As an International Patron for Silver Star, the organization that runs diabetic assessment facilities in the UK, through the efforts of its founder the Rt Hon Keith Vaz, Member of Parliament, in the British Parliament, I am now in Goa at his invitation to inaugurate the first mobile diabetic unit to be set up in India.

I had opened the first one in UK in his constituency in Leicester and he has now, as one that has his roots from India and Goa, opened one here and here I am for it.

Goa has the ability to put you in a holiday mood the moment you land, and this hundredth trip to this beautiful place was no different. The pains have abated, the spirits have been high and there is a spring in the walk. There is something in the soil here, in the air, that provokes one to just shed all inhibitions and a sedate calmness descends upon one. I am one such victim now. And thoroughly immersed in it.

Goa has been such an important link in my life and career. My first film ‘Saat Hindustani’ shot here. A film on the freedom struggle for the liberation of this Portuguese Colony, perhaps one of the last foreign colonies to be made free from colonization after Great Britain and France. The French occupying Pondicherry in Southern India, now changed to Puducherry. Those anxieties of the first film, the harsh struggles as we battled our way through the dense forests of this monsoon afflicted terrain way back in 1969. The community living existence in Government Circuit Houses, the night kerosene lanterns for light, the damp floors as our beds and miles and miles of foot trudges late into the night. Sticking on a false beard for a week and not allowing a single hair to be displaced, because the make up man was only available due to costs for just a single day. The friends that we made during those days spent in Panjim the capital of Goa and those that worked along with us.

Then film after film being shot here and the gradual scale up in our status. From damp circuit houses to the very best hotels and resorts. The joys of the exquisite beaches and the informal afternoons spent just hanging around some of the most delicious food outlets. The tragic accident of Amjad Khan as we came here to shoot for Great Gambler and all the tension and decision making for his care as he lay unconscious in the only General Hospital in the city - he having crashed his car as he was driving down from Mumbai for the shoot.

The evening boat rides into the inner tributaries of the various streams that flowed quietly in the interiors of this state, with a young musician who sang and played guitar and flute to some of the more popular folk songs of the Konkan region. That young singer maturing on to becoming one of our very first pop stars, Remo.

The scare in the middle of the night, when an intruder entered Zeenat Aman’s suite at night and she running out screaming for help from all the men housed down the corridor, including me, in the Fort Aguada Hotel. Shweta and Abhishek in their early years and the fun with them in the sea and the pool. The several private visits to the place with common friends to celebrate birthdays and important events.

The shooting of that last stadium scene in ‘Main Azaad Hoon’, when over 50,000 participated involuntarily for the song in the climax. Keeping them entertained by doing a concert one minute and then switching clothes and shooting scenes on stage, the other. The village of ‘Agnipath’ constructed live in an area above the beautiful Citade Goa.

Endless, endless memories of this wonderful place from ‘Bombay to Goa’ to ‘Bhootnath’, and to see how rapidly the progress has taken place and now reaching proportions where it feels crowded and congested. Beautiful and efficient highways now run through the length and breath of this state, yet there are those quaint little villages and narrow streets that still fascinate, millions of visitors here. While shooting for the ‘Great Gambler’ in Portugal, I discovered how uncannily Lisbon resembled Goa, or really Goa resembled Lisbon. The city spread across gentle hills, the rivers running through, the ferry services over them, the rust colored iron ore earth that this region is famous for, all similar to the region from whence came the colonizers. So strange.

As I close, the strains of a Goan band on guitar and trumpet filters through the peace and quiet of the resort I am housed in. I shall attend to the services of great hospitality and grand cuisine waiting for me, before languishing in the relief that I have achieved in this visit from my nagging pain.

I live with the images that last night’s trial of ‘Aladin’ have impressed upon me. I am proud to have been a part of this venture, that has certainly created a finesse and grandeur in fantasy film making much much more than what I had expected from it. It is smooth and vibrant and not in your face yet effective enough to know that it is. The characters , the settings, the music and the situations all have been blended in a most ingenious manner. For the first time in my entire career of film trial history, the audience that habitually consists of trade people, applauded after a song sequence came to an end. We in the business have become accustomed to watching films with the patent ingredients that help us assess the potential of a film. It was and is difficult for me to state whether I found those ingredients last night in ‘Aladin’ and therefore a prediction is difficult to come by. But then some of the last few releases had drummed up sufficient passion in their patent ingredients, but did not come up winners. The unpredictability of this business is the only predictability.

May all that shall venture out from the 30th of October ONWARDS to see ‘Aladin’ come back with similar thought. May you notice and appreciate the subtle grandeur of this effort and ‘may all the wishes that you go in with all come true’… so sayeth Genius the Genie !!

SATYA KALPA DROOM !!!