Being irrelevant greatest fear of any artiste: Gulshan Devaiah

The "Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota" actor says it's hard to feel relevant at times, but one must eventually come out of it by constantly reinventing and focusing on their craft.

"Sometimes you start feeling that. I've been in that place, long time back when I was trying to do a play, I couldn't do anything. I felt everyone else was contributing more to it than me. I felt irrelevant. I wanted to sit and just watch them.

"You can talk your way out of it but that's a reality, a huge fear. You've to keep reinventing, learning about your craft, your career, it is an ongoing process," Gulshan told PTI.

The actor currently stars in filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee's short in the horror anthology "Ghost Stories".

The short film chronicles the story of a man who walks into a town and finds only two people, which ultimately leads to a battle of survival.

Gulshan says the short film -- filmed over a week -- was physically, mentally exhausting.

"It pushed me because I thought I was prepared for it but while doing it I realised that maybe not. It was very challenging. I do think of myself as a person who likes to be challenged.

"But sometimes because of mental and physical exhaustion, you start to feel that this is beyond me, I should not have been doing this. I did think of it very often."

The actor says the crew shot in remote areas of Maharashtra and the weather was extremely testing.

"To joke about it, I'd say please don't do it. But if you do it, you will end up with satisfaction and pride. No matter what people think of my work after seeing this, I have already taken this home with me, that I was very proud I was part of something like this. I pushed myself and got pushed by Dibakar, the circumstances and the story."

The Netflix anthology features shorts by filmmakers Dibakar, Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar and Karan Johar.

Dibakar says with his segment, he wants to chart several stages of fear, the first stage of which is uncertainty.

"Fear is then followed by doubt, wishing it away, the first hint that it's not going to go away. The second hint is that the fear is here to stay. Then comes attempt to escape, then comes the realisation that now it's too late. That's what we were mapping in the film. I think our audience will resonate well with this map," he added.

"Ghost Stories" will stream on Netflix from January 1.