On board Jet Airways 9Wo542 Mumbai – Dubai seat 1F

The night before this morning finished late and the communication for the Day seemed hurried, dismissive and obligatory. The need to put something on so the chain of events do not break, predominated. Its relevance and place did not garner sufficient thought and concern. That was unjust. It should not have been so. It came about because there were time constraints. There had been non stop activity – of seeing off family traveling to various destinations, promotions, interviews both print and electronic, personal appearances at theaters running ‘Paa’ for physically challenged children, release launch of magazine with us on cover, receiving decoration for career achievement from Asian Film fests, team meet with distribution and exhibition and production heads, decisions on future activations, responses to the deluge of messages on the mobile from excited viewers, acknowledging the hundreds of thank you notes for ‘Bachchan Sandhya’ and finally attending to the necessary office essentials due to my absence for the next few days …

And then as you prop yourself up on the Shweta gifted bed work station, its comfort and bearing, sleep induce you to an extent that challenge those faculties, desperate to shut your mind and body off for the night.

Here now, an hour into being airborne, at 36,000 feet above the Arabian Sea and free from that initial pressure induced slumber, the desire to cover time and condition overtakes cabin hospitality and my thoughts return to dear FmXt, left somewhat distant and ignored from the previous connect.

I am bound for Dubai. To be hosted by the Dubai International Film Festival. To receive from them the honor they bestow on me for a Lifetime of Achievement. I am alone. For the moment. Abhishek shall join me tomorrow. He has left for Goa this morning to join his unit of ‘Khelein hum ji jaan Se’ of Ashutosh Gowarikar and after a days shoot shall travel from there to Dubai for a few hours to be with his Paa during his moment of felicitation. The others are with commitment and work – in Parliament and in ‘Guzarish’ for Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Yesterday was full of delirious acknowledgement on ‘PAA’. Messages kept pouring in, people on the street bore smiles and enthusiasm, the press and media overflowing with gushing compliments and recording the success of the film. Those from the fourth estate that could not meet, sent in long detailed letters that humbled me and an entire bank of outdoor media vans, antennas protruding into the sky like giant receptacles, positioned themselves outside our gates the entire day.

Recognition, acknowledgement and praise have the ability to somehow intrinsically create immense positive physical changes. It rids one of desire. Common everyday desire. Desire for food and drink, of rest and sleep, of immobility, of sagging spirit and face, of disinterest. This is a remarkable incarceration. A detention that we would wish never ever completes its turn and time schedule. This keeping we desire to dwell in for endless time. To swim in its tide of emotion and well being. To savor each minuscule drop of this nature induced nectar. To remain perpetually within the sighting of the auspicious new moon, or the celestial beauty of the first rays of the rising sun.

But nature and life will be harsh and resolute …

The sun shall rise further away from its morning glory and gather the power of its extreme heat. The thin and ethereal slight moon shall fill up. The absent desires shall begin to surface and consume us, and we shall be human again.

Human again to strive with strife. Human again to be back in line, to cope, to struggle, to rexist.

It is the way of the world. It shall prevail.

“… lekin mai toh beroak safar mein is ek aur pehlu se hokar nikal chala,

jeevan ki aapa dhapi mein kab waqt mila kuch der kahin par baith kabhie yeh soach sakun,

ki jo kiya kaha mana usme kya bura bhala …”

Amitabh Bachchan