On this Day in 2009, we were trying to get Shah Rukh Khan to come to the Dream Mile

As I was listening to leads of Dream Mile 2010 churning out ideas and action items to push the publicity into high gear for the last three weeks the campaign, my thoughts went back to Dream Mile 2009. The first thing that came rushing back to me was how a bunch of us (not on any medication, I might add) came up with this "crazy" idea of trying to get Shah Rukh Khan for Dream Mile 2009. Yes by The Shah Rukh Khan I mean the one and only K.k.k.k.....kkk... King Khan who was here in the bay area last year filming for "My Name is Khan".

Ribhu (Dream Mile 2010 lead ) and I were new to Vibha and were leading publicity for it. We had already garnered a dubious reputation of coming up with the nuttiest ideas but this one truly was the cherry on the cake .. our finest moment ..... We were...are still so proud of it..... I think the momentum of registrations had really picked up at this point and registrations team were really facing the heat of a mammoth turnout.. So when this idea first came up, it was more to tease them and get them to sweat some more....After all we all love to see Mukesh (National Fund raising Director) in panic mode... We were even more suprised when people started considering it seriously....

Soon, we were following twitter to see where SRK was filming, planning on pitching tents outside his Hotel in SF, talking to his bay area agents to see if they could give us some face time.... Some actually believed this would be possible and started planning for the worst... what if he actually turns up ? Will we have a logistical nightmare on our hands ? If a 1000 man running event turns into 10000 man stampede .. lets just keep it at if..... The logistics lead Anand was incredibly cool about this... which gave us even more fuel to pursue this...We tried hook and crook to try and get face time with SRK but to no avail..... Also , after it truly sunk in that if he turns up, it wont be a pretty sight finally put an end to this grand plan..

But what this entire exercise gave us was incredible momentum going into the event...The registrations team was preparing for the worst.. the pledge team started dreaming about a big fat cheque from SRK, the publicity team.. well we didnt need any momentum at that point.... everyone was trying to apply brakes on us :).... But it did bring the entire Dream Mile team together for the final push.

This year we don't have SRK in the bay area.. But we need still need the all the awesome volunteers we had last year to build the same momentum as we head into the the final days before DOE.

After all, it wasn't SRK who made DM 2009 a grand sucess, it was all of YOU !!!!!

www.dreammile.org

An open letter to the Shiv Sena

Thackeray Saheb, ( BalaSaheb or Udhav , whoever is calling the shots )

Asa kai kela ?

I live in Mumbai. No; I live in Bombay. Sorry, I am using the dreaded “B” word as a mark of protest. Why am I in a sacrilegious mood? Because, I am upset and disappointed with the Shiv Sena’s attitude! I was so looking forward to this weekend. I had it perfectly planned and you ruined everything. How could you do this? We had such a great thing going over the years and in a blink of an eye you betrayed me for that over-rated Shah Rukh “Ham” Khan.

Valentine’s Day will not be the same anymore without the Shiv Sena disrupting itL.

Growing up in Bombay, if you ever put me in a rapid fire quiz show and asked me, “What comes to your mind first when I say Valentine’s Day ? “ Without any hesitation my answer would be “Shiv Sena”. Yes, Not Love, Not roses, Not cupid. You had entrenched yourself in Bombay’s Valentine’s Day folklore. And now you have abandoned all those couples in love who depended on you to provide the spark in their otherwise mundane relationships.

As I write this letter, it takes me back to my first V-day. You were at your peak that year. Most of the big hotels, pubs, and night clubs had canceled their parties. It was the perfect hide and seek game. How will the couples manage to sneak in some alone time, manage to hold hands in public, exchange those ridiculously expensive roses and paraphernalia and whisper sweet nothings without being caught by the minions of Balasaheb. So much more exciting than a quiet candle light dinner or a deafening Bollywood remix party. Looking at the expensive demands the chick I was taking out was making, I was sweating balls. But as it turned out, everything she asked for, you managed to get to it first J.. She wanted some expensive soft toys. That store I went to was destroyed by you a day earlier. So all the other stores around were closed. She wanted to go to this yacht party with some supercool DJ from Delhi. But your goons got to him a week before and made him swear that he will never set foot in Mumbai on V-Day. I ended up giving her a rose from my neighbor’s garden and taking her out to a romantic dinner to the local Chinese tapri and I didn’t even look cheap doing it. She was so impressed by what you had done in the run up to V-day that she was begging for this. I never properly thanked you for that. Aah the good old days.

As the years went by, I was amazed at your innovative methods each year. How funny my date and me looked when we had our faces blackened , or the time I wanted to break up with this girl but didn’t know how until you came along and made her tie me a Rakhi. That was easy J. Or the time when I was having a romantic candle light dinner and your sena broke the window of that restaurant. The tiny pieces of glass flying all over the place and falling all over our food and us, looked magical. Right out of a fairy tale!!! But what takes the cake was your campaign to force couples caught on V-day to marry each other. I was so pumped up about that. I even managed to catch a filthy rich girl that year. But somehow we never ran into each other. That would have been the jackpot.

Sigh, I’m all teary-eyed now. This year, I had met a girl from the “We love Shiv Sena on V-Day” generation. It was going to be perfect. We were planning to walk in front of protesters and then hold hands. This would have led to a high speed chase through the streets of Bombay.On being caught; we were looking forward to the new and innovative punishments you would come up with. It would have made both of us feel proud. But all that is just a dream now. You chickened out and decided to go after a SRK. It was so much below your dignity. Was it worth it?

I just cannot have a V-day without the excitement the Shiv Sena used to provide. So I became innovative and decided to do the unthinkable. If the disrupters don’t come to us, we would go to the disrupters. I was going to commit the sin of going to a SRK-KJo movie in its opening weekend just so that it would be disrupted and I could have a slice of excitement and reminisce the good old days. But, and it’s a big BUT… our government decided to actually do something for the first time in 10 years. Why now , Mr Chavan. Please go back to doing nothing. We loved you that way. That’s why we relected you time after time for the last 10 years. Now you have really done it. The one place I could get some action, and you stopped that too. Why ? I had to actually coax some local Sena Shakha guys to protest outside a local multiplex before they catch the Sunday evening show , pay off the local constables to wait for atleast 15 minutes before taking any action, just to get a feel of the good old days.. We are living in truly troubled times. This has cost me more than all the earlier V-days put together.

I hope you learn your lesson and we have a normal V-day next year. Otherwise I will have to move to Bangalore. Ram Sena is eating into your market share.

Sincerely