It just got over ! The pride and passion and honor of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 4th Asian Awards ceremony here at the Exhibition center in Hong Kong.

To be honest, I had never expected it to be the way it was. The organization, the protocol, the discipline and the efficiency all in place and all done with great aplomb and grandeur. There is nothing quite as satisfying as a system that works. And to come across a dictum on the city of my present habitat that proclaims ‘Hong Kong - the city that works !’, is no off the cuff floozy remark. Tonight it demonstrated that it actually lives up to its reputation.

Thank you Hong Kong, thank you Asian Film Awards for the respect and honor that you bestowed upon me, an honor that I shall cherish and remember fondly always.

Yesterday I had travelled across the breadth of the country from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar, coast to coast virtually and back. To be on the same route again within a few hours was a bit odd but there it is. It was coast to coast again and a little beyond - soft and calm for the bit over the country, but turbulent as we flew into Bangladesh and beyond - Myanmar, China and on to HK.

The festival and the event pays great attention to the region, and for obvious reasons, but for it to give some space to India was very welcome and creditable. I got the feeling that their intention finally would be to design it as an alternative for the Oscars and also to give the cinema of the region its own very deserving presence in world cinema. I felt that geographically Hong Kong was well positioned to be come a hub for the Indian sub continent and the Far East, after all India and China put together would take care of a quarter of the world’s population. When every fourth person in the universe would be an Indian - Chinese, it would make for a most welcome and powerful commodity, in whichever field they wished to take up. The two C’s - cinema and consumerism - would have the capacity and the strength to run into the third C - capital ! A welcome term in todays deflated economic condition world wide. India however, it must be said, has, through its very rigorous and unique financial management, been spared the embarrassment of what the other richer and first world nations have faced. For one that has always despised the term ‘third world’ to describe my country and one that has always felt demeaned by the ‘developing world’ tag for India, I feel a sense of pride and of course, pay back excitement, pardon the pun, when pundits proclaim and agree on our situation. May the good continue to grow and may prosperity in all its enhanced avatar bless this region and its people.

Did you know that the English word ‘juggernaut’ was derived from Jaggannath …. coming back to yesterday’s post for a bit. Yes indeed. Every year the Ratha Yatra of the idols worshipped in the temple are taken out in procession on this massive rath or charriot built specially for the moment. Each wheel of this massive construct being almost 45′ in height. On the charriot are the idols of Lord of the Universe, Krishna, Vishnu and Balabhadra and Subhadra, brother and sister to Krishna. I do not think that in the entire Hindu belief, do idols of a brother and sister of God’s avatar find space together as they do in Puri Jaggannath Temple. The rath I am told is specially constructed every year afresh. There isn’t a single model piece that exists and then kept away for the next years ceremony. No. Its built fresh every year and then destroyed after the ceremony is over. The idols buried in the soil and the wood on the rath taken home by hundreds as a token of divinity to be kept as a religious omen.

During the time of the British it was felt that devotees would fling themselves in front of the wheels of this unstoppable charriot, pulled along by hundreds of them, in order to gain salvation. Which is how the word juggernaut came into being. The rath was unstoppable, it had to be kept in motion irrespective of what the circumstances were. And that is how the meaning to the word was developed.

Strategically positioned, Orissa touches the borders of two states on which a lot of their cultural sharing takes place - West Bengal towards the north and Andhra Pradesh to the west and south. Culturally therefore there is evidence of both these communities. Oriya language sounds a lot like Bengali, indeed it does have many words that are similar, but the script of its language is more akin to the Telugu script of Andhra. The textiles too, especially in the saris for women have a great likeness in design and color. Eavesdropping on some of the ladies conversation the other day at the function for the Gurukul between Hari ji’s and Shiv ji’s wife and Jaya, I was able to learn a lot more on the different styling and the way the sari is draped in different parts of the country. The dhakai, a sari of some elegance and quality, being the one which each domesticated wife wished to possess - dhakai coming from the word Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.

The British often referred to this region - the Gangetic Delta, where the three major rivers of the country, the Ganga, Jamuna and the Brahmaputra , merged and flowed into the Bay of Bengal, as the ‘arm pit’ of India because of its muggy climate, excessive rain and the sluggish silt deposited by the rivers. But nothing can take away the vibrant culture and rich heritage of this region. And the silt deposit has formed the Sunderbans, a vast area of unique propertied land that has become heritage preserved, not just because of its unique soil quality, but also because it is home to the revered and fierce Bengal Tiger !!

The coast along the Eastern length of India has some of the world’s most beautiful and longest stretches of beach. One could actually walk along the coast from end to end along the entire East, they say. During my working days in Kolkata a bunch of us friends had ventured out for a week end to Digha, an unknown resort, not much developed then in the mid 60’s. Its beach was magnificent. Hard and wide and long enough to land a single engined airplane. Red in color when you saw it from a distance, because of the millions of red crab that came out on it from small little holes in the sand, and white and clear as soon as you scared the crabs away. And the sea. Well … just upto the ankles ! You could actually walk almost a mile into the water with the same depth and then suddenly … 200 feet !! And yes, sand dunes by the beach … strange phenomena !!

But back to the earth here in HK and thoughts that linger about the blog.

