The morning brings in tidings of well being and joy - the birth date of Lord Sri Krishna. May all your days be filled with happiness always and may all your troubles be spared the anxiety and pain. This is my humble prayer for all of us and all of humanity.

Someone has mentioned on our platform one of my songs from the film ‘Khuddar’ - ‘mach gaya shor ..’ that had a sequence of the great ‘govinda matki’ festival on screen. As many know its the time when different parts of the city shall hang up the traditional earthen pot, or matki, high in the air, suspended generally through pieces of rope from one building to the other in the middle of the road. The matki is symbolic of the pot containing curds, a favorite of Krishna, who as a child would playfully steal it away.

During the course of the festival, groups of young will build human pyramids to reach out to the matki in the air, break it and receive its contents, generally a high ended prize !

The sequence in ‘Khuddar’ was the reenactment of that moment and how I as the main character in that small community, was climbing up the human pyramid to reach up and break the handi or matki.

‘Khuddar’ was produced by my dear friend Anwar Ali, Mehmood’s brother. We worked in our first film together ‘Saat Hindustani’ and then remained together till date. When the song was to be recorded for the film they all insisted that I sing it, since a few that I had sung earlier had been appreciated. There was a problem though. The scale set by the music director was too high for my voice and so we had to bring it down to suit my singing. That done we went ahead and shot the song over several days at Chandivili Studios, an outdoor facility a little away in Powai a suburb of Mumbai.

The handi is generally broken by the hand of the climber that reaches the top, but the dance director wanted to add a bit of bravado to my character and instructed that I smash it with my head ! Urged and egged on by all those participating I went ahead and in the most dramatic fashion smashed my head against the matki, succeeding in breaking it with all its contents, the milk and curds, flowing out amidst great applause by the unit when … along with the white liquid splashed all over my face, assistants noticed a sharp trace of red !! I had smashed my head too. My forehead had split open and blood was oozing out from a large gash on my forehead ! Stunned, everyone decided to wrap the shoot and wanted to rush me to hospital. I asked them to stay. Got into my car and drove off to Dr ‘Quick Fix’ Shah, the Industry’s family doctor and asked him to repair me. He stitched me up in his clinic rapidly, taped me and I got back to the studio and resumed shooting. Greater applause. But there was another nagging problem ! These were the days when I was working double shifts - 7 to 2, and then 2 to 10 pm ! ‘Khuddar’ was the morning shift, the afternoon was at Mehboob Studio for ManmohanDesai’s ‘Desh Premi’ , a double role of father and son and the sequence on a large set and all the artists, was the song -’ Gore nahin ham kale sahi …’. Dates expenses and time was always an important issue at shoots and nothing could be compromised with. The production panicked, but a solution was soon obtained. Luckily I was in disguise as the son for the song - a black man. I was being painted dark all over, so I told makeup to cover the white tape with the paint, pulled the curly haired wig over the stitches and went ahead. Simultaneously I was to become the Father as well, because of the dual role and thank fully there too a wig was involved. If you will notice in the film I have quite deliberately pulled the wig a little more than necessary over my forehead, to conceal the stitches !

God ! I love this profession !!

Incidentally the song for ‘Khuddar’ on seeing the rushes I felt, was inappropriate for me to sing. Was sounding so flat and besura. So after the shoot was over, it was resung by Kishore Kumar, over my track, to bring some credibility and life into it.

Here endeth then, the lesson on ‘Khuddar’, ‘mach gaya shor …’, and the festival at Janmashtami !!

Happiness always ~

Amitabh Bachchan