BigB at Aishwarya Rai's sister-in-law Shrima Rai's Godh Bharai

Abhishek Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Shrima Rai, Aishwarya Rai
Aishwarya Rai's sister-in-law Shrima Rai's Godh Bharai

Aishwarya Rai, Jaya Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Shrima Rai, Abhishek Bachchan

Desired pictures of the students at the College BigB

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh   Feb  14,  2011   Mon  10 : 17 PM

Some one had desired pictures of the students at the College I was shooting at for ‘Aarakshan’ and so I took some myself since the ones being taken by the production were not satisfactory at all. In all, the youngsters were most disciplined and well behaved and despite some rather rough handlings by the production team, they remained calm and cooperative. Which indicates the kind of curriculum and management they go through in their temple of education. It speaks volumes about the staff and teachers and the way in which they are creating an atmosphere where certain basic traits of social behavior have been prominently inculcated in them. I have been much impressed and have volunteered to do a performance for them in their institution, of my Father’s works ! Just a gesture of my appreciation.

The other lot of pictures is from the shoot for the commercials for Just Dial, barring of course the rather dim print of a hand written letter, given to me in some haste by one of the ladies in the crowd today at the shoot !

Those that can read Hindi will be able to make out what it contains. But for the benefit of those that cannot I shall translate. As we wrapped for the day and I walked some distance to my vanity, a lady broke the security cordon and just wished to take blessings, with rose in hand and this crumpled note. I stopped for a while. She seemed very emotional and glad and respectful, which I think was some achievement for her. Combining all three emotions is not easy. The fear from the security is that if you meet one then you must meet all. Sometimes this becomes a cumbersome exercise. Not for me but for those that look after protocol at the locations. It is always most heartbreaking for me to deny a genuine fan from expressing themselves at moments like this, but … it does get out of hand at times and then I get the wrong end of the stick from security !!

Anyway, this lady went through and I took her letter and found it touching so I thought, reproducing it for all would not be too unwise. It is handwritten as you can see and it states -

“Amit ji, saadar charansparsh. Mai aapse sirf 2 baatein karna chahati hoon .. lekin sambhav nahin -

1/

Jise iswar ki prapti ho jaati hai wo bhi adhura reh jaata hai. Kintu jise guru ki prapti ho jaati hai useh jeevan mein sab kuch mil jaata hai. Is liye mujhe poora vishvaas tha, aap mujhe zaroor milenge ( Sudhanshu ) maharaj ki daya se.

2/

Mujhe aapka Amitabh ji se zyaada Vijay ji naam pasand hai. Kyunki aapko paana toh sabhi ke bas mein nahi, isliye maine ( Vijay ) naam ke pati ko sweekar kiya.”

Shrimati InduVijay Sonvani

A weak translation would be as follows - the essence of the Hindi written would never be the same, but ..

“Amitji, I respectfully touch your feet. I wish to speak to you on 2 matters, but it is not going to be possible -

1/

The one that acquires or possesses God, he too remains incomplete. However, he that acquires or possesses a Guru,  is the one that can get everything in life. That is why I had the fullest faith, that I would meet you. By the kindness of Sudhanshu Maharaj, saint.

2/

I like your name Vijay ji better than Amitabh ji. Because to get you is not within the right, or not possible, by everyone, that is why I have accepted a husband whose name is Vijay.”

I was deeply touched by the sincerity and affection of the letter and decided the moment I read it, to put it across to my EF. Sharing good feelings is at par with the feeling itself ! So humbling these feelings and so difficult for someone like me to reciprocate in equal measure. Thank the Lord for this medium where I can at least express my self in her regard, even though I know that she will never get to read what I wished to tell her. She did leave her telephone numbers, but I found that to be too intrusive to call her !

It is this simplicity of the common man woman that fills me with respect and admiration for my countrymen and women. The smiles of gratification, the respect that they allude and the expression of excitement that comes across when in their midst, is inexplainable. All I do know is, that its genuineness can never be doubted and what that moment means to them, can never be described or fathomed.

The solo shots of mine are from the Just Dial encounter of which I wrote about earlier. High end, slick and modern is what the setting was asked to be implanted. I do hope they got what they wanted.

I posted a comment from the great Paul Newman on my Twitter today on actors, their image on the screen and the audience reactions to it. If you can find it I shall be grateful to get some views on it by my dearest FmXt ..

