The new airport a little distant from the city is massive and efficient and systematic. The approach and the surroundings elegant and attractive. It fills one with pride to be able to see such construct, within your own country. I pray and wish it remains so.

Ramoji Rao City, that 5000 acres of studio some 45 mins away is where we work. A massively spread out facility , where we have done some wonderful films. Named after the media baron, it is a one stop shop. Move in there with a script. Move out with a film. It has all that it takes to accomplish that. Marvellous !!

I am grateful for some of the reactions that have come in for D6 from the EF. Both positive and negative. We must never be too obsessed with the positive nor too depressed with the negative. The sincerity of the work must come through. That is what pays eventually.

I can understand personal opinions that respondents make, but what baffles me are the reviews of critics. These individuals are the masters of the game. They are trained and knowledged in the job. Their opinion counts and forms the basis of analysis in attracting the customer to the theatre. So how feasible is their report when their observations differ to such an extreme and large extent.

One exults, ‘ its the greatest piece of cinema seen in a long time ‘. Simultaneously the very next review screams ‘the film is a waste of time’. Or words to that effect. One states ” this is Abhishek’s best and most mature performance “. And the other contradictorily says just the opposite. One lauds the sensitivity of the premise, the other laments the absence of it. One says its actually ‘black’, the other lives with ‘white’. No .. Not a lesser shade of black or a warmer shade of grey.. no… its black and white .. period !

So which opinion does one go by - if going by their opinion is what viewers seek.

Media reports coming out within a day of the release, then become yardsticks of judgement. But opinions that are poles apart, merely explain this - it is best to see it yourself and make your own assessment. Like it or hate it at least you have the satisfaction of not having been misled.

There is then the quotient of bias and deliberate intent, where personal equations come into play in complete disregard of the code of journalistic conduct. If you have through no deliberation spoken to one electronic channel in some priority of time, you will most certainly be reduced to rubble by other rival ; merits be damned. Planted vox populai, or what is now commonly termed as ‘voxpox’ by the community, will be brought in front of visiting camera crew to spew venom and to deride creative effort.

And it is all based on one common principle. Be first, rather than be correct.

So how does one contend. Does one retaliate by striking one of them off your list. Do you publicly refuse one against the other. There are hundreds of them now, coming out of the woodwork in droves, millimeters away from your face. Ready to take any visual of yours connected or not, editing it, adding a story, slow motion and devastating background score and putting it up as a half hour program for the hungry viewer starved for sensation.

Or.. does one rest with the theory that ‘ you never take on someone that buys ink in barrels ‘ !!

Somewhere a stand to be taken is what most advise. They need you to fill in the glamor, you need them to fill in the promotion. Those that know how to balance this live an enchanted life. An average performance will come out as brilliant. And brilliance shall lose all its light, in the manner it is projected out. You could be living the rest of your life in deceit and false claims or you could live it in the strength of your conscience and its integrity.

I have chosen the latter for the most portion of my celebrated life. I have done the other too, but not been comfortable with it. Primarily because there is a sense of lingering impurity in the first. The latter is more honest and strong. It is however not enough to be so. In a world of entire dishonesty, your honesty ends up looking dishonest and questionable. It is a curse for mankind/womankind to be in these circumstances.

On my way back from New Delhi the morning after the premier of Delhi 6, I happened to bump into an old acquaintance from my days in Parliament. She has survived and suffered the turmoils of a political existence in trying circumstances. Is a prominent spokesperson of her party, often defending it and its policies on debates in the electronic. She talks to me of the recent happenings in the courts in Chennai and the intervention of the police inside these august bodies. She talks to me of the manner in which the Justices of the Supreme Court of India, a body that decides on the life and deaths of individuals, that have the powers bestowed on them through the Constitution, to dismiss entire Governments, have refused to declare their personal assets, a task mandatory for all public servants, an exercise they feel challenges their integrity. And in order to seek justice have moved a petition in the High Court for a decision. She laments in grave wonderment where this would lead to. If say the High Court were to rule against it, the matter would be legible for appeal in the Supreme Court. What then, she says would happen in this piquant and completely bizarre situation. The Supreme Court would have to sit in judgement on its own appeal !!

” Our systems are collapsing !”, she concludes in agitated concern.

And as I reminisce her moment and her words, I wonder. If the keepers of our Constitution, the forming bodies of our laws and acts feel so strongly on the collapse of our systems, then our little insignificant, disenchanted spark that surrounds us, does not really hold up much hope.

The ever vigilant and dedicated Fatima from South Africa has been warning me of internet sites that are airing D6, illegally. I have been dutifully passing this on to the Producer, who keeps assuring me that they have moved in getting it removed. But they go off for a while and come back again. How does one fight such blatant flaunting..

The system.. the system.. needs strength.. needs an honesty… needs to look within.. a philosophy, ironically, portrayed so beautifully in ‘Delhi 6′, and an aspect, so mercilessly criticized in the reviews and opinions !

Are we being reluctant and fearful then, of looking into ‘the mirror’ ??

But… just the other day the same learned critics, had derided those that had expressed negative opinion on ‘SlumDog Millionaire’, vociferously defending the contents of the film, by arguing, that those that opposed it, did so because they were reluctant to accept someone who was showing them a mirror !!

So then, metaphorically speaking, or should it rather be, philosophically speaking, what are we saying -

SlumDog is ok and Delhi 6 not ??

My love for you .. somewhat in confusion .. ha !!

Amitabh Bachchan