. So you google me and you will know what happened in my life from 2010 to 2017.
So what’s the next important thing I’d like to talk now, now that I have five minutes, is why is that we find quitting so hard? It’s the comfort zone. If you look at it, all these things that I spoke about, they’re all awesome comfort zones and it’s very difficult to leave our comfort zone and come out.
And let’s just look at the entire thing again. College. College is an awesome comfort zone, right? You all are here, you just have to come to college. Parents are taking care of you. There’s a syllabus, everything is there. It’s something that you don’t want to leave.
Mentor one, who’d really taught me everything and who I thought I’ll follow him and he was great because I didn’t have to lead, I didn’t have to think, I just had to follow him. But I quit him.
And then we went on to home. Giving up home is another huge thing. I mean, you have your friends, family and your own bed, giving up that, and dreamland — something you go saying that I’ll achieve something in life but then you give it up because you know you don’t want to be just waiting somewhere you have something better to do.
And then you come back, theater for which I gave up everything in my life and then I gave up theater at the end of it. And then finally, the one who taught me films, what feature film making is what, so Mentor 2 which was Yogaraj Bhat and I stopped.
Now, look at the transition. What are those? Steps — steps to be here, right? So each one of these steps I quit, I got on and moved on to the next one at the right stage. Okay, so it was – I see a lot of my friends, like strangely a friend called me very recently, he was my classmate in P.E.S I.T and he quit his job like few months ago and — and he was a top ranker in the college and he said, dude you knew when to quit and I’m doing it now after twelve years of delays.
So I think when I say the word quit, what I mean is just know when you have to take that little detour. Now does that mean that I gave up on passion, does it mean that I’m a loser, because what I wanted to do in life, I haven’t done but I’ve done something else? No, let me just take you through this example, which is in 2002, I wrote a play called TheFinal Rehearsal. It was a one-man show and that was my first play that I wrote. And I have been lucky all my life, it got picked up for a festival called Thespo in 2002. I went to Mumbai and there I won the Best Actor Award.
So the first play I wrote, directed and acted, which was a one-man show, people laughed at me, because I was hardly nineteen and a half when I did that. And I won an award, came back. Now that was my dream, you know, to perform that play again and again, that meant everything that I dreamt of, that one one-man show for an hour on stage.
Now, did I give up on that dream? No, because now 15 years later, 2002 to 15 years later, just last Thursday, five days ago, I performed the play again. And so it’s the same play which was done again.
So when I say quit, I didn’t say quit what you wanted to do. I say quit those hurdles, quit those things that you may get stuck at thinking that this is where we have to be and keep trying. No, get smart.
Sometimes another interesting thing about this slide is that in 2002, I would work really hard to get 50 people to come and watch my play. You know, I was a nobody, it was a good play but why would people want to come and watch my play? So over the years 2003, 2004, I kept performing and it was quite difficult to market the play. I remember going with posters with my own picture on it and sticking it on MG Road, you know, like carry a bag of posters and going to every shop and giving out tickets and saying please sell these tickets for me.
Now in 2017, on a Thursday we hardly did any marketing. It was a full house, right? So I did still — I did still achieve what I wanted to but I did it through various other things by constantly quitting things that didn’t make sense at that point.
So finally, quitting is okay. Quitting is okay if you know why and where you’re headed, and if you identify your problem, because every time you quit and clear that comfort zone, you are challenging yourself to take up the next big thing, right? It’s very easy to get stuck in that comfort zone; very easy. You will be happy. As you age, you will get a little more comfortable. You will start thinking, hey, it’s good, it’s giving me money. I’m happy; people know. I start feeling now. I mean I could do all this when I was 20, now I’m 35 — this year I’ll be 35 and I start feeling that maybe I’m happy and I didn’t wake myself up and say look at your journey, you need to now get out of that comfort space and get forward and do something.
So quitting is okay, create challenges and go head-on with it.