T 279 - ” The second you step out of the confines of the personality the public has set up for you, they get incensed. Public reaction tends to keep actors as personalities instead of allowing them to act. Its a very corrupting influence.” ~ PN

Good night my dears .. with love

Amitabh Bachchan

Source:  Big B Blog bigadda

There is a certain charm in living in two places at the same time

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh   Feb  13,  2011    Sun  10 : 15 PM

There is a certain charm in living in two places at the same time ! When you travel you do not worry about what needs to be taken along and when you return you do not worry about what needs to be brought back ! It requires a state of mind as well, to be acclimatized to the state you desire. Quite obviously possessing favorites is out. Or if they are, then they need to be limited and important enough and of course easily portable.

So while I work in Bhopal and have to leave because of a break, most of the essentials stay back, in trust and faith and with the promise of being secure in absence. What accompanies is the briefcase and your life - the computer !

It would be unthinkable to be without these elements. Then if you have an office, some essentials follow you there. Replications albeit, but replications all the same. For us artists, yes the Hotel or the accommodation that we get put up in becomes home, but so does now, our vanity van. Talking of which, did you know that the first vanity van in the Industry was the one that was in the possession of yours truly. It was a gift to me by the master of invention, Mr Manmohan Desai. And I grew so fond of it that it became my mode of transport as well. For several years. He gave it to me when we started ‘Ganga Jamuna Saraswati’ and it remained with me ever. I just loved those moments of my travel. And because it was a new invention, the daily problems it created were part and parcel of all that mobile vans could possibly create. Electrical short circuits, Tv blowing up, music systems not operational, leakages in the monsoons, handling and dealing with non functional toilets, maneuverability in the streets - for I had been able to procure a general license for it - and related issues. Gradually then after a few years others began to understand the importance and the necessity of it and now we have elegantly designed personal vanity vans a dime a dozen in and around the fraternity. In fact so important have they become that the use of the traditional make up rooms at studios has vanished. At least for the main artists. They all prefer the privacy of their individual vans, elegantly interiored and personalized, with all the accoutrements according to their personal taste.

I stopped travelling in my van as a mode of transport and now do not possess one personal, either. I gave mine away to a garage for redesigning and it has remained there since. My apprehension has been that its usage shall not be that necessary - fearing the thought that I shall not be getting enough work to justify the use of a permanent vanity facility. And now with so many of them being created, it has been the practice of producers to hire one for the artist in need.

When I did KBC for the first time, the Channel Star, generously built a cottage for me aligned to the set studio floor - bedroom, drawing hall, make up room, dining area, the works … I must admit I was very happy and proud with it. It was soon dressed up with furniture and little belongings that came from the house. Paintings, little curios, things of everyday use and it did become my exclusive abode. All the most precious objects that adorned the room were the warm and loving gifts that were presented to me by contestants and the audience that came to the show. One entire wall and shelf were filled with hundreds of ganpati’s - they being the most offered.

I must admit when my term with Star on KBC ended abruptly, my greatest emotion was leaving my little swiss cottage, where I had spent some of my most personal moments attached to the show. But once it was over, it was over. I never went back there again and sent someone to clear all my stuff.

When I started KBC again with Sony, they were most kind and generous too, in building an even more elaborate chalet, as they addressed it, for me, attached to the studio floor. Strangely, I never used it. I used instead my hired vanity van that would get parked beside the floor of the studio, the Floor 16, where I was the other day. I never wondered why I did that and could never give an adequate response to the channel as to why I was not using it. Perhaps the fear of getting attached to it, again for it to be taken away from me may have crossed my mind. I never could put my finger on it. But there …

Attachments in life are like this. We take a while to fall into them. Give it all the care and attention that it requires. Nurture it with love and thought and consideration. And then suddenly one day they get pulled away from you. At times rather ruthlessly. Leaving you without any reasons to search or explain. Perhaps without any justification. But its gone. This cottage, this gentle home that you built and spent so much of your time on, snatched away from you for good. And as time passes, you gradually realize its futility, or perhaps the need not to let it trouble you. And you come away, refreshed anew, fresh in spirit and mind and form, paying attention to other little homes, which you begin to build with equal care and love. Soon the past is forgotten and you wonder … hey that wasn’t so difficult after all !

It helps at times to have no expectation. It helps at times, because your expectation may never match the others. And when it does not then we shall be spending the rest of our lives wondering and trying to find an answer as to why the match did not take place. Why were the expectations from the other falling short.

I would rather reconcile myself to the fact that it is better then to have none whatsoever. When you have none, you lose none. And if the losing is what troubles you, then better not to possess anything that you may lose.

