Intertwined - Tangled series (Overprotective famous brothers)

Changes

Alisha

“Salman…can I come to the shoot with you? I can’t be alone.” I went into his office where he was getting ready to leave for an outdoor shoot. He never stopped working, but he still found time for me and I felt special and grateful for that.

“Sure love.” He pointed at the Jaguar parked in the driveway and I hopped in. Minutes later, Salman came in and ignited the engine. I put Salman’s iPod on the music deck and raised my brows when one of my performance recordings came on. That was when I was in fourth grade at the school talent show, singing a self-composed song. I lost, but I remembered Salman and everyone else cheering on me like I was Rihanna.

“I loved it when I could do anything and not care.” I mumbled, looking out the window. Sure, I could sing better than most kids but I did mess up a few things. My outfit during the performance was terrible, I missed a few notes, but I enjoyed the show.

“You still can, you just have to ignore the people.”

“Come on. You can’t tell me that you won’t care about what people think.” I snorted, sounding rude. He ignored the tone with me, but sighed keeping his eyes straight on the road.

“At first I did, you know? I wanted to please every soul on Earth, but then I realized I can’t make anyone happy unless I’m happy. So I did what I wanted to, and not to brag but you know where I stand on fan base. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about what anyone thinks, I care about what you think, what my family thinks, what my real friends think. Everyone else can kiss my ass.”

I giggled in the end and thought about what he said. Sure, there was a time he undertook projects that the audience loved, the romantic-comedies or action movies. His work was outstanding, but the scripts weren’t out of the ordinary. He didn’t experiment with genres like he wanted to. Later, he started doing what he loved, scripts from experimental writers too but the ones what were unique, stuff never imagined before. That was the start of his phenomenal success.

Wasn’t it the same with everyone successful? Being what you are, the real you and not giving a damn about the opinions of others. They like you, good, they don’t, better. As an artist, and more importantly a human, it is only mandatory to please oneself. You live once, and you live for yourself and the ones you love. Not for the people who only know your name, and sometimes don’t even know that. Even God can’t please 7 billion people, and He doesn’t expect Himself to, and neither should I.

“But everyone hates me. They didn’t hate you.” I looked at him. From his first movie, people loved him. Yes they loved him more now but love was only growing in his case. With me, I gained haters.

“You know why?” He stopped at a traffic signal, and looked at me.

“They know they can never reach where you are. They know they can never win world championships, they know they can’t sing, they know they can’t be a vital part in running a charity, they know they can’t be you. They are jealous, which comes out as hate.”

I saw his eyes, the entire time. All I could see was immense pride for me. It felt good knowing I made him proud, he was my brother, father, everything. And what he said made sense. Not to brag, but I knew that I worked harder than most people my age, and the success I got was the prize. Most people who posted hate spent their day on facebook and twitter, while I got my hands ripped to stick the uneven bars. They didn’t even know the struggle. They didn’t know what it was like to grow up without parents, to survive a terror attack, to know your mother was dead and your father abused her when she was alive.

“Haters gonna hate, potatoes gonna potate, alligators gonna aligate.” He hummed and I giggled, and saw we had reached the location of the shoot. It was called Carter road, one of the best places to hang out. Problem was, it was so crowded, we would get recognized easily.