Amisha and I have a common friend, actually she is more Amisha’s friend than mine and I met her when I was with Amisha. Her name is Shalini and she lives in New York. So, on a trip to New York whilst Amisha was busy shopping, Shalu, as we call her, and I were having some corn on the cob and discussing life when the conversation veered to Amisha and her grandmother. Both of us knew that the closest person to Amisha was her grandmother and she was quite like Amisha’s sole support system. Shalu bit into the corn and said, “You know Vikram? I shudder to think what would happen to Amisha if her grandmother should die.” What followed was a silence and as we continued chomping away, the taste had suddenly left the cob. We both knew it would have a devastating impact on Amisha.
Dissolve, as we say in film terms to the present and four days back I read a news item saying that Amisha broke into the house of her grandmother who is now dead and stole some personal items. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Nonsense I said to myself. Balderdash.
The first impulse of people who have moved on is to say to oneself, “What does it matter to me?” and I did quite the same thing that day and then the gnawing feeling turned into a scream in my mind as the scream said, “It does matter!” How can it not matter? The world is filled with people who know the truth but won’t stand up to say it when it matters the most. I cannot be that person. The truth then!
Amisha is all that her grandmother had and her grandmother was all that Amisha had. I spent some beautiful times with the regal old lady. Well read, charming and extremely astute even at her age of 80-plus. She was wonderful and Amisha made her last days comfortable but more than anything, she filled those days with joy.
Any free day and she would go off to Pune, where her grandmother stayed, to spend time with her. She would take care of her personal items, sort the chauffeur and domestic help issues, buy her new furniture, take her out for dinner, just simply spoil her silly! It was heart wrenching and moving to watch. Any other actor would have made a PR brownie point issue about this but Amisha desisted.
We would bring her over to my house as well and spend Diwali together and sometimes even her birthday. Happy days.
What Amisha did was take away the loneliness of a lonely person and gave her a family. For Amisha, her grandmother’s house was a sanctuary. I know this.
I have seen this.
So I cannot sit by and read that Amisha is a thief! I do not know about the law and its aspects relating to this case, but emotionally speaking I know that every brick of that house belongs to the one girl who made her grandmother’s life worth living.
Amisha, if you are reading this, know that this is the way of the world and you will be accused of loving your grandmother with motive and reason but the one person you loved is watching and still loves you from above. Nani, (as she called her grandmother) is watching and she knows the truth and now, so does the world.
Amisha spoke to the director, who understood her point of view and agreed to let her go.”
