Everybody's life is divided into two phases. There are days of success and there are days of failure. Achieving success in life is important because it gives you that credibility and the belief in your efforts. But I think tasting failure is equally important because it prepares you for the worst and also makes your success sweeter. I have failed a lot in my life and I may or may not be successful in future but I have learned the most from my failures.

I was never great at academics and my introduction to failure was done when I was in 8th grade. This is how my journey through school looked like –

Grade 8 — fail

Grade 9 — fail

Grade 10 — pass (miraculously!)

Grade 11 — fail

Grade 12 — fail

This was when I decided that I was wasting my time trying to keep up with the academic pressure and thus, I quit studies and joined an editing studio, where I used to edit countdown music shows and promos for TV shows.

During one of those days, my dad called me to watch a play at Prithvi theater. I went backstage before the show to meet him, and that was when I smelled something very familiar. Throughout my childhood, I had smelled my father's clothes and I could never guess the perfume that he wore, until that day at Prithvi. It was a mixed fragrance of cigarettes and perfume. I went up to the make up room where actors were putting their make up in front of those mirrors with bulbs all around them. It was almost like they were wearing a new skin. That image of an actor getting ready had an irreversible impact on me. Something in me told me that I belonged there. By the time I reached the light room, where my dad was sitting in his dhoti rehearsing his lines, I had decided that this was it! This was what I was born to do.

Through the small glass window of that light room, I saw an actor practicing his blocking on stage in the spot light. And till this date, I cannot recollect his face because in that moment I only saw myself in that spotlight. I was 17 then, I am 31 today. But even now when I go on stage, just before the audience is about to enter, I move around in absolute isolation and stare at those empty seats, touching every piece of furniture, checking the lights I'm suppose to take. I then stare at that light room window, only to find another 17 something, staring at me through the light room.

I came across Flatchat fairly recently and really liked the concept. I'm pretty sure it's about to grow 10 fold… very soon.

I don't know if I'm a good actor or an average one, but I do know that I was born to tell stories, to lead different lives, to feel things that I'm not supposed to feel. I was born to make people laugh, to play different characters… and I'll continue doing so.

Sumeet Vyas is an actor who has been a part of numerous plays. He recently played the lead role in Permanent Roommates, a first of its kind web series that has over six million views (and counting) since being aired in December ཊ.