Goodbye and farewell to the Unforgettable concert cast

(writing for Wed Aug 20 2008) I changed my route from office to home so that I can visit them everyday the last whole week. Today they are gone ... limousine service managers Samad (he gave me the Preity Zinta signed King's XI Punjab T-shirt that I am wearing!), Imran and Arjun; Ishq-Vishq actress Shenaz Treasurywala, lots of dancers, composers Vishal (mostly with a guitar) and Shekhar (he has a little daughter named Bipasha), .. and of course the Bachchans: Amitji, Jayaji, Aish and Abhishek; Ritesh Deshmukh, their bodyguards, event managers I didn't talk to but they said as some Jotwani ... and so many more artists and most of fans: Rochelle Goldman, Abdul Baksh, Seema, Sarraf, and so many more and ever increasing :). Felt like home outside their hotel ... just being there .. talking to fans, waiting for artists, sometimes even getting to talk to them when they are rushing around ... congratulating them ... wishing them luck for London ... getting pics with them ... comparing and discussing dresses worn by them with the other fans ... wasting my time around :) it was great!! And yet all good things come to an end. How do I know?

Amitji writes on his blog we are leaving tonight!!! I am shattered ... Nooooooooo ... what should I do? I have already had "Unforgettable, the best concert!" poster hand-written in my child-like handwriting shown to many of them. I talked with Shenaz, Abhishek wrote me an autograph, but wait, I didn't meet BigB!! Worse, I couldn't even say that his blog on his mother was the best ever. Here I get a reason and a zeal to do something more: I create another poster: this time on a bigger paper: "Best Blog Ever: "My Mother Teji Bachan". Yes, I wrote it in my weird child-like handwriting, WRITING with non-virtual pen and paper after a long time! I didn't want to print it; I remember Hema Di telling me when I was a kid that she liked hand-written letters because they look more human and personal; and I just wanted to convey my personal feelings to the 66 year old man who wrote this beautiful piece for me to read and get lost in the nostalgic thoughts of my own childhood and mamma-papa. I didn't want to recruit somebody else to write that for me, as it would be difficult for anyone to understand my child-like enthusiasm in an office where they are used to my arguments on asymptotic complexity and most recently why my template specialization should not be deleted from code :) But I digress.

I went in the lunch break to do a takeout from a Chinese restaurant that is connected to the hotel. They have a $8 lunch takeout deal which given good enough quantity, I consider a great deal in Manhattan! On door of the hotel I see Rochelle Goldman. I show her my poster, she likes it .. oh my .. I misspelt Bachchan as Bachan, ... and now u know how I scored in high school English (my bad English of my blog says it too.. doesn't it :) !! She tells me she has been waiting for Amitabh since 6 am ... yes she is the craziest fan of Amitabh I have ever known, well .. she is THE craziest fan EVER of anybody I have ever known! Even Amitji has acknowledged this. She has already hugged Amitabh, the Bachchan family knows her by her name, she went to all the Unforgettable shows in US, she is on the top nine exclusive fan list of Amitabh (he invited her!), still she wants to say Goodbye to Amitabh before he leaves NY!! And of course ... she has "I Love Amitabh" written on her hoodie ...

Impressed, I am stuck with her looking at her photographs. She wore an Indian dress when she went to see Amitabh on fan meet. And yes, there was this 'legal hug' photograph of her hugging Amitabh :) sweet!! Another fan joins us, I help Rochelle to show photographs to her (and yeah Rochelle recently bought laptop and Verizon internet, etc all just to read Amitabh's blog and like Amitabh not very comfortable with "technical things"!! Guess what, you've got me dear!!).

I: "Jayaji, Can I have a picture with you?"Jayaji: "Let me pack these things and then I will come." In the meanwhile I order my take out lunch at Chinese restaurant at hotel. I get into Chinese restaurant, nice decor (Shengchao said good decor = unauthentic Chinese food :), I order shredded chicken with Garlic Sauce, she tells me 10 min wait. There I meet Hoshdaar for third time, he works at the hotel and I saw him waiting for his takeout once more in the exact same manner. First time I asked him if the sushi bar at the hotel is open for lunch ... lol ...

