Prateeksha, April 22, 2008  12:18 pm

Alright… i missed out !!

Explaination : I have injured myself during the action shoot of ‘Aladin’. Its the back and the hip - some internal strain. And have been in and out of hospitals and MRI machines.

Nothing alarming has been found, but the pain despite the drugs is excrutiating.

So i shall beg forgiveness and excuse myself for the moment and get back again asap.

My love and regard,

Amitabh Bachchan

Icons
Speech for the 12th of March 2008
Delhi

Anil Dharker  has already briefed you about my disability. So I hope you will excuse the quality of my voice this evening. I suffer from a bad sinus.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

I consider it an honour that Anil Dharker has asked me to say a few words today to commemorate the launch of his book, ‘Icons: men and women who shaped today’s India’. I am naturally at one with the editor’s desire to address the state of our nation, how we all arrived where we are now from our, freedom at midnight.

After all, eternal vigilance is indeed the price of liberty.

Anil Dharker has gone about his unenviable task of vigilance with forbearance: we live in times of rapid change. With the infinite passing of the present at any one moment, we should all be here together every single day to debate and contest today’s India. We cannot. The task must be shared across our citizen fraternity. It is to his credit then that Anil Dharker has given us the opportunity of vigilance right now.

The creation of a book is a monumental undertaking. I salute Anil Dharker’s work, its eminent contributors, and all the others basking in the delights of anonymity who directed their energies towards its publication.

I like the brevity of Anil Dharker’s introduction. It is polite. It allows the characters some space; it allows the reader space to draw his or her own conclusions.

I like the breadth of the book, its choice of myriad diversity, the way it spans the whole of our culture: institutional, political, economic, scientific, artistic, and journalistic.

I like its humane approach, at once gently critical and yet ultimately sympathetic. Its twenty central figures have not been boxed into an over-arching ideological incarceration. Not over-theorised, there is room to gain a sense of an individual, a real human being, in each chapter. There is enough room for both the reader and the read to breathe.

And the book is not smug celebration: there is an overall sense of the great strivings and achievements of this country portrayed in its pages, but also constant reminders of obstacles, difficulty, frustrations, adversity, both potential and very real. Achievement and progress are most interesting against such a backdrop.

It is also then an inspiring book, and a hopeful one. Whilst acknowledging the past, it looks to the future through the lens of the present. We are a nation born of great idealism and hope. Here in this book we read the best of ourselves, represented by these various icons, endeavouring to keep faithful to its spirit, trying to do more than just survive and endure.

We may not all agree with the twenty people who were chosen to depict our national condition – in fact we definitely won’t.  I don’t for a start. But thank god for that: a book can only be so long - twenty is just as arbitrary as any other number. And agreeing so easily would not be any fun at all. Amartya Sen has called us Indians particularly argumentative I hear. Narayana Murthy himself would not take a moment to remind us of the much celebrated adage, “I disagree with what you say, but I defend until death your right to say it”. A quote from Voltaire – and nobody would want to disagree with him.

Just think if we channelled more of our military budget into encouraging this strident liberalism: we would be the most well defended nation in the world. After all, it is the very citizens who create, sustain and defend a republic.

This book entertains my thoughts beyond its cover, as it should any Indian; anyone who claims an interest in the condition, development and trajectory of the most populous democracy on earth; and anyone else for that matter who takes interest in the general nature of representative democracy in modern times.

I find it a genuine embarrassment to be counted as one of The Twenty. I would have preferred to have been not alphabetically 3rd, not 6th in any other ranking, not the 16th, nor even the 21st. I shouldn’t be there at all. Not only do I feel that such import is undeserved, but I find myself stupefied by the weight of its responsibility.

Let me introduce myself, as you may not be sure who I am – at least in this capacity – as I stand here before you. I am just an actor. It is my job. I am not the sum of all of my parts, as such. Yes, I am heartened that I seem to give pleasure to some of the audience some of the time – definitely not all the time – and the satisfaction I feel at doing a good job on the odd occasion, should be the extent of my reward, beyond the necessity of earning a living.

