Most of the night was spent worrying and anxious about the scenes that we were to be shooting in Cambridge. It is frustrating to learn that even at the last minute there is no clarity in the dialogues or its formation. I had worried about this when we had wrapped our last schedule of the film in Pune. I had asked for discussion and drafting to have been done a good six months in advance. Not having that time gap has resulted in a hurried compilation of the scenes at the last moment. A hurried compilation has resulted in no preparation time for the shoot ; something that I always find myself uncomfortable with.

Now with production and artist time constraints being thrown at us, we are forced to perform irrespective of the circumstances. It cannot be emphasized more that this shall eventually compromise on the output - a terrible state for any creative person to be in.

So I must now as a result of this unfortunate condition, eat away into the time designated, in my overly busy schedule, for the blog. Ideally the mind should be free to think and construct what does come as naturally as possible for the EF. I should never consider myself to be pressured into a situation that restricts my connect with those that have lived and breathed with me for the last one year. But now, I am compelled into doing so and I am annoyed and disturbed with that.

And so my construct takes a tone and angle of complaint. I abhor such a condition. I must never be in a situation where there is room for such occurrence. I believe that containing within oneself the effort required of keeping such feeling is most depletive to our system and our energy. One wishes at times that what the mind perceives in thought would somehow miraculously get transferred into reality !! Maybe in time it does someday. I shall most certainly not be around to witness such discovery.. but what an invention of science it would be !!

So, racked and rattled by incompetence. Bearing up with prevailing circumstances, I welcome into my room the TV crew that comes in advance for the David Frost.. sorry… Sir David Frost interview. It seems to go off well, or so he and those with him say. He asks of the strength and the penetration of cinema in India, of the much maligned word Bollywood, of the presence of our cinema in world terms, of morals and ethics in conservative India, of liberal concessions being made in the field of permissiveness in our content, the volume of my work, ending up finally in thanking me for my time and patience and declaring to the few that were witness to the interview that ‘my accent was better than his’ !!

Ha ! Ya, right !!

That was polite banter ! The Indian is a remarkable human. He has this great ability to adapt to the ways and means and accents of the foreigner he comes in contact with. In the United States his words shall suddenly without warning, develop the famous and most identifiable American twang. In Great Britain, his lips shall acquire the diminished act of formation in pronunciation, akin almost to that of the Queen’s distant cousin. In EEEtalee, the exuberance of gesture shall overcome his otherwise staid persona and you shall find him throwing his hands about in all directions, making painful contact with unaware passers by and nonchalantly thereafter, contorting his face to every possible expression in the books of Italian human behavior. Germany, Middle East, Far East, Russia - you name it, he has it !!

So to put it succinctly.. my accent at interview is nothing short of an age old legacy of temperament. A temperament we Indians proudly thrive on !! YES !!

Sir David had barely left the premises than Sir Ben walked in. Casual, polite and hungry for a cup of tea !

This is Sir Ben Kingsley, who has graciously considered to play a part in ‘Teen Patti’. I had personally seen him at the New Delhi premiere of ‘Gandhi’ at the Vigyan Bhavan. Also present at the premiere was the wife of Martin Luther King, Coretta King. I talked to him about the occasion. He remembered the moment. He also remembered all his lines from the ‘Teen Patti’ script, which was an embarrassment for me, because the director and I had been up till late finalizing the lines of my portion and had had no time to memorize them. Sir Ben’s section had been unaltered, so he was ready and prepared.

We went through the reading of the script in a most disciplined manner ; halting momentarily to drape him in one of my shawls - he not being clothed adequately for the cold in the room. There was not much disagreement in what had been designed. His tea arrived, as did his sandwiches. He relished them ; describing the exercise as being one of ‘filling a hole in his stomach’.

We left each other to prepare for the next encounter - a photo session, where both of us suitably attired in our blacks and whites posed endlessly for publicity photographs and finally after 6,487 stills, or thereabouts, took leave of each other with a namaste !!

On the road now to Cambridge ! Cambridge !! A name and expression that conjures up academics and learning, edifices of great history and time, environments that breathe wisdom and knowledge, scholars enriched with the highest education, tranquil yet steeped in tradition over many centuries. What a wonderful gift to mankind. Dr S. Radhakrishan, the first Vice President of Independent India and later President, a scholar himself of great eminence, had once told my Father - ” sell the last piece of your wife’s jewelry, but send your sons to Cambridge ” !!

My Mother never had sufficient jewelry to sell. I was never sent to Cambridge. But… today, in my moments of solitude and contemplation, I do wonder sometimes if ever I could get the time to maybe just enter the portals of this great city as a student and have the privilege of announcing to my grand children -

” Your grand father and your great grand father were from Cambridge !!

But.. I am just an actor. An actor that shall pretend with all earnestness at his command in the fake glory of accomplishment !!

The magic of cinema ! And a confirmation that all art eventually ends in its ultimate uselessness !!

May you be ever successful and happy..

May you be pure and responsive… and may you have the strength to dissolve fake accomplishment !!

For this you have my prayers and my love -

Amitabh Bachchan