Amitabh Bachchan's Official Blog

DAY 1615

Jalsa , Mumbai Sept 18/19, 2012 Tue/Wed 3:16 AM

Shaking a leg with the lovely Sridevi … doing a bad job !

With the traditional ‘pagdi’ of Udaipur gift from contestant ..

Mayank Shekhar, a journalist who’s writings I admire, on a visit to KBC the other day, wondered like many others, how I kept up with this pace of work. I feel awkward when asked this question, because it puts you firstly, in an exalted position and secondly, I really have no answer for it. Sincerely though how does one describe, ones pace when one himself does not believe or is able to believe that what he does is indeed a mode of pace in the eyes of the other. To me it is just another job that I do, pace be damned. Looking back in assessing your own work and deciding that it is of value or of substantial length of time, or depleting ones health has never occurred to me, simply because I shall never be able to judge, limit. I feel it is embarrassing for me to gauge myself in self assessment or in value addition. I find it difficult to say that it is enough. And I feel it most when I am at work. I simply have no knowledge or its equivalent to know when is one to speak up to stop, or begin. Fire a gun at the start of the race and I could push off, without care. It would be energy consuming for me to then announce that it is time to stop. A personality clash would take place if start and stop were to be finite in shape and made to behave or function as individuals bearing individual character. It could be my own insecurities. It could be my reverence towards the work to be done. It could be my inability to misrepresent respect and integrity. All along there would be a persistant process that would comply in gathering up enough courage to inform me that this is something I should not be doing, or should be doing.

So this brief prelude towards my biographical character sustains itself on my late arrival here on our most revered platform. The work to be done had to be done. It would be impossible for me to tell them when to stop. And if perchance I were to make effort in doing so, it would quickly be overcome by an acceptance of what the other would say.

At times I feel that this exhibits a soft and weak character, but acknowledging its presence does not defeat me. Contrarily it helps me greatly more in being honest and rigid in my own decision making capacity.

So much against the desires of our Ef and others that accompany me to the other platform,Twitter, filled as it were with huge concern about my health and late working hours, here I am at my own behest, simply because I genuinely feel that I must connect with all each day. It is now a mandatory exercise ; one that I shall desirably wish to continue till … TKC !!

The chirping of the birds behind me where I sit, is indicating to me that soon there shall be the light of the early morning, flushing through my window. And what a pleasant site it would be to be with you while nature and the world and its universe drift by. I shall not deny that there have been many such occasions in the past as well. Most of them have been as pleasant as the one I design now, but many too have been in circumstances that have been most disturbing. Let the disturbances be in the past, let the future be open to discovery and expectation, and hope that they shall be all in happiness and joy !!

That was the lesson I learnt today during the course of my interactions with my guests at the Hot Seat of KBC ! We are all so deeply unaware of the acute conditions that our countrymen and women live and survive in. For the female gender in particular there is a sea of conditioning that angers one and infuriates our inner self. The ruthlessness of tradition at times does become unbearable. A child is born into this world, bearing no preconditioning of caste creed, religion or color. But as it grows into this wicked world, it slowly begins to accomodate a space tutored by those that bear them, or those that wish for them to be influenced by their authoritative presence. The vulnerable succumb. The strong fight. Those that succumb are no better than those that fight, and those that fight are no better than those that succumb. Or so it would seem. But each has his or her own parameters, which if they were to cross over would leave them somewhat paralyzed.

I wish then for the individual strength of conviction. I wish too for equality of presence and its dignity. I wish not for barriers that confine conservatism and wanton tradition. I wish for able traditionality to flourish, and that which practices its opposite to be kept dormant or completely removed. I wish for liberty and its pursuance, but most of all I wish for all this to be accomplished without the shackles of undesired resistance ….

With my fondest regard and love …

Amitabh Bachchan