God bless the well wishers. God bless them for their permanence in my life. God bless their consistency, their love and enthusiasm. I am indebted for life. It is a debt I shall never be able to repay ; the one burden that shall remain with me unattended. One burden that shall make me happy !!

I read some portions of the Quran and found them fascinating in its clarity and substance. A true guide for humanity, society and for its well being. I went through a few words from the Bible, the Guru Granth Saheb and some of the Vedic chants, and discovered that the similarity in content was amazing. They all speak of how mankind must live in peace and in an environ free from the obstacles of violence. They speak of love and faith in the Almighty, its powers and its presence. In the following of it and in its practice. Not a single chapter avoided the need for guidance on humanities nature, to be acquired through prayer and belief. Yet as one looks around, one finds turmoil and trouble in every section of society, in every region of the universe ! And it sends you into painful realization that goodness can be around you, but we fail to acknowledge it to acquire it to practice it, to allow it to envelop us in its compassionate arms, eternally.

Many of the saints and hermits that have taken upon themselves the life of abstinence, of silent contemplation and meditation did and do so to perhaps find solution. Do they find it ? And if they did, what did they do of it. During the auspicious occasion of the Magh Mela, the Kumbh Mela every 12 years, or the Ardh Kumbh, for example at Sangam the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna and the hidden Saraswati rivers, the ‘nagas’ come out from their abodes of solitude and prayer, as do the millions of pilgrims, to bath in the waters, to cleanse their souls as it were and then for the ‘nagas’, to return back to their respective destinations, in the mountains, in the jungles or wherever it is they go. I never had opportunity to talk to them to find out what made them do what they do. What did they achieve and what they see of the future. Surely they must have an agenda .. or not !! The mysticism and the religious content of their acts a mystery almost as it were, but so immensely involved in its practice !!

In my early years in Allahabad my birth place I did witness the Kumbh Mela once and participated in the voluntary building of accommodation for the pilgrims, the food and other essentials. The vastness of the exercise a nightmare for any administrative body, but how efficiently they managed the entire affair. The building of hundreds of tents and bridges across the river, the flow of the masses, their living and food arrangements, all done with utmost care and precaution. Yes there have since been a few mishaps too, but the passion of the pilgrims and their devotion does become an executives nightmare.

Faith has always played such an important role in our lives. Belief has moved mountains. And all stemming from the scriptures and writings of the great religious written word. Humanity has evolved, has put down its belief and faith in the spoken word. How it came about and when and where, has many stories to it. The tone of its speech, the rendition of its tenets, in spoken and in music chords has been an evolution in itself. How the Guru Granth Saheb is sung, the Bhajans recited, the Hymns sung in churches and Chapels, the Azaan rendered from the Mosques … all have and must have such a fascinating history of its very first initiation. And today and the many today’s that shall follow will be beholden to this revered tradition.

We talk of eternal music in our every day life. Of the music from the maestros of the world, of the pop and punk and rock cultures, of the classic from our own Indian raga, of the symphony from the greats, of the mighty opera that was and is rendered, of the various dance forms both Western and Eastern and so much more …

But none have had the durability and life and tenure of the religious recitations …

There is more meaning to this fact than what I can express, or even attempt to ..

Good night ..

Amitabh Bachchan