So I decline my chalet and my swiss cottage. I am happy with my hired facility. At the end of the day when my work is done, I pick up my belongings and leave, for, the permanence of my home is where I wish to park myself and my belongings !!

( All references in this todays blog are beyond the symbolic and metaphorical ) !!

That almost sounds like the opening credits of a film that is about to start. Prevention from the censors and the courts of law … ha ha ah   haha !!!

Good night my dear and devoted .. you are so permanent in this my home !!

Love

Amitabh Bachchan

Source:  Big B Blog

Sanjay Leela had invited me a day before BigB

Jalsa, Mumbai     Feb  12,  2011    Sat  11 : 40 PM

Is it age or mere nostalgic desire, that one thinks back on events and moments, when in the midst of familiar situations or locales. And it seems to happen more now than before. I would shoot at a studio and start to remind those around what transpired there some decades ago. Which film I shot, what scenes they were. Who my colleagues were, and who the director. I am on Floor 16 at the Film City today shooting for Just Dial a service I endorse, a floor that I was first acquainted with, since it had just been made operational, while shooting for ‘Black’. That opulent and artistic set of the main house of the little girl, the hall and the library and the dining area, my little study by the side, that winding staircase with the impressive frescos on the walls … just like it was yesterday !

Sanjay Leela had invited me a day before to get me acquainted and had tastefully lit up the set, furniture and properties all in place, candles burning. It was so inspirational. We had done a reading of the scenes and the script sitting in my chalet constructed for me by Star Tv for KBC, higher up on the slopes and satisfied had begun work the next day. Some of the most important scenes for the film had been shot, a break in the schedule had been announced and the next day, tragedy struck ..

Early in the morning as we were preparing to get to the studio we were informed that the set had caught fire in the middle of the night and had been entirely destroyed. I had rushed to a distraught and broken Sanjay at his house and sat with him as he tried to hold back his tears and his trial with destiny. It was not the first time that it had happened to him. He was on the verge of abandoning the project, but I told him lets build another one and lets start working again, and we shall do better than what we had lost. And so we did, and how !

He never went back to Film City again and the destroyed studio did not get repaired due to Insurance delays for long. But I found myself there again for KBC, this last season. And today as I went through the creatives of four Tv ad., for this service Just Dial, I never brought it up to the others, but many memories rushed through me while I was inside. The first indoctrination to the character in ‘Black’, those intense scenes with the little girl. Sitting quietly there in the presence of the genius of Sanjay Leela Bhansali and watching him and his crew designing those artistic sequences. Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor his assistants, running about getting things in order, pushing production procedures, training the little girl into the scenes, writing copious directorial notes for the lab and the editing departments, checking continuity, dress, dialogue …

Ranbir and Sonam … now huge stars with massive following and successful films, the darlings of the youth today, once assistants on this floor !! What an exciting vocation, films.

Then soon after and not so long ago, KBC ! The winners and losers, the stories of small town aspirants, the screams of the audience the applause and excitement of stars on set. All set in that same environment, but in different context and color.

If only the walls of these great studios could talk … what a story they would have as narration !!

More some other day dearest ones .. I must rest, for tomorrow I travel to Bhopal to join ‘Aarakshan’ and the film in progress. On to set straight from the airport ! Yes its a busy life, but so enjoyable …

Love to you and ..

Happy birthday to Reshmi Philip and Viviene .. may your days and years ahead be full of only happiness ..

Amitabh Bachchan

Source:  Big B Blog

Sometimes a deliberation invites appreciation

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh      Feb 9/10 , 2011   Thu  12 : 44 AM

Sometimes a deliberation invites appreciation. I deliberate to appreciate at times. Nothing insensitive about it. Contrarily, it is quite liberating. I feel liberated when I read my Father. Each time an angle a phrase a thought provokes me into wanting to immerse greater into it, with reason.

The strength of the written word has through generations held value. Those early days the manuscript and its preservation was indeed a special cause. Now with science and advancement in technology, the effort and physical strain to be able to replicate that, has largely disappeared or is about to.

The fingers that do that magical job of formation of the written do the same even now. Only the fingers move in separate directions and at diverse moves. Holding a writing utensil in your hand has been through a manifold change in meaning and in effect. Our writing utensil today, is also an element held by our hands and fingers, the format having undergone change and reform. The pains and aches of extensive usage during the times of the chalk and pencil and paper, has been replaced by computerized screens and chips that hold everything under the sun for you. Mankind, or to be politically correct, humanity has always devised means to ease the process of doing something in a more accomplished and easier way. Lets build a faster train, a larger aeroplane, better phones to communicate. There is always the need to find fault in what has been prevalent and to discover how that fault could be reversed and a better option manufactured to make life and its functioning easier.

