'When I lost a dear well wisher...'

A page from the Personal diary of Neil Bhatt I have several things to talk about personally and professionally. Personally speaking, like every actor, I too have a fan following and there is this one old woman who I won’t call a fan, but a well-wisher. I met her on Facebook and have had a couple of conversations with her. She was a good critic and would let me know her honest comments. She regarded me as her son and sort of connected with me. But recently she passed away and it’s a huge loss for me as an actor. For someone who used to be in constant touch with her I feel the void. She would motivate me and boost my confidence. She also used to make pictures, compile video mixes for me. Her loss is huge for me and I am going to miss her. She even knew my mother as we’ve had a couple of conversations together. I will for sure miss her. There were times during my first show when my co-stars felt they would have loved to play my character instead. I remember this one particular scene which required me to cry and I had never cried earlier on screen and my director wanted me to shoot without glycerin because he had full faith in me. It was quite unnerving when people including my co-actors stood around me and stared at me. Even after a couple of takes I could not get the act right and finally the director asked me to use glycerin. I felt extremely bad and hurt and when everyone had dispersed I told the sound recordist through the lapel mike to ask the director to go for a take. That is when the director understood what I meant and the shot was applauded by everyone because I did cry without glycerin! While shooting in Baroda we were travelling in a car with my director and a co-actor and it was then when the latter told me ki maine dil jeet liya tha. That was like a benchmark in my career and my life. I cannot forget this incident ever.