Of course I like the material remunerations of that living: I am no sadhu ascetic. Admittedly, I daily fantasise about taking off to the mountains to find a suitably quiet cave unfettered by worldly cares to watch the shadows flicker their reflections on the walls. But such yearnings of renunciation do not make an exception of me either, for many of us right here share them. If we all just got up and left for higher ground en masse, that wouldn’t be too good, not enough dank and uncomfortable caves up there for the lot of us, unless Charles Correa has some bright ideas. But no, more seriously, we do not go because we honour our duties and obligations to others, as spouses, parents, friends, workers, citizens, human beings. We don’t go because imperfect as we are, we gain pleasure and delight in the bustling course of profane – the opposite of sacred - daily living, often saving precious little of what we have left over of ourselves for rigorous introspection. My father put it better in one of his poems:

जीवन की आपाधापी में,
कब वक़्त मिला कुछ देर कँही पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ- जो किया कहा, माना, उसमें क्या बुरा भला

Where was the time in the hustle and bustle of life
To sit down a while somewhere and reflect
What was good and bad in what I did, said and believed

And that returns me to my point: I can recite lines, sometimes so that they move others to feel and even think on occasion. But I don’t write them. If I can captivate and inspire, it is only with my skill as an actor. I am a foil, merely a mouthpiece, for the inspired creations of others. It is a wholly different matter to take the analogy further – to insist that I am a foil or mouthpiece for the imaginations, hopes, dreams, anxieties and frustrations of a whole nation. Foils, mouthpieces, are empty in themselves.

Zubin Mehta can conduct a full orchestra to bring the music of Wagner to life; I sometimes feel that I can hardly even manage the task of conducting myself.

Our honourable APJ Abdul Kalam directed the creation of machines of excellence with brilliant ingenuity. Amartya Sen thought and dreamed his way to theories that are beautiful in both their conceptual, practical and moral aspects. Lakshmi Mittal, Ratan Tata and Narayana Murthy are our magicians of industry; Manmohan Singh has guided us on a thin tightrope of tremendous structural change; Sonia Gandhi has courageously aided in persuading us to follow, however unsure and teetering our step; PN Bhagwati has done much to creatively reinterpret and readjust a once foreign system of justice to our own needs.
These are all true artists, each and every one.

And then the late Baba Amte paints our vast landscapes; MF Husain links points on a psephologist’s graph with his exquisite line; Gavaskar and Tendulkar, gladiatorial, battle it out with our fiscal demons;  Ebrahim Alkazi directs our missiles into a disciplined row of Greek chorus; Salman Rushdie develops our waking dream of substantive freedoms ; Charles Correa’s square, zings through time and space with the same energy as those of silicon; Deepak Chopra’s ‘Leela’ plays across the surfaces of millions of tonnes of steel; India’s Nightingale sings the abstract equations of statistical analysis with unearthly purity, I might say.

Perhaps I go a little too far in reverie, but honour must be commended where it is due, and our diverse achievements as a nation ever weave us into each other, unite us as one.

I save a special mention for our nation’s great tradition of professional journalism, so well exemplified by the eminent figures of Khushwant Singh and Prannoy Roy. I myself have had some - at times energetic - interactions with this profession over the years. Our journalists are our gatekeepers, our interpreters, our honourable messengers between each other: in a democratic, secular, and open society they inform us of what is relevant to our political, cultural and civic interests. Our trust in them must be complete. We owe them the safety of our democracy. We owe them the virtue of their vocation. We owe them their eternal vigilance.

So yes, I am just an actor. And here today I find myself further embarrassed because no one has given me my lines. I am not an intellectual, nor do I have any other options to bluster my way through things I do not understand.

But this book touched upon some things that I have been thinking about for some time, that worry me, and I take the opportunity here to air them when they are so relevant.

Anil Dharker in his introduction does not dwell upon his choice of the word ‘icon’. His lightness of touch as I have said earlier is much appreciated, but for me I am troubled and would like to talk about why.

