Its almost like life itself. Remove your base, your grounding and be prepared to go off tune and horribly out of sync. Stray and perish. Communities, individuals, societies stay together with their own - grounded to the values and principles that they originated from. Live away and be prepared for the change, the adjustment.

Much music and indeed life, survives even when in isolation or without the boundaries of its base. They are brave that are able to achieve this. But you know and so do I that their connect with the origin remains eternal. They may be far away, but the roots forever beckon. No matter how accustomed you may have become to your new surroundings, no matter how well you may have prospered in it, no matter how sincere you may be to your place of present habit, there shall always be that marked and most revered attachment to that plinth where you and yours built their origins from. That earth, that air, that environment will empower the moment you come to its close proximity.

As with life so too with music. A discordant note stands guilty and apart in any composition. You do not have to be a maestro to be able to catch or define one. When it plays wrong, it jars. When it does not synchronize it unsettles you.

Life and its circumstances are no different. All the uncomfortable notes on the scale shall stand apart. All miscued words, stanzas, deliberations shall perpetually be out of tune and synchronization. They shall be harsh on our system and in our minds. And until the scales are set right, until they not brought under the tune agreed upon or upon which the base constructs, there shall be discomfort. Its the strength of the basement that bears the weight and structure of a large building. Unless of course there is divine intervention as in the case of Mazaar- e - Sharief in the northern regions of Afghanistan, a mosque built in memory of the Prophet (PBUH) where it is believed that one of his dear perished, the body of the deceased put on a camel and where it stopped there to build this unusual mosque in ceramic stone. The marvel - it has no base or plinth. Built straight up from ground level, it has been through several earth shake ups but not a stone on it ever got dislodged.

I had been to Mazaar - e - Sharief in Afghanistan during the shooting of ‘Khuda Gawah’ and had personally walked to the premise, from where I was put up, the whole town following, to offer my prayers and to address the people that had assembled outside. The mosque is built in blue ceramic. Majestic and awe inspiring.

We were there to shoot the ‘bushkashi’ sequence in the film - an experience which needs a couple of posts to describe that visit. Some where there are tapes taken by my own staff on video of that historic visit. That visit shall forever remain etched in my memory as one of the most dramatic and exciting. As dramatic and exciting as the ‘bushkashi’ game on horseback, played live on the fields of the region, in a fashion that reminded me of the early films we saw of knights in shining armor, of duels and so Ivanhoe ish !!

Ahh ! we have drifted again … from the strains of music to horseback games … not too far removed I think. Riding a horse is an exercise in rhythm too, is it not … !!

My love,

Amitabh Bachchan