Back to the confines of home and hearth, safe, a hint of fatigue and hugely impressed and pleased by the birthday gift from Shweta. Its a simple little contraption that helps you put your lap top in a position where your neck and shoulders do not have to strain by looking down upon the key board. I am in the use of it now and let me tell you it is marvelous.

So, last night and its interesting discussions ended not too late and gave me an opportunity to pen a few thoughts around it. Some of my thoughts ended up with some consternation and perhaps rightly so. I must however admit that they were not expressed to hurt sentiment or to take a moralistic stance. Every act in life has a react. That is why life is such a joy. Nothing is permanent and every opinion has several tributaries. There is most certainly no offense in surrogacy and neither is one challenging the desire of those that have been through it after facing mental and physical pressures of not being in a position to achieve pregnancy through normal means. We respect those sentiments. It is a woman’s great desire to mother a child, there is a natural affinity to it. And when it is denied to them through natural processes of nature, they have the right to seek another route. I was merely wondering about the probability of its misuse and no more. I do not wish to propagate against it and neither do I have great moral forebearing on it. Many of my dear and very close friends have availed of the opportunity and are most happy and content with the results and so am I.

The flight in the morning was kind courtesy the private jet that remained overnight with us to transport us to New Delhi. There were some among us that were setting off for Delhi by car - a 4 hour drive. I offered to carry them with me and have them save time and road journey fatigue - there were some extra seats available on the jet. From the airport it was straight into press meets and conferences and one on ones with the electronic. And this went on non stop from one to the other till 3 in the afternoon, having started promptly by 11 am. The individual press and print were incisive and exhaustive, the conference was sparse. Not too many journalists turned up and neither did the electronic trip over each other to get an entry into the PVR theatre inside this large and massive Gurgaon Mall, where we had all gathered. Such occurrences generally depict disinterest in the film or disinterest in the cast by the media. I guess they must have been dissatisfied by both. Despite that I thought the media was extremely kind and generous in their behavior. They were unusually polite and sympathetic to our cause - that of promoting the film Aladin - and almost all of them ended up wanting to get photographed with us. Which was nice !

Getting out of the Mall was a bit riotous, but never unruly or out of control. There are still some in the world of well wishers that show affection and love and I am most grateful that they exist even at this advanced age of mine.

A quick visit to the daughter and my friend then took me to the airport and back to Mumbai.

The past few days have headlined in screaming fashion a police enquiry into a purported fraud committed by my friend Mr Amar Singh and me. I would have under normal circumstances ignored this false and absolutely ridiculous allegation, but in today’s world it does not pay to be a silent observer. I have therefore conducted my own little enquiry and research and have some revelations to make that would startle and shock a few. But some time would be required. I need to scan some documents and put them up to defend my case, not that it ever needed defense, but perhaps to make many of you aware how a system operates, how the gullible are entrapped, what machinations are set into motion to bring damaging and atrocious misinformed sinister allegations against those, the mention of whom, would bring their matter to resemble a national catastrophe. But of this, perhaps tomorrow.

Jaya has travelled to Dhaka, Bangladesh to shoot for a film, Abhishek has wrapped on ‘Ravana’, the film is over, much against the continued tirade by a section of the press that the film is delayed due to endless re shoots and issues between artists on set, which the Khaleej Times patronized by out of job ‘khalidas’ sitting in way out Dubai, seem to invent. 180 days to complete a film in two versions, Tamil and Hindi is no mean accomplishment. Thats 90 days per film. Not at all unreasonable. Abhishek will be back tomorrow. And I shall persist with TV and BB3, which I believe has now reached a stage of uncontrolled tempers !!

May I also put to rest some of the anxiety expressed by FmXt on my health by informing them that all is well and in relative control. The virus has disappeared, submerged I guess in mountains of anti biotics. The shoulder and neck stresses remain, but in some moderation and there have been a spate of messages from strangers that are liking what they see of ‘Aladin’. Yippee !!

Yippee also to BB3 and the channel Colors. Ratings have reached record breaking levels and the numbers for the channel have shot up to bring a gap of almost 80 points between them and the number two. They of course retaining their number one position.

Good night and god bless and love and more …