Feng Shui for a film actress

She is Pamela. Pam got admission for a course in business management but soon realized that business didn’t interest her. Glamour did.
It seems like a long time ago, but she participated and won the third place in the Miss India competition. And if she had known what she knew now, she would have played her cards right with just one man, like the winner of the crown did, she wouldn’t have been second, but the first. Pamela would have been Miss India and could have represented the country in one of the two international pageants – Miss World and Miss Universe! A not-so-fruitful career in modelling and some brief roles in Bollywood movies decided her fate.
By now, a desperate Pamela was too free and easy with the producers and by the time she discovered that she was going nowhere, the life she had led robbed her of her innocence and beauty.
This is when 32-year-old Pam, as she insisted I call her, came to me seeking Feng Shui consultation. With a disarming grin, she said, “Sir, I want your expertise. I want you to change my life and I want you to be my friend, my guide. I want to place myself in your hands.”
 

Total frustration with career

She described her life, “My life is a not-happening life. Nothing is happening. I do bit roles and half the time, they don’t even pay the promised amount. My roles in the soaps are longer but here too, despite long hours of work, the problems are the same. Even the prostitutes are better off as people don’t steal their money! But these producers do! It is the same with the men in my life. I have had some relationships but marriage has never happened to me. I cannot wipe out my past, cannot start life anew. It is as if I’m branded for life.”
Her frankness touched me.
Usually girls in this situation pretend, fool themselves, refuse to accept the reality and hide behind self-created delusions.
Pam had, somehow realized the futility of her aspirations and dreams. She wanted a new life.
Knowing the way Bollywood and TV producers function and how the world treats the losers I knew that we were working against big odds. Her life needed to be turned around by 180 degrees!
This was over a year ago.
She took me to her house, where she lived alone. Like her life, her house was in a mess. There were too many Feng Shui flaws.
I could sense the negative energy everywhere. The negative energy had turned her into a negative, pessimistic person. She had lost confidence in herself, she had lost hope.
“I feel so alone,” she cried.

Clutter and scrap book

The first thing I mentioned was the mess, the clutter in her house. She winced. It was as if she didn’t have any energy left to get rid of the clutter. “Give yourself a month. Forget your commitment, with producers. You are not returning to films to do bit roles. You are going to change your life. Begin with sweeping out the clutter. Get rid of everything that is dragging you down. Old film magazines…”
“Sirji, these magazines have written about me, published my photographs…”
“Do you have a scrap book?”
She nodded. As I expected, after pasting some articles about herself from magazines like Stardust and newspapers like Mid-Day, she had abandoned the scrap book.
“Paste all the clippings in a scrap book and get rid of all the newspapers and magazines.” I told her and asked, “Have you received any awards, trophies and prizes?”
Momentarily Pam brightened but in another moment, she appeared dismayed. She said that she had dumped them up in the attic. She had been a brilliant student once and had excelled in sports too. There also were some awards from not-so-famous organizations, for her work in films. It reminded me of the way Manoj Kumar (an extremely successful filmmaker in sixties and seventies) treated the awards he got from Filmfare. He was nominated 19 times and won the best actor’s award 8 times, and yet, when I visited him, the awards were gathering dust in dark corners of his neglected bungalow.
Manoj told me, “Aaj kal yeh award akhrot todne ke kaam aate hain!” (These days I use these awards to crack walnuts!) His fall had already begun as he drowned himself in alcohol day after day.

Energizing the Fame corner

To return to Pam, I got her to clean and polish her awards and cups and installed them in the Fame & Glory corner of her living room.
Potted plants, crystals balls, wind chimes, a print of one of my paintings (she couldn’t afford the original painting) after the corrections, were a part of my Feng Shui suggestions to enhance the energy as well as the Nine Life corners. It took her over a week to get rid of her clutter and implement all the changes.
“If I don’t return to films, what do I do for survival?” she asked me.
“I am not telling you not to work in films. I am not telling you to work in films, either. I want you to be successful. I want the world to be at your feet, on your own terms!” I told her, and asked her to add a globe to her list of Feng Shui products: the globe at her feet.
The world at her feet!

Higher fee and bigger roles

Familiarity breeds contempt and her attitude of being a little easy and accommodating with producers had worked against her. Pamela was a different person now. She had stopped chasing the dreams, hounding producers for work, begging for the cheques and cribbing. She wanted work to come to her. She wanted producers to wait for her. And she waited patiently for Feng Shui to work.
Along with Feng Shui, her patience and her absence from the regular haunts and parties worked for her. She stopped calling and started getting the calls. She is reasonably talented and dependable and can deliver a decent performance. She is an asset to a producer, an asset that wasn’t being valued.
Firming her resolve, even when she was almost broke, she started asking for higher fees and better, bigger roles. To her surprise, the producers yielded.
More interesting, a controversy brought her into the limelight and unlike shortsighted girls she generously `forgave` the culprit. Her goodwill increased and more assignments fell in her lap. Pamela now continues to work in films and TV serials, but with dignity and self-respect.
Today, Pamela is success personified. She is happy, enthusiastic and energetic.
“Sir, Feng Shui transformed my life, my destiny.” She often tells me.

Note: The right of privacy is sacred for me. The names of the people mentioned in the diary are usually changed to protect the identity of my clients. The real names are mentioned with consent.