An Ef family in distress, a member in emergency, no help no support in alien land, a request for help and out comes the savior - another Ef ! Unknown to the family, but working and helping as though it was his own .

Tejas and Julie in Dubai, you have brought great dignity grace and voluntary help to a level that can never be expressed in words .. Thank you for looking after the stranded family of Fatima from South Africa in Dubai and her cousin in distress in hospital. I am so proud to have such extended family in my midst !!

Can we have a loud cheer for this remarkable couple !! Thank you ..

Its is Sunday again, much like any other – a gym routine in the early hours, a sit out in the sun, a few meets at Prateeksha and back to Jalsa and the Sunday well wishers, who today like some other days come in twice .. once when its bright and visible and the other in the dark shadows of the almost night. The pictures are revealing and of some interest, but the process of posting them is so time consuming that I am keeping it away from tonights act … better to rest early than to try and beat the chiming clock .. we shall put them all up later and this time perhaps in some greater detail .. perhaps with a story line leading on to the perched front at the gates.

One fears unacceptability. One should, if one is in the world of being assessed. You are assessed because you have requested to be viewed and to pass opinion on. People, the most important of all, will take liberty with opinion. They pay hard earned money to gather in one concentrated group to judge. Their judgement shall be the ultimate test of opinion. When they dislike, or reject, it projects unacceptability. When they acclaim, they project acceptance. Even though acceptance at all levels and at all times does not exist, it does not take away from me the continuous fear of the unacceptable. I would worry, have sleepless nights, consider consequences, have night mares … all the works ! But many … and this involves a lot could never ever be in such condition.

I would consider it a great fallacy, a regret, if such condition were to be absent from me. Many do not. I would marvel at them and at their superiority. They that can manage to live beyond this, need to be set aside as people with special qualities. And they that have reasons and false beliefs that what they perform is indeed the correct path, need to be hoisted on shoulders and driven down the city in cavalcade honor !!

Wisdom does not come in an instant. It needs the pain of experience – to hurt to heal to peel to scar – to be able to be recognized and possibly accepted. The wrinkled grey, do not just wrinkle and grey by design. They represent years of struggle, hardship, uncertainties and abject poverty of living, to arrive at just the starting point. Those that race ahead to the finish tape, chesting it out in fake brinkmanship or success of speed, never look back to acknowledge the patient workers. For, if they would they would have realized that the fall that awaits them after the taped finish, shall be irretrievable. The ones at the start know and have seen that massive and all enveloping crater of mammoth size, waiting to engulf these inexperienced. But … if you do not pay heed … you will not win ! Unless of course you are content with being at the bottom of the tail. It is not too bad a situation to be down there, just that you will never be able to see the horizon .. it can be quite pretty at times .. the horizon I mean !!

Love …

Amitabh Bachchan