Rahul Dev Bose

Can I emote in words how important a mother is to her children? No.

Can I describe completely how much she has driven me to make my life stronger and worth the work? No.

Behind every Rahul Dev Bose, there stands an absolute pillar of strength of a mother.

And today is a day you celebrate that. But who are we kidding? Every day is Mothers’ Day!

Happy Mothers’ Day, Ma!

My relationship with arrogance is best described as estranged.

Not because I fully believe in it, but because I have learned that people often mistake silence for superiority.

When I had just started out, I barely spoke. I would arrive on set, observe quietly, laugh once in a while, and spend most of my time watching the world unfold around me. If someone came up to say hello, I would smile, greet them back, and return to my corner.

People called that arrogance.

An industry senior once told me I needed to change that about myself. That I needed to become more social, more visible, more “alive” in rooms.

So I tried.

Over time, I softened the edges. I became more polite, more available, more accommodating. And because warmth too comes naturally to me, I leaned into it fully.

But somewhere along the way, I noticed something strange.

The very thing people had once mistaken for arrogance had also protected me.

It created distance.
It set boundaries.
It stopped people from taking liberties with my space, my time, my energy.

The more accessible I became, the more the world mistook kindness for softness.

And perhaps that is where the real conflict began.

Because I have never truly been soft.

Quiet, yes.
Reserved, often.
Observant, always.

But never soft.

Years later, another industry senior told me,
“You know what your problem is? People think you’re too soft.”

The irony stayed with me.

And so today, my relationship with arrogance remains what estranged relationships often are — distant, unresolved, yet strangely magnetic.

Because sometimes what the world calls arrogance is simply a person reclaiming the weight of their own presence.