Back home after a short and award winning trip to Dubai - ‘Vihir’ our Marathi film won the MIFTA and a Life Time Achievement Award from Masala! the equivalent of a People magazine from the UAE. Meeting up with Karan and Hrithik and Manish Malhotra and Urmila Matondkar, all of whom were at the festivities for the awards. In the morning Hrithik and I on the plane and interesting talks throughout on health and divinity and life and movies and action stunts and injuries ! And at the airport the entire family there to receive me. Felt good ! A narration then of the trip to all, their comments on it and finally lunch and two wonderful movies in the afternoon, back to back.

In the short break in between meetings on future projects, infrastructure building for film and the possibility of doing a commentary oriented concept for a documentary on the river Narmada. All interesting and valuable.

Did you know that the tigers of the Sunderbans in West Bengal/Bangladesh fish ! Prannay Roy of NDTV messaged me today on it and I was quite surprised to learn that. Cute ! Big cat, sitting patiently with rod in the waters, waiting for a bite on the fishing hook .. ha ha ha !!

The second film today was ‘Da Vinchi Code’ which I had not seen and which I found most intriguing. Some of the assumptions and the explanations of the symbols were most revealing, not to mention of course some of the more alarming conclusions. I am told there were strong objections to it and in many places the film was banned. I am not surprised !

Alright !! The meeting with the FmXt in Dubai was rapid and too short, but most endearing. Time was short, I had to rush to several events and a quick meet was what I was able to muster. My apologies then if I could not give enough time, but maybe there will be another day and occasion. Thank you also for all the ‘goodies’ that were brought for me. I am still struggling to get a hold of them from the luggage, but thank you so much for your thoughtfulness.

I have to admit that the MIFTA, the Marathi Award evening was quite a surprise too. It was efficiently organized, well attended, balanced disciplined and no fuss, and had a certain quiet simplicity about it that was most endearing. Masala! on the other hand was just the opposite - madness and confusion ! But … what can one do … sometimes the most efficiently programmed evenings go wrong because one can never predict the reactions and the behavior of the fans and the crowds !

Fish and KBC seem to have been the topics of interest in the past few days and I cannot and do not, blame the respondents to be addressing the two issues. The fish bedroom pictures have had a pleasant impact on some of the readers and KBC has had its fair share of appreciation and its desire to be seen again. Thank you for the appreciation and thank you for the desire to be seeing it again, but that I feel shall rest with the Sony Channel. And they are not I feel, in the mood to revive it with me. That is how matters stand today and at present !

Jet lag even from as short a flight as 2 hrs from Dubai is acting up. Prudence demands I respect it for today. So I will ask leave to be excused today a little earlier than usual. But in the ‘morrow we shall be present with greater gusto and hopefully greater strength.

More then later and with love ~

Amitabh Bachchan