I went straight to Wikipedia for starters and looked up the word.  ‘Icon’, the word for image from the Ancient Greek, in a secular sense, is simply anything that represents something else of greater significance and apparently, does not necessarily imply its sanctity or veneration. But it does say that a cultural icon is irreplaceable, incomparable and timeless. A cultural icon captures the imagination of a cultural group.

I read on: St. Basil the Great says,
“If I point to a statue of Caesar and ask you ‘Who is that?’, your answer would properly be, ‘It is Caesar.’ When you say such, you do not mean that the stone itself is Caesar, but rather, the name and honour you ascribe to the statue passes over to the original, the archetype, Caesar himself.”
So it is with an Icon.

The honour bestowed upon me by being included amongst The Twenty makes more sense in this context: by analogy, it is the Indian Film Industry who is Caesar; I am merely a stone, only one of their many stones, and a rather old and battered one at that.
But to take the thought further, I wonder about what cultural icons DO for US.
As this book demonstrates, they can inspire, give hope, capture our imaginations and these responses can only be an ultimate good in the world.
The concern really however, is the extent to which we give our contemporary cultural icons power beyond what is good. For instance, there is something else going on than my simply being treated as a stone.

Our great nation was born with the aid of the greatest of midwives, great leaders, true Leviathans.  We Indians have a long tradition of the heroic. We also like our stories as grand narrative, with big drama, big passion, big character, big suffering, big endurance, big overcomings.

Yes, I have, with so many others of The Twenty, provided my fair share of all things Big, even a B. With such a publicised life for over forty years, I have provided ample and extended narrative footage for the public, for delight in the giddy highs of success, the passion of suffering and loss, and the schadenfreude of defeat, on and on.

Considering the vast multitudes of our fellow citizens who have anonymously and quietly succeeded, suffered and endured far greater than me, I feel it at the very least a morally dubious thing that such public attention has been bestowed upon my private existence. I have not sought it. I have tried to maintain silence because that is all I can do to preserve some sense of dignity and sanity in my private life.

But my preferred silence is apparently at once dignified and at the same time not so. It is an oft repeated argument that despite the fact I am not holding public office, being a public figure I should still be obliged to explain myself. When I do speak, it is regularly shot down as mere self-promotion, or with no response whatsoever. The latter was very much the case after the event of a recent wedding in my family. Kept as a private and small event amongst my immediate kin and intimate friends due to the mortal condition of my late mother, it

was apparently an act of self-promotion for many, or a mean-spirited exclusivity for others. The irony of it was astonishing to me.

I was moved to write at length to the editors of many reputable newspapers, magazines and journals – they all know who they are – to correct the manifold errors of much of the press at large about the event, some of them verging on shocking absurdity. Not one copy of my written response was published. I have a human right to reply to public slander against myself or my family. This right was met with indifference.

So - Faulted in silence; faulted in speech.
What sort of double-bind is this, what sort of culture of news media do we have that could find justice in this Catch-22? I am just an actor: what sort of directors are there in the public sphere who really want to go down this narrative path? I am a stone. This is no way to treat the achievements of its Caesar- The Indian Film Industry.

What sort of country is this, that they place a mere actor amongst its gloried Twenty? Where are our other real heroes? Have we become so enamoured of sheer fame, wealth and privilege that we hold this up as transformative for a culture as rich in heritage as ours? Where is the maturity in our free society that we must glorify such an empty vessel as myself for admiration?

Of course I acknowledge the role of inspirational individuals to cultivate our dreams and hopes as a community, but why is there so little public concern about the delicate point at which inspiration becomes reified into mindless and infantile idolatry? Icons remain legitimate as long as they do not become idols.

And what sort of power do we really worship in our endless compulsive listings and rankings of our fellow citizens? Power lists! Rich lists! It seems to me a kind of destructive avatar, a new confabulation of our cultural obsession with hierarchy so catastrophically manifested in the caste system. Ranks! Stratified categorisations! We need to get over this and, move on. Have we become so frivolous and superficial in the last 60 years that we have become blinded to undifferentiated power, that it is enough of an end in itself?