Every moment of our existence we have always tried to improve on the past. Make that better medicine, conduct our habits involving the most modern inventions, the more efficient car, the better constructed building and that attractive clothing. In doing so we have always invited debate and discussion on whether this has diluted the attention that we gave to reason and understanding, to belief, to generational aesthetics, to our values and culture.

There is no need to be surprised with what the modern thinks - they will have reason for it, and justifiably so. The phrase ‘those were the days’ shall catch up with you sooner than before perhaps, but the equation shall not change.

I am horrified to learn that most of the modern generation abhors reading and writing. Their reading comes ready made on Google and Wikipedia. Their writing from the gauge on the mobile and the laptop at most. That odd piece of waste paper, those scribblings for reminders of important dates to remember, lists of things to do, people and timings for them to meet, all almost gone.

You do not remember your own mobile number at times, or the number plate of your car, or appointments and wishes to fulfill. All of it now substituted by the computer. That has become your alter ego, your soul mate, your brain, your body. Getting up to meet and sit and talk a point or moment through with your friend your relative or close family member, is executed through the sms mechanism, or the twitter or the response that I shall put by the morrow on this page of my personal blog. It has all been systematized. Regulators on life have never been welcomed. Especially when the importance of living in it to know and experience in real terms has always been looked upon as a necessity. Immediate response to an issue has become a rarity. The research and comment by people of some standing follows and then recognition, passage, obligations take over.

However, it has to be said that the need for immediacy - to transfer, to relate to reach out, in the shortest and quickest possible way, has always been preferred. And with the execution of rapidity come other ailments too. Too quick a response, no time for assessment of fact, no time to repair unwanted material gone out because of repairing a ’sent’ is never as good as that traditional rubber to rub out the undesired.

What then is the preferred stop ?

I am handicapped by the finger usage  … and am fast becoming unaware of the written word in my own hand. In time to come and at the rate that we move, I shall perhaps forget how to sign my own cheque. Dangerous !

But the truth is staring at us from these screens of light and information. We are now its slaves, much like most of us are committed to do, despite opposition and revolt. We may have been the originators in the past, we are now sufferers of the present. And there is no remorse in that at all. You either catch up or miss the train.

The mind then of the past runs on limited petrol. Its consumption is slow and its effect taking time to revert. Some of us change, some do not. In fact they find it a great deal offensive when in the company of those that do. It is a moment of choice and decision. To go or not with it. Those that do continue to struggle with the speed of its constant discovery. Those that do not are content. Content because they do not have to educate themselves to the fresh, they would rather use whatever they were conversant with and remain delayed slow and out of cue. But cued !

It is a mode that humanity finds itself in most of the time. A simple daily planner gadget of the 90’s still operates for me and I do not feel inclined to bring it to change. There are better versions of the mechanism, but also there is no need really to follow a planner, when all of it can and is being conducted on your mobile, or iPad.

I find the greatest problem for the previous generation is their dogged fixed motive, of how they would like to lead their life - slow sluggish and somewhat premature. Or fast and easily recognizable in todays inventions. Both let me add, are worthy of co existing and neither shall be the worse off, but yes, when options appear, they are certainly either a deterrent to them or when the need to acknowledge them surfaces.

The strength of those that remain in the past is quite formidable. It hurts their self confidence when they are challenged and cannot keep up the competition, but at the same time they will insist on running their own styles. It is, they would say too late now for change.

But let me tell you something .. they may all stick fast to their own philosophies, but are ready to mingle when asked or requested - latest test gadgetry or not !!

There is the extreme cased individuals too. They are the hoarders. They feel outdated when not in command of what is prevalent. So even though they may never ever, be capable of defining or handling the modern and the latest, they shall not hesitate to possess one.

So long as I can talk of the possession of the latest, I am fine. I may not use it ever, but so long as it lies by my side unopened and unused, it has taken care and control of the situation. Its a syndrome of never wanting to be left behind socially. Of never being the has beens, but instead be the beens and perform privately like the has beens.

That is some doing !!

Goodness ! Its getting on to 2 AM and I still have not exhausted myself from this … not this blog, but this discussion !! I shall pursue, perhaps later and perhaps in some other context ..

Its been a day like that … you know, how it is ..!!

Love and much more than  …. ya … !!

Amitabh Bachchan