Jasmine Jaywant, you are loved and treasured on this blog and nobody can dare ask you to leave. Those that indulge in a language and text unbecoming of decency are asked, no, ordered, to leave and if they need to confront someone, pick someone of size - ME !!

This platform is a family platform. We gather here with love and affection and sharing. Anyone that dares to destroy this peace shall have to face destruction himself or herself !!

And Sharmila, our dedicated bloggist and FmXt, met me in the Main Hall at the award ceremony here in Hong Kong … OMG !! Such a joy to meet her and her husband. Love to both of you. You looked good together !!

I did an interview on mail for the HT yesterday and put below the text. It is a subject that the media has been wanting to tickle me with, purely for sensational reasons. Well, what else does the media outlook be in any case ! I may not have the immediate representation of what they finally said in print on my inputs, but I shall reproduce it, purely to demonstrate yet again how, facts and detail are used from our submissions which conveniently only suit the drift of their story, facts be damned.

About three years back, Jaya, who is an alumni of the Pune Film Institute and a Gold Medalist, saw Umesh Kulkarni’s, ( director of Vihir, a student at the same Institute and her junior, also a Gold Medalist ) diploma film. She was impressed by his talent and expressed a desire to him that were he to make a film she would support him. About two years back Umesh brought the subject of ‘Vihir’ to her, she liked it and asked AB Corp and me if we could help in producing it. We agreed. We are extremely proud of the fact that ‘Vihir’ has been receiving such glowing tributes from International Film Festivals all over the world. South Korea, Berlin, London, Rotterdam and USA are some of the countries that ‘Vihir’ has travelled.
AB Corp has been been making regional films ever since its inception in 1995. We have made films in Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Marathi. If there are other interesting projects we shall certainly consider them, irrespective of their language. We also financially helped the Oscar nominated Marathi film ‘Swaas’ some years ago to travel to Los Angeles when they did not have sufficient funds to do so. Jaya and I have also worked in a Marathi film that was made by my make up man Deepak Sawant, who has worked and been with me for almost 30 years.

I was invited by the UP Government to promote the State in order to invite investments and I did a couple of promotional campaign films for them. I have been invited by the Gujarat Government to promote tourism in the State and I have accepted their offer. I shall be a part of the audio visual campaign that shall highlight the various historical sights and places of cultural and tourist importance in Gujarat. Similarly the Kerala Government recently through their Tourism Minister wrote to me inviting me to promote tourism in the State. I have accepted their offer and await further instructions from them.
There is a false impression that these campaigns involve monetary considerations from me. No, I do not take any consideration in kind or in cash for this work. I do this for the love of country and state. Many in the media are perhaps unaware that I have been involved and have been working for years, similarly, in promoting various important and historic sites spread all over the country through tourist centric programmes that are designed as son e lumiere’s, or sound and light spectacles. I have given my voice and presence in them. They are -
The Gwalior Fort in Madhya Pradesh
The Golconda Fort in Andhra Pradesh
The Tirupati Fort
The Khajhuraho Temples
The Amber Fort in Jaipur, Rajasthan
The Sikh Museum and recently last month
The Jallianwala Bagh in Punjab
I was requested for this work by respective concerned and designated office bearers. The late Madhav Rao Scindia as Cabinet Minister in the Central Government, for Gwalior Fort, by the creative agency working for the Government, for Golconda and Tirupati and Khajuraho, by Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, for Amber, by Amarinder Singh Chief Minister of Punjab for the Sikh Museum and by the Government appointed creative agency of Punjab for Jallianwala Bagh.
The State of Maharashtra has in the past asked me to promote their campaigns on the benefits of Breast Feeding by women and recently a few weeks ago I have done another government campaign for them on the dangers and precautions for Cholesterol.
Apart from this as UNICEF ambassador I have done campaigns for Polio, Cancer, Aids, Wild Life preservation, Eye Donation, and shall be doing one from a recent request, for personal Organ Donation after death as well, and have recently been asked to join the UN in their campaign on the Girl Child.
All these services are done voluntarily and without any financial consideration.
This is apart from what I personally do towards causes that I feel strongly about. Be they monetary contributions to three prominent Hospitals in Mumbai – Breach Candy, Hinduja and the BCJ General Hospital on SV Road, saving lives of desperate farmers on the verge of committing suicide by paying back their debts, or working through NGO’s like Yuvak Biradari towards natural calamities – earth quakes in Latur, Maharashtra and Gujarat, floods in Bihar, educational programmes for the under privileged particularly girls and various activities for the physically challenged. This also includes an efficient blood bank running out of Rajkot in Gujarat.

Were any State or Government to ask me to represent them in promoting a national or social cause, I would readily and happily accept it.
Every language of our beautiful and diverse nation has its importance, position and culture and must be respected.
I am a law abiding nationally and internationally decorated citizen of my country and am proud to be an Indian.

It has been extremely embarrassing to talk about my own credentials and deeply humiliating to be continuously questioned by the media and others on my intent and my integrity.
Thank you

Amitabh Bachchan

Ps : do inform me when you will be printing this, for, keeping the ethics of our understanding in mind, I wish to inform you that this questionaire and my response to it shall find its way on my Blog and my Vog.

And now her questionaire -