Undifferentiated power: the conflation of material power, political power, the power of knowledge, moral power. Power is a potential, not an end in itself. What do we plan to do with ours, newly found?

What would all of those who paid so dearly for our Independence 60 years ago think of us now? Yes, they would at least feel gratified that there has been some progress towards alleviating the terrible suffering of all the forms of poverty that have plagued our population, material and cultural. But we still have a very long way to go.

Is this really a time to rest on our laurels?

I am an actor. I do not know enough about the various political ideologies on offer to espouse any of them.  They just confuse me. If representative democracy in a genuinely free, open and secular society is an ideology, then I prefer that to any of the others. It has the least of all possible ills that we can do to ourselves, and the greatest opportunity to alleviate suffering. I try to think as well as I can, but I find that from my humble position, I merely end up with a lot of questions to ask. I do not have the talent, the intelligence, or the training to ask them well, let alone answer them.

So I call upon our public intellectuals in all walks of life to vigilant debate. It is, indeed, a high price. I implore them to raise their voices when they sit down awhile everywhere and reflect together about what is good and bad in what we do, say and believe. I beg them for loud and clear direction on set, in our public sphere. If they already speak, as an avid follower of Indian journalism, I do not understand why I cannot hear enough of them. I want to hear more, and the best of them. Even if they disagree with me. If they do, then I threaten defending them until death for their right to do so.

The camera rolls on all of us as we face our future together as citizens of India with 60 years of midnights behind us.

As human beings in the world, we have had a rather longer chance to sort ourselves out, and now a good chance of running out of time, not only this evening, but in general for humanity at large.

I make a last salutary gesture to the book that brought us all here today by responding to the quotation with which Anil Dharker commemorated his efforts – In his dedication, he writes to his daughter, Ayesha, thus-.

‘These are wonderful men and women, Ayesha.
But there’s always room for more.’

Anil Dharker, you are so right -
We need many more and urgently.

Prateeksha, April 21, 2008, 2:31 am

The messages keep on relentlessly in a flood and i can only interpret that as a dam bursting open. Bursting open with the collective warmth and affection of all well wishers, who in my naive manner, was so unaware of. The words of praise and of affection of bearing and admiration is overwhelming and honest and pure.

I wish it never ends and i wish that i am there always to acknowledge it in great and absolute humility.

Its been a satisfying day today. Began at 5 am - almost a couple of hours after putting my last ‘post’ to rest on the blog. Drove off to BR Dubbing Studio to start work on the left over dubbing for ‘Bhoothnath’. Good progress was made. Dubbing is always the moment i feel the actors creativity, actually takes shape, unless you are working on sync sound. To recreate in a purified and synthesized atmosphere in solitude the scenes which were done over a period of months, is a tough job. You are dubbing light scenes one minute and suddenly switching to a tearful emotional moment within seconds. And if the sound recordist is not satisfied, you will have to repeat it many times over till it sounds right. When in fact at the time of the shoot it was done in a single take and perhaps it was the only scene for the entire day !!

Stopped in between to visit Kajol and Ajay at the Shradha ceremony for their father, Shomu. He was a friend of the family from Jaya and my side and it was a sad moment that he passed away so soon. Indeed, when i was nursing my Mother in Leelawati Hospital, he too was there in the ICU.

Got back to the dub soon after and surprisingly was able to complete all the work by lunch.

The evening was special. ‘Sarkar Raj’ unveiling at JW Marriott and a video conference with Abhishek and Aishwarya in Miami at the press meet. Remarkable moment. Enjoyed almost being with Abhi-Ash face to face to wish them on their first wedding anniversary. Blessings to them.

Connections from fans across the world surprise me.

Poland and Pakistan now on line, from the few that i could respond to. Thank you for your love and appreciation and kind words and so thrilled to know that you see and follow our films so far away too.

