The pain killers work so well, I feel like I could take off and build my own trajectory in space. Its a three day course of anti inflammatory cum pain relief and the first two days have been behaving themselves. Yes there are concerns about excessive dosage and damage to other parts of the system, but allopathy comes with many such encumbrances. We work within limits and precaution. Though many Sunday articles in the media today talk of just that - the excesses of creative artists and how their end came as a result of it. Its topical, its MJ related and makes for interesting reading. Which is admirable because the media has this incredible knack of judging which and what must be carried where in order to keep reader interest going.

I have on several occasions requested media heads to allow me to be present as a quiet spectator in one of their early morning editorial meets, but despite generous promises of an invitation I have never been called. There is great psychology and intelligence that must prevail at one of these events. My curiosity is to be a part of this exercise for my own personal knowledge. It has always intrigued me and I do hope I shall find my way there somehow someday.

I have stepped out of the house today, just to feel the monsoon air, having disappointed the Sunday fans with my absence at my gate earlier. There is something so sensuous about the monsoons in Mumbai. They are different from any other rain in any other part of the world. The sound of the torrent, a constant drone on which one could tune an instrument. The grey darkness at noon, the fogged glass on the window and the complete silence of the birds. Indeed the chirping of the birds is an indicator that the rain is due to stop. Just as the croaking of the frogs in the late evening hours in Allahabad my town of birth, indicated the coming of rain, so this. The hot delicacies fresh from the oven, the pakodas and samosas. That wayside stop over by the street to pick your personal corn on the cob, the bhutta, salted limed and chillied to the brim with a dip in the butter. Eating the chusni aam, that small delicious mango that you could devour by the buckets. The puchka pani at Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, the kati kebab at Nizams and later after a meal, the crisp freshly cooked syrupy jalebi and that worth killing for katori of the most fantastic Maharashtrian delicacy, srikhand… ah… one could go on and salivate till thy kingdom come !!

A quiet North Indian dinner at my cousins, watching replays of Wimbledon and cricket and a short drive on the just inaugurated and much talked of Sea Link, a 4-5 kilometer bridge over the Arabian Sea linking the suburbs of North Mumbai to South Mumbai, has brought me back to bed and rest and EF.

Only grey moment. Had to drive past Lilavati Hospital to get to the Link. And everything comes back. Ma and Dad, my own two visits there and those near and dear friends with whom we spent anxious moments - lost some, brought home some.

It is grim talk I know and we must endeavor to get over them and think of happier times and happier moments, but sometimes little incidents trigger off the thought process and we immerse ourselves without wanting to. Old photographs that my cousin displayed made one nostalgic. His father and I had grown up together and seeing those moments when we were adolescents and naive and gullible brought back wonderful moments spent in each others company, never to be repeated again.

Nostalgia - a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past typically for a period or place with happy personal associations, is derived I discover from 18th century Latin which describes it as acute homesickness. Translated from the German Heimweh ‘homesickness’ and from the Greek ‘nostos’, “return home” + algos “pain”

This ‘pain’ is different, but does fall into one of the categories we spoke of yesterday. Strange is it not that we dwell on the same subject even though we started off with air and food !!

My love,

Amitabh Bachchan