Feeling like a giant in my white salwar kameez , strolling the streets of this disciplined city. The average height could be 5′4″ of the populace here. With my grey beard and somewhat overfed 2230 steps OMRAN metered body, I tend to stand out a bit at 6′2″. The odd local or the Indian expat stopping for the photo op and signature, wonders ‘why I am here’ as opposed to ‘fancy bumping into you here’. Thank you for the comments on the promo. No, the mahout did not survive. As is now a given, media points fingers at the celebrities and non compliance of formalities on animal rights and permissions. It is safe and easy to do that, because the celebrity is always the villain ! Ha ! Paint him as the good samaritan and your editorial board will ask you to search a job else where. Need to sell the paper damn it !! Facts be damned. Or taking the trouble to get the facts be damned. Or even if the facts are pro celeb, twist and turn it around, journo… Basics baby, basics !!!

Fact ~ police and forest authorities were on location, it happened in front of their eyes, permissions in place, animal rights in order. Mahout under alcohol it is alleged. Prodding and stabbing elephant for the entire day to raise his trunk to take photographs with tourists that were around watching shoot or driving past. Also it is the ’season’ of ‘masth’ the time of mating and the tusker is known to be of uncertain temperament then. Women and ladies on set who saw this horrific act live, collapsed due to hyper ventilating with anxiety and fear. Aishwarya went up and spent time with them and calmed them down. The elephant apparently after it was all over, stood by the dead body of his mahout for three hours and did not move. Production company put in funds for the family of the deceased in a Fixed Deposit account. Read in the papers today that courts have served a show cause notice to the production company and quotes from concerned authorities put out to highlight the hitherto unconfirmed facts that there were irregularities in the paper work for hiring animals for a film. So cliched and expected from media !!

But enough of media bashing .. sometimes they come out with complimentary stuff as well and declare AB in good light ~

Generous and kind !

Jasmine of London lost her Mother ! Our prayers with her and the family. May she have the strength to bear this loss. We have just the benefit of words to convey our grief and to perhaps provide some solace. Nothing else. Those that suffer the pain do so in their own solitude. It can never be replaced by expression of condolence from others. But the comfort of receiving strength from these words, shall hopefully convey to her that she is not alone. We put a hand of reassurance around your shoulder.

Navya has repaired and begun school again. Agastya is recovering and has been stable. My friend here in Singapore has had a better day. West Wing reaches its climax on season 7 or is it 8, I cannot say. Some keen viewers from London inform me that the written work on the serial is done by the relative of Obama’s Chief of Staff. Hmmm … clever ! And my photography lesson is still to take finite shape.

Haunted by the events at the shooting of ‘Ravana’ I cannot seem to get away from the horrible thought of how close a shave it was for both Abhishek and Aishwarya. Animals can be so loving and yet so unpredictable. I have had an experience with them that perhaps does not match the incident in Kerala, but was close enough. Some years back I was invited by a dear and close friend to accompany him on a safari holiday in South Africa. I landed in Johannesburg after a somewhat longish flight from Vancouver I think, where I had been shooting for a film. Transferred to another local airfield I was put, along with another couple in a small twin engined propeller plane that shook and swayed along its hour long flight through mild cloud cover on to a dirt track, which on special occasions such as the one we were in, served as a landing strip in the middle of the African jungle. My friends had come along to this spot to pick me up, they having arrived earlier. Special jeeps are the order in this rough terrain and trained hunters carrying 450 magnum weaponry drive you around in tiered seating arrangements on the vehicle in order that the traveller can get a good view of the wild life. As we drove off towards the cottages where we were to be housed, we suddenly came across a herd of wild elephants calmly walking across our motor path. Jungle and safari protocol instructs, that the animal has the right of way and when an encounter such as this occurs, you drop everything and be stationary without much sound, in order to respect the natural environment created for the original inhabitants of the region.

There were three other cars ahead of us as we slowed down into the queue that had formed. An impatient driver of the vehicle just before raised his engine and made the cardinal error of blowing his horn, in an attempt to hurry the pachyderms across the road. That was it. A massive tusker stopped suddenly, turned to look in our direction and without warning charged towards us. General panic ensued. And after a few excited screams and shouts the vehicles quickly changed gears into reverse and started to back. In moments like this the advisory is that to move forward and drive away is ill advised. The manual says you put the car in reverse gear and keep driving backwards, keeping a keen and albeit fright ridden eye, on this earth shaking monstrous beast that thumps the ground towards you. The motor car has the capacity to move faster than the wild jumbo so even though you are reversing, it is being managed at a decent speed; matching that of infuriated, large ears flapping, bared teeth, trunk raised ‘pachy’. It is then you are informed by chauffeured hunter to sit back and relax, because this procedure of the vehicle reversing chased by elephant is a pretty normal routine and could take a while. The vehicle does not stop. The animal has to. And till that happens you continue to travel backwards with ‘pachy’ dear coming at you menacingly. Ok.. and now the clincher. We travelled in this formation for 5 miles.. !! An African wild elephant moving forward and three vehicles reverse moving in front of him. One cannot go off the track, because of the jungle and it being not motor-able. And you dare not attempt to move forward to side step ‘pachy’ because he is swift in maneuvering himself to obstruct your path were you to attempt such move.

Almost an hour later, flap ears, tired, gave one last threatening scream of disappointment, stopped, turned off the track and walked majestically away into the vastness of the safari. Welcome to South Africa smiled our seasoned hunter, never once giving us the slightest hint of going for his 45o rifle during this entire training in reverse driving ! The gun is stuck in a groove by the windshield and never ever used as per law. It is there for an extreme emergency. In his entire tenure of 10 years, hunter had used it just once and that too to scare away the animal, not to kill it. Having settled into our rather bohemian designed cottages, where the bathroom was out in the open - no roof and no sides - yet no one could see inside, I was, upon my insisting, allowed to fire the magnum at their special shooting range. Ya … landed in the lap of hysterical hunter after pulling the trigger and still nurse a damaged shoulder !! Ha..

But what an escapade that visit. Never seen such bright skies in the day and the clearest stars and the moon by night. You could almost reach out and touch them. And the animals - lion, cheetah, wilde beast, rare birds and strange spiders and all living in absolute freedom. The vehicles that we mounted to visit the sites had become a part of their existence almost. They ignored their presence even when we were sometimes a few feet away from them. Barring the dear ‘pachys’ of course. And oh.. every night under my stilted residence, the rhinos had a disco party !! Not very musical. But they ‘moved’ rather well. Shook the entire cottage. Lullabied me to deep slumber !!

No rhinos under my bed here ! But slumber beconeth..

Amitabh Bachchan