I ask for restroom key from the Chinese looking lady and walk past to the hotel for restroom. Coming out, I see that down in the lobby I see familiar faces: Jayaji, Aish, Abhishek, etc all obliging family and friends for pictures. I rush down the stairs in the lobby and join for pictures. ...I show Jayaji my poster: "Best blog ever: My mother Teji Bachchan" I wrote by my hand. Jayaji is pleasantly surprised and visibly agreeing. She has a sweet rythmic motherly voice with an upward inflexion at the end of her sentences, which sound like authentic Indian English! The bodyguard also sees it and starts smiling, so rare to see such an occurrence for once I thought that I wanted to capture him rather than Amitji or anybody else smiling ... hahaha ...

I: "I want to give it to Amitji".

Jayaji: "Give it to him, (whisper)he is outside in the car." I walk around, outside the lobby looking at the cars ... can't find him ... go further outside .. see a bunch of people ... I am sad ... after a while Jayaji comes out..

Jayaji: Did you show this to him?

I: "I couldn't even find him."

"Come with me ... (in hushed voice)" ... "but don't bother him much"
And there he is .. Amitabh, he is happy seeing it, seeing him happy I am happy. He doesn't seem to me on top of his health. He says thanks and seeing people materializing around me gets uneasy, closes the mirror.I get back and after a bit of time his bodyguard comes to me ... He wants me there in front of him. Really!! I go there, looking around that there is nobody else, he again pulls down his mirror and asks more like grandfatherly voice: what do you want? (his voice is not in its best and deep rich baritone)

I: I just want a picture with you.

He: okay come, stand on the side of the mirror quickly. (opens the mirror)

The crowd bangs in, some people put their hand inside the mirror and even touch him. I am not happy with all this and a bit guilty of being a cause of this for Amitji. And now I know why they are afraid of fans. Among the fans I see middle-aged women they are the worst behaved, though Rochelle Goldman, being a middle-aged woman is the best behaved and yet the biggest fan!

I try to give my camera to Rochelle but eventually I know I have never been good at such kind of me-first, me-first street-level bodily competition. I budge and give way to others. Before that I ask a lady to click on me too .. she nods. I know that smiling nod of women, it says yes, but it means I don't care. Amitji rolls up his window and it is their flight time ... the fleet of cars leave one by one. I ask the lady if she got my picture. And she says: "I was clicking on Amitji, not you. If you want any of their pictures I can email it to you, I have lots of them but they don't have you!" And she has that look and a wicked smile that I thought and wished I will never get since I left high-school. The look says "You emotional intelligent fool, I am street smart and can get anything I want. It makes me so happy in being mean to you." I am afraid of this look because I have learnt from experience the oxymoron of emotional intelligent fool is actually true in my case, but hey c'mon I am glad the world is big enough and her kind is a minority while my kind is not!! I smile with deja vu of old memories and afraid of myself recalling the last time I got angry the guy was in hospital with stitches and me house arrested ... when angry just leave!

I have to go to collect my lunch and rush back to office to work on templatized, generic data structure that can sort, update, insert, remove, filter, prefix match, page, random advance page ... and God knows what more .. all in most efficient, scalable and compile time polymorphic way!! ... And this time I am not digressing ...

Thanks Rochelle Goldman, Abdul Baksh, Abdul Samad Khan, Vijay Bhatia (http://www.trinityjewelsusa.com/), Darshan Kapadia (http://www.theshaadistory.com/), Ashutosh Pandey and several many for clicking pictures and just being around and being a big happy family!

Thank you everybody for everything!!

Aditya

http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5464585
http://saurabhaditya.dotphoto.com/CPViewAlbum.asp?AID=5457658(will post more pics as and when friends will mail to me)