Hi this is Seema Rahmani. Its great to be in New York city, a place i felt was home even before i stepped foot in it.

Over 25 years ago, a hopeful, wishful kid in an arabic speaking world where neither the desert environment nor the comfort afforded by its oil felt like the place where she would find and embrace herself, looked out at the night sky filled with bright enough stars to make her believe that “there is more to life than I can see and feel and imagine right now. And I want to experience that world.” So as the magic of life unfolded for this searching kid, she found herself in America eventually… the land of her dreams and opportunities. A land she only knew through her tv set… but oh how well she felt she knew it. And that’s why arriving alone as a teenager, with suitcase and Duran Duran posters in hand, she didn’t blink as she dove into her journey to find the way to her success…. to find a life filled with love, peace and happiness.

“How old are you?” I’m asked as i attended my first year in an american high school. I was younger than my peers but more educated than most of them, owing to the Delhi central education curriculum i had arrived from. I had more physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics under my belt than those senior to me. But I didn’t know what condoms were. So of course someone helped me understand they were balloons i could fill with snow… my first snow experience ever. My brain knowledge, relatively conservative upbringing, but daring spirit to audition and bag “Laurey’s” role in the high school production of Okhlahoma, left my peers curious about little brown me who some lovingly called “import”. And as i time traveled through then to now, i watched how a thing called age became a concern for many around me in terms of judging their success or failure. And i started pondering the definition of success and failure because of how scared people got about time passing them by.

“How old are you?”
“I’m 23.”
“Oh what are you worried about?! You’re very young! You’ve got plenty of time.”
Plenty of time for what?
To try things? To fuck up? To love? To find someone? To figure out your self? To make money? To do nothing for a while? To travel? To know what you want in life?

How old are you?
40.
Oh. Its about time then don’t you think?
To what?
To have it all. Or at least, most of it.

How old are you?
55.
Good luck.
Why?
Because you are closer to death than not.

Mortality. It can make you think. A feeling of death approaching… whether physical or emotional, can shake you into wanting different answers. Or maybe different questions. Nicer questions and nicer answers. A different approach. Different results. Reliable solutions. Permanence of some sort. But how? How does one arrive at this place of permanence. The experience of lasting happiness, love and peace, fulfillment?

When the promise of a life ahead is now accompanied with the fear of an end, it can start scaring the shit out of you. Something is missing. Something is amiss. And I’m busy with the hope that it will find me. Or I’ll stumble across it out there. Busy busy busy. Ironically, the Only thing that seems to have been overlooked in this busi-ness, left unexplored along the way on this time-line, is a teeny weeny thing called…. right now. The present moment… which is loaded with pleasant surprise by the way… but i had to pause to notice it… and then allow the experience of it in my life.

As an actor, I personally have been asked the age question by many. But i imagine most of us do this automatically. Acquaintances of parents for example are curious as they try to know me (and perhaps even my parents) based on how long I’ve walked this planet. I’ve also been asked this by peers as they try to assess my maturity in conjunction with the words falling out of my mouth. I’ve been asked my age by the “interested” man, as he tries to gauge his attraction by how I may or may not chronologically fit into his life. I’ve been asked this question in my profession so that my plausibility as a profitable artist can be decided on. And I’ve been asked this by passer-bys for whatever reasons of curiosity after a brief or not so brief exchange of thoughts and/or experiences. And I too have found myself curious of the same as an added means to further knowing someone (and such assessments hold no guarantee of any accuracy… I’ve come to realize.) So today, in spite of the seeming importance or relevance of this question, i can’t help but arrive at the conclusion… that the only real and accurate answer to this question that travels with us through ages is … a big fat zero.  Un-daa. (Hindi for egg.)

Why?

Because it has no real bearing on what it took for me to arrive to my truth. The kind of truth that sets one free. Lets one be. The truth of Who I am. And as I non-judgmentally watch others, it has no bearing on their truth either. So then the real curious question is… Who am I?
Or… Who are you?