When children leave, its like the last goblet of water breaking in your hands and the thirst unquenchable ! The silence of the home becomes unbearable. You search for them in each room, nook and corner and resign yourself to a most despondent condition. The daughter and grandchildren have left and the ‘little one’ still too small to interact with – getting there but shall take more time, is not conditioned yet for play and company !!

People pester me with questions on the name. We do not have it. They assume different theories and confabulations on the reason for its delay .. and we laugh. Its not some nuclear formula that shall destroy the world in a jiffy that we hold on to. But the media makes it out to be such. Confabulations.

Last night as I turned in I took in a glance at the news on Tv and came across a discussion quite by chance on NDTV. It was between two prominent authorities on cricket and morals and the alleged ‘middle finger’ incident of Virat Kohli at the Sydney test in progress in Australia. Kishore Bhimani, an old Calcutta friend and Lord Megna were being queried by a ‘just out of journalism school damsel’, who after a while brought in my name ! She went on to accuse me of having stated on Twitter, or at least assumed from my sayings on twitter that I had encouraged Virat, by a ‘we are with you, play well’ remark !

Fact is, that the channel has, very cleverly and surreptitiously, to suit the controversial nature of its broadcast philosophy, put in a text of mine from a previous interaction I have had with the young cricketer, and made it sound juicy and ‘worthy’ of discussion on a national platform.

Three or four days ago I came across Virat Kohli’s tweet where he was stating that criticizing the team members of their poor performance in the recent Test series on play now was not fair. After all he said ‘we are humans not machines’. I thought this to be a wrong impression to have of the team and tweeted back to Virat that he ‘should not worry’ and that he ‘continue to play well, because we are with him’.

Two days later the finger episode happened, where, when the crowds in the stadium abused his Mother and sister as he walked out from the field, he showed them his middle finger !!

Now … all this was under heavy discussion when they, the NDTV channel lady brought in my name in this by stating that … But Mr Bachchan has told Virat ‘we are with him and to continue playing’, insinuating therefore that I was acknowledging his action endorsing it and whether that was good for the game or not !!

Such a mischievous and most unbecoming manner of behavior in one of the most respected channels of Mr or rather Dr Pranoy Roy, was just not expected. It was fortunate to have Lord Meghna on the other side refuting the journo, by defending me in saying that he had never ever heard or seen Mr Bachchan make any disparaging remarks to anyone and that he had always conducted his life in the most respected manner. But look how trouble is created and manufactured on this powerful media with zero responsibility. The urge and the commercial necessities of their business will tear into misinformed and manufactured news, without a care for the damage that they cause ! I shall of course be writing to Dr Roy on this and hope some correction is executed rapidly.

And yes … I do retweet the good reactions of praise for Abhishek’s films .. and yes I am his Father and shall not stop from doing it just because a few abusive elements on this social network think otherwise. Look into your own ‘daman’ and see how every single tweet of the media is all about themselves and a request to go watch their particular programmes. No one ever complains about them do they ? !! Why, just the other day I had a message from RajDeep Sardesai of CNNIBN asking me if I could mention one of his programmes on my site on twitter !!! So … yes .. my numbers are large on Twitter … 1.88 million followers .. largest in India and fourth largest in Asia .. an attractive reach out to prospectives !!! But they are not large to put out your matter. I shall decide what I wish to and what I do not … and yes on occasion my son shall have priority … YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT …. !!!!!

Amitabh Bachchan