Thanks for the drubbing on my smoking.

Have stepped out of the mixing room for a bit and was checking my blog. I have to say that my family, especially my kids, are really happy with the kid of bashing I recieved from you all for my smoking. I completely agree that it is the worst thing anyone can do to damage one''''s health. Cough, cough. Point taken and will be acted upon.

Right now I am so over worked that I often dont know whether it is day or night.

On my comments on BLACK, let me start by commenting that I have the highest regard for Mr Bachchan and I am very big fan of his work. Probably one of the biggest. I believe that he along with Mr Dilip Kumar are among my two favourite actors of Indian Cimema. I have no hesitation in saying that I don''t even feature on the same platform as an actor. He is also in my opinion THE biggest star that Indian Cinema has ever seen. However as any member of the audience I too have a right to my opinion. And let me also clarify that my observations were towards the film and the way it was handled not towards any of the actors. I am very aware that the key of every performance is very much determined by the director.

My big exception towards Black is the fact that a child with severe difficulties is shown being illtreated instead of being treated with love, care and understanding. I simply cannot come to terms with that no matter what the writer and director say in defence. I thought I was watching a rip off of Taming Of The Shrew!!! I take great exception to this kind of behaviour towards children being glorified and propagated through a popular mass medium as the way to deal with children with or without difficulties. I, without any hesitation, strongly condemn this kind of cinema no matter who is involved with the film, and that includes me if I ever have in the past, present or future made such an error of judgement. My creative differences with Mr Bansali are unimportant. I believe he has the potential to make a good film and I look forward to seeing his latest film SAWARIA.

In response to some of your questions regarding TZP: It is a film about children, ALL children, and is aimed at parents, children, and potential parents. In fact for everyone who is a child or has been through childhood, which pretty much covers the whole gamut of age groups.

And now I am being called back into the mixing theatre.

I haven''''t forgotten about the scheduled chat and once I''''m done with my work will pick a date and time.

Much love.

Aamir.