There is an admission now that bearing the pain does not have any other alternatives

Jalsa , Mumbai                Apr  16,  2012                    Mon  10 : 38 PM

 

There is an admission now that bearing the pain does not have any other alternatives. So one goes with what is prevalent and suggested. Which is why at times there is a keen desire to gather up the loins and stride out, with the resolve that ' pain yes, but what the hell'.

Many questioned the factor of 'sympathy', brought up in one of my blogs and twitter. A reference to one of my Father's famous poems. It questioned what he would do with your sympathy. There was no bitterness in what he expressed, but I feel almost a helpless compulsion to express that, which perhaps he had been hearing often. Far too many personal tragedies and its own manifestations resigned him to believe that this is what had been ordained for him. It is more rebellious than one seeking an answer. 'Pain yes, but what the hell'.

Yes I am poor and without means. Yes I have lost near and dear ones because attention to medicine was unavailable because of it. Yes I am deceived by friends, by well wishers, by envy and ego. So what does one expect me to do. Break down, dig my own grave and sink into it alive ? No ! he discovered that the will to stand up was defeating any kind of sympathy that could have come his way. His early publishers of his poems cheated him. In his dire need and circumstance, it came as a drastic blow. He never went back to them, but instead climbed up on his bicycle and rode down the streets of Allahabad telling each and every element he came across, that the publisher was a cheat. Every leaf, stone, tree, human everybody heard him repeating the same words – ' the publisher was a cheat' !. Within 3 months, the publishing house closed down ! 'Pain yes, but what the hell'.

You set about to serve the nation and the State which draws attention to its varied diversities, inheritance and archeological sites, never known, not just by those that stay beyond Indian shores, but by our vey own inhabitants. And politicians and spokespersons of political outfits find tasteless fodder to feed the millions, over its wrong. Six months later of silent perseverance in the direction stipulated, and the campaign has out beaten one that was conceived for the country, by those very individuals in power, and those that were critical and abusive relentlessly on my work. Not just that. It garners International recognition. Yes … ' pain but what the hell '.

A harmless remark, cut pasted by the electronic to cause trouble, activates a violent reaction from the protectors of the State. My house goes under attack, my film on release gets mobbed violently, publicity of my kin get torn and destroyed, black paint now disfiguring our portraits. I am asked to get out of my quarters and leave the confines of where I reside and go back to where I came from. I have not come from Timbuktu. I have not come from there. I have come from my own, and shall, despite a thousand attacks, remain in my own, my house my residence my region my country. ' Pain yes, but what the hell '.

An ill informed media accuses me singularly of bringing on the press ban during the Emergency in the country. They ban me. I ban them in return. But the years that they did not ever mention my name or acknowledge my presence, were the years of my highest grossers and biggest acclaim. They wrote against, they built the foulest stories, attempted the grossed of deeds to my nature and character. It only resulted in my coming out better and stronger. My ' Coolie ' accident occurred then and during that time. The will of the people and of the country compelled them to carry information about me. Many amongst them, felt it was not needed, but they did not want to hit a dying man. I thanked them for their sentiment, but to me it felt it was the perfect excuse to put me back in the barrels of ink they were wasting over me.

'Pain yes, but what the hell ' !!

 

The above, much like the tip of the iceberg, whose width and depth is unseen and unknown below the ocean, shall perhaps remain so in many of the more painful 'experiments with truth'.

' Pain yes, but what the hell '

But … must I seek the attention under bated breath and fallen face, in sympathy ? Must I beg for a reprieve, to narrate and dissolve all that transpired, and look for another forlorn face among the admirers or those that care to listen, into an abstract submission of a sentiment that shall never ever be able to relive or reenact what the other did or was subjected to ?

Sympathy ? For what ? What will I do with it ? The threshold of pain shall never match between another. How then could the attention towards it cause feeling ?

And so … Sympathy ! what will I do with it ?

Pain yes, but what the hell … infinitely better !

 

Amitabh Bachchan