Amitabh bachchan – Every body knows him, very few know his dedicated love and respect for his parents. Following are excerpts from his writing….

“The avenues and opportunities open to the youth today in an economically liberated India were absent in the late fifties and early sixties. After graduation what? Where to find a job? What job? How? When? And the idealism and debate and the coffee house banter soon converts itself to anger. The anger of not knowing what to do with ourselves.

You look for answers. You turn to those that may have them. And in one ‘enlightened’ moment you get the answer from a fellow sufferer. ”why were we brought in to this world? To suffer?” That’s it! We should never have been brought in to this world. Judgment passed.

Angered, frustrated, strengthened and armed with unreasonable thought, I walked in to my father’s study one evening and for the first time in my life, with choked emotion, raised my voice at him and screamed:

“Aapne hame paida kyun kiya?”

My father, immersed, as always was in his writing, looked up at me with some initial surprise and then settled down to more understanding posture and remained so for almost eternity.

No one spoke. Not him, not me. Not a sound. Just the measured clicking of the timepiece on his desk - and my unmeasured breathing!

When nothing came across from the parent quarter, I turned and left.

It was an uncomfortable night for me.

The next morning my father walked in to my room, woke me up and handed me a sheet of paper and left. I opened it. It was a poem he had written overnight – titled Nayi Leek (The New Generation)

Zindagi aur zamane ki kashmakash se

Ghabarakar mere ladke mujhse poochte hai

“Hame paida kyun kiya tha?”

Aur mere paas iske siwa

Koi jawab nahi hai

Ki mere baap ne bhi mujhse bina pooche

Mujhe paida kiya tha

Aur mere baap se bina pooche unke baap ne, unhe….

Zindagi aur zamane ki kashmakash

Pahle bhi thi, ab bhi hai, shayad jyada,

Aage bhi hogi, shayad jyada,

Tumhi nayi leek dharna

Apne baytoen se poochkar unhe paida karna.

So long as there is life, there is struggle! “Jab tak jivan hai, tab tak sangharsh hai” said my father, as he lay weak and almost comatose in his bed in Pratiksha.

The room is now adorned by his large framed picture, exactly where he breathed his last. Few months ago, he was joined on the side by my mother’s portrait.

Every day and every moment that I pass the room as I climb the staircase to my bedroom or down from it, I stop by the door and look at both of them. And ask for strength.

It is the light of his wisdom that I endeavour to carry each day when I step out!