From the Tuesday of this month will begin the first day of the Vikram Samvat 2067. The first day of the month of Chaitra is celebrated as Gudi Padwa, Ugadi or Cheti Chand, marking the new year for several Hindu communities across the country. The Chaitra Navratra or the nine day worship of the Mother Goddess also begins on this day.

May this new year bring happiness and joy to all, prosperity and good health and above all peace and fulfillment.

My sincere thank you’s to all the ET for their very generous greetings for Shweta on her birthday and for remembering to wish and greet her. Shweta my first born and the first born of this generation of the family. Had a part to play in the ‘Sholay’. She was in her Mother’s womb when Jaya and me worked together on the film. The scene when I go to return the keys of the safe the next morning after she has caught us trying to steal the cash, has Jaya pregnant with Shweta !!

Ok … so a lesson has been learnt ! Never talk too soon ! Talked yesterday on how positivity had changed my condition and how fantastic I was feeling … hmm .. rubbish ! Nothing worked today ! Ha .. The pain was back, gym was a torture and an entire day spent in lamenting the uselessness of life. Nothing to discourage readers or to deflate their enthusiastic reactions to yesterdays blog, but … ya … just feel when you talk about it, it does not work. Better to do, than to open your mouth about it.

Many would disagree though. Not speaking up, a sign of weakness they would proclaim. But in this instance, I would rather go with what I have generally felt. We must do, others to talk on what we do. And its not important that what we do is talked about. So long as the reason for what we do, are taken in beneficially to the person for whom we do. Cause and reason should know. Not who contributed to the cause or reason. Better this way.

How wasteful is life when you have nothing to do. How insincere one feels, how helpless and inadequate. One must keep doing. Does not matter whether it is big or small, just keep doing it. Someday someone shall recognize it. Credit is not what one would want to look for. The quality and intensity of the work is important. Credit becomes personal, individual. It shall remain within one, whereas the work done should be devoid of that individuality, should be more universal and all encompassing, including and identifiable with the common man or woman. For their benefit and well being.

VK Murthy, the ace cinematographer has been awarded the Dada Sahib Phalke Award this year. The highest honor reserved for the film fraternity by the establishment. Generally and till now, mostly it has been given to decorate better known stars and directors, never a technician. This has been a departure and therefore I am all praise for the award being bestowed on VK Murthy, a generous kind and humble human, one with whom I had the great pleasure of working in two films - Nastik and Ram Balram. But I do not consider myself worthy of his genius. His most important works I believe were in films made by another genius, Guru Dutt.

‘Kaagaz ke Phool’, ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam’, ‘Chaudhavin ka Chand’ are some of the films that come to mind. Who can forget the mystic lighting for the song ‘waqt ne kiya …’ in ‘Kaagaz ke Phool’ or that close up of Waheeda Rehman in ‘Pyaasa’ as she looks up towards Guru Dutt on the balcony of the theatre as he sings ‘ye duniya agar mil bhi jaye…’. Or how can we ever find a substitute to that immortal song and moment in SBAG, when Meena Kumari tries to prevent her husband played by Rehman from leaving her at night, with the words ‘na jaao saiyan ..’. The lyricism of that moment and the fluidity of the camera as it remains only on the closeup and mid closeups of the two lead characters for the entire song. Performance, music, lyrics, camera all moving in sync with the mood of the moment and keeping the audience enraptured throughout. Amazing ! Try doing that now ! Ha … unless you have a million dancers, dazzling dresses, electronic light effects and dance movements as though the players have been hit by 440 volts, the audience shall never sit through it. But they did in the past and without all the paraphernalia.

And it was technicians like VK Murthy that deftly captured those moments for posterity eternally. It would take him sometimes an entire day or two days to take a single shot ! That was the level of dedication and importance given. Sadly, absent from today’s times.

When we at IIFA gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award some years ago, I met him backstage as he sat quietly waiting for his name to be announced. Tears filled his eyes as I extended my congratulations to him, for, he could not believe that he as a ‘mere technician’ was being honored.

Our lives shall always be enriched by the humility and greatness of such individuals, whose contribution to the art of cinema shall always remain inspirational and worthy of emulation.

To bed then and with the hope that it shall be more comforting than the two previous nights …

love and love ..

Amitabh Bachchan