The event at the Netaji Stadium was stunning. Over 1050 children in drill, in march past, in formation, in motion and song, in dance and design.. all done with perfect coordination and effort. It must have taken them hours and hours and days and days of effort and training and rehearsal to come up with what the final presentation was. But there it was. A perfect symbol of what discipline can achieve. I am a stickler for that - discipline, order, follow the rule temperament. I believe that where there is discipline there is order, and where there is order there is respect for the rule. We march in unison when we march. To many it may look a routine that signifies regimentation, that identifies all that could be associated with an army. But unified marching has deeper psychological connotations according to me. To me it signifies togetherness, moving in the same direction and following an order. Society would be so out of order if it were not to be regimented in some manner. Your behaviour, your attitude, the way you behaved in public, how you respected the rules of traffic, or the larger rules of a country, all account in driving a systematic existence. There is freedom in a free and democratic society to say or express what one may desire, but not without adhering to an order stipulated by the system. That order needed to be respected.That is all that I say. And a fine executed discipline works in that direction.

Not all in the country will be fortunate to have the benefit of the kind of education in the kind of schools we talk of. Equality in education should be worked on with greater effort. When we educate evenly we build a community that is even and sincere and one that follows an order. My sensibilities towards a particular action may look different today to one that has been taught his discipline differently. Uniformity therefore would help. So when I see effort in that direction it excites me and so today to see uniformity filled me with pride and huge expectation.

I spoke to the children and cautioned them that the years in school were the happiest days of their lives and that they should recognize it and value it. For what we learn and experience in school remains with us till eternity. We make use of it in everyday life. We should cherish them and keep them secure, for, once we enter the big bad world we shall be exposed to much that would be so different and almost opposite to what we learn, that it can be a disturbing thought.

Lesson, crowds and excitement over I travel to the AMRI Hospital to visit an ailing Jyoti Basu ex Chief Minister of Bengal and one that remained in that position for a record 27 years !! An amazing achievement, Jyoti Basu, a Communist and leader of the CPM, the Communist Part of India, has been a towering personality in Indian politics. Today he lies critically ill in an ICU battling against several ailments that put him on life support systems. At 96 he has lived a strong and firm life. Firm in his commitment to his ideals and beliefs.

Large crowds and media keep a constant vigil on the Hospital premises and I spend time with immediate family and other important personalities of the region. Members from the polit bureau, members of parliament, ex speaker of the Parliament, Somnath Chatterjee, ex Chief Minister of Bengal and brilliant legal luminary and diplomat Siddharth Shankar Ray, Prakash Karat leading party member and his charming wife Brinda Karat !!

I am delighted to meet Brinda because she is part of the nostalgia of Kolkata and indeed of Delhi University during the years I studied there. Brinda Das she was, Miss Miranda House, the prominent ladies college in the campus. Her elder sister Juni Das also from Miranda and a colleague in the Miranda House annual play ‘The Rape of the Belt’ which I enacted way back in 1961-62, much to the envy of other class and university mates because the girls college was a major attraction for the boys, and we Kenneth Maharaj Singh, Anwar Abbas and yours truly were the only ones allowed to actually enter the hallowed portals of Miranda !! Kenneth and Anwar were the other two men roles in the play.

Juni Das, from Kolkata then met up with us when we did theater under the Amateurs here in this city and played many an important role in several plays we did together. Later in a couple of years, we were joined by Brinda who also was a most accomplished artist and performer on stage. After Kolkata I think she went for further studies to England, met her husband and joined the Communist Party of India and is now in Parliament. Juni, we sadly lost some years ago in a hospital in Mumbai, very suddenly. I had been to visit her as she lay in the ICU. Her vibrant and joyful demeanor now almost lost and still. It was a sad sight to see someone go away so young.

As we sat in the hospital room in Kolkata tonight, Brinda talked of those days we had all spent, of her great companion ship in Parliament with Jaya and the excitement they both shared in the various debates they took part in. Time passes and leaves behind words thoughts acts and memories, never to be lived again. The location is the same, the situations become different. The people are the same, but their vocations change. The vibrations are similar, but they touch different chords.

Life - you beauty !!!

Amitabh Bachchan