Sufyan continues to question me on the topic of ‘violence’. I think you have misunderstood my statement. I am against violence of any kind against anyone. And if there is, then there should be an adherence to the law of the land to punish those that are guilty. I have not taken any sides and never shall. All are equal in this world by the law of nature.

Rekha Rao felt i would never read her message. Now you know i do.

Madhu Addanki wrongly believes that we deliberately avoid working with Kareena. Wrong. If there is suitable offer, there will be suitable desire to work together. And why just her, anyone from our fraternity.

Farnaz Shama, from Pakistan has serious reservations on Abhishek marrying Aishwarya. Well, firstly its too late for you to consider or remark on this issue. Secondly, as parents we did not choose for our son. Aishwarya was his choice and therefore ours now. She is my family, my daughter. You may differ with her in her work her profession, but if you will cast aspertions on her personally, i will defend her, fight for her and not tolerate this kind of talk, as i am sure neither would you, were someone to speak ill of a member of your family.

Headlines Today, the TV channel was at it again. Did a full report on the ‘Sarkar Raj’ event and ended with the anchor commenting that this was more a family affair, to propagate themselves rather than about the film. To HT : the film is about a family ! and the artists playing the main roles are from one family. What else would you expect from an event that has been organized to present this very aspect to the media. And.. if the aspect was objectionable to you, why did you broadcast 15 minutes of the video conference of Abhi-Ash, if they were such an eyesore. Guess, Abhi-Ash on your programme gave you better eye balls and the resultant TRP’s, than say Ram Gopal Varma or Amitabh Bachchan. So.. you project them on the show for a certain period of time and then say that that period of time was in excess. Ha !! Thats as funny as rubber crutches !!

A section of the print media carried comment from my colleague and friend and neighbour, Mr Shatrughan Sinha. It reportedly quoted his reactions to the nomination list of the IIFA Awards, wherein he has purportedly stated that ” Sab kissika beta hai, ya kissiki bahu, ya kissiki biwi ” , and the media adding there interpretation to it, stating that this was directed to a particular family of ‘guru’ fame.

I believe what is being insinuated is that there is partiality or some ‘fixing’ in the choice of the nominations carried by IIFA. And as the report concluded, the indication was towards one family, not difficult to guess which one.

I am surprised at this observation, especially since, during the time of the National Award selection for Best Actress in one of the past years, when the Award went to Raveena Tandon, it was alleged that Mr Shatrughan Sinha’s wife, the lovely and graceful Poonam, a great friend of Raveena’s mother had recommended the appointment of MacMohan, the brother of Raveena’s mother, on the board of the Jury ( structured by the Govt., in power - in this case the BJP, of which Mr Sinha was a Minister of State ) in order that he may cast his vote in favor of Raveena Tandon.

If this alleged story is true then i do value Mr Shatrughan Sinha’s alleged statement of “Sab kissika beta, kissiki beti, kissiki biwi” - you are so right Shatru !!

Of course this does not take anything away from Raveena’s very deserving Award - she has been a wonderful and talented coartiste in many films of mine, or, MacMohan, the Sambha of Sholay, who has remained a dear friend and has worked with me in several films. As has Mr Shatrughan Sinha !!

And may i also state that IIFA nominations come from the film fraternity through computerised voting systems, audited and compiled by Price Waterhouse Coopers, an International Company of repute and standing.

And Shatru !! I have seen some very encouraging reports of the film, where your son is being introduced to this great Industry. May he prosper and succeed even more than his illustrious father and may he never have to face a slighted accusation of ‘fixing’, when his name comes up for an Award in the future !!

I post separately a speech that i made at the book release in Delhi recently. The book is called ‘Icons’ and is written by the renowned senior journalist Anil Dharkar. It compiles 60 years of Independence and the Icons that made an impact on the country. I thought it was a pertinent piece. It never received any attention by the media. Perhaps it was not of their standard. I would love for you to read it and send me your impressions of it.

Namaskar, Shubh Ratri, Shabba Khair, Satsriakal and Good night !!

Amitabh Bachchan