Independence means freedom, keeping oneself independent, not being dependent on anyone
- doing what you feel like independently.
There is one kind of independence that comes to my mind and that is true independence - that
is the freedom of the mind.
I am an Indian and India means everything to me.
I am part and parcel of India and India is part of my life.
I don't have any love for this country and I don't want to show off like I have this
love for the country, who should I tell suppose I have got love for the country?
Shall I go on the streets and tell everybody oh I got love for my country?
One thing I would like to do very much is to go through this country, top to bottom
and take a little bit of money and pad and paper, a tape recorder and a camera and I
would like to go through this country walking at a very leisurely pace, seeing all kinds
of people of different races and different cultures, capture them in their different
moods, their songs and their dances, cacophonies of their multifarious tongues, I'd like to
get their agony, the anguish and the anger - the fertile soil, the pastures, everything
so that one day when I could come back I could open the book and remind myself of what I
am part of and what is part of me.
15th August 1947, well it means a lot.
First of all, it is my birthday of course and it is one of the greatest days for India.
I think of India when I see the long queues, people waiting patiently for buses, for ration.
I think of India when I see people hanging on their local trains.
My needs - of course they are more.
I have more money to buy things.
I see more things in the market.
So I buy them.
We need two blankets and two three shirts and one pair of clothes for travel.
I like to wear nice clothes but you know what has happened, I don't have money to buy them.
I realize that we cannot dig the field with a pair of bulls.
We need a machine or a tractor to dig well.
Well I feel that foreign blades are more economical than our Indian blades.
Why shouldn't I go and use them because I save my money.
I firmly believe that they serve much better purpose and are more economical.
You know terribly difficult to get admission.
But I don't understand really being so many colleges, there are so many who just waste
a year or two because they don't a seat into a college.
If you don't get admission into a college and you just ask them how much extra you would
take you know, you are sure of getting a seat the very nexrt minute.
No, I have never ever bribed for a seat in a college or a school.
Actually I feel that this question of bribing is resorted to only the below the average
students.
Today technical education is free.
Any matric or secondary student can get technical education very easily and can become a good
mechanic and earn his livelihood.
Have you gone to school?
No, I haven't gone to school.
Do you know who is India's president?
Don't know.
Do you know the name of the Prime Minister?
Don't Know.
Do you know about the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh?
Don't Know.
Ujjain's collector's name?
I know.
We have two schools in our village and there is a middle school also.
Well I would say I am better off than my father was in almost every respect, in terms of educational
opportunities, atleast I don't have to work in a mill in the morning to pay for my education
in the evening.
Well my ambition is to reach the highest rank which my service can provide.
At the moment of course it is confined to be a full general but by the time I go high
up, if there is a rank of Field Marshal, I would like to be the first one.
Well my ambition is to be a great scientist.
As you know, i am working on meteorites and these things which are from outer space, we
don't know much about them.
I want to do something very original about them.
Maybe get my name in textbooks if possible.
For some people, security is a warm blanket.
For me security is a government job.
I would like to join the IAS.
I would like to sit in a comfortable chair in an air-conditioned room, stand a couple
of hours here and there, write my comments in the margins, drink cups of coffee, attend
meetings and jsut sort of be a cog in the machine.
What more do you want me to do?
I would look for a government job.
If I don't get that, I will go in the army.
My ambition is to command a bombers' squadron in the operational areas and later on I would
like to go on to testing aircraft, you know what I mean?
I would like to be a test pilot.
I would want to be a good fitter.
Well my ambition in life is to glorify myself.
I want to go in film line.
Eh?
Film line.
I want to produce some picture.
You know I got the story also.
From my own life.
But you have enough money?
I will make money no?
See, I will try my best no.
I will save money now.
From somewhere or other.
See, being a heroine, I don't think that's bad, it's not like it is not good.
But it is not for me.
I cannot be one.
Progress?
Ofcourse we have made progress.
The sort of progress you us in your documentary films.
But afterall a child would grow even if it didn't have sufficient nourishment.
Well I feel happy when I see the big industries of India.
The time I feel unhappy is when I see that all these industries are being built at a
cost of agriculture.
I feel happy when I see the fertilizers being made in the factories, well they mean that
we have progressed a great deal, that we will have more food because there will be more
land irrigated, that we will have more industries because there will be more electricity.
It also means there will be more employment, more production, more happiness.
When we compare ourselves to countries like Germany and Japan, we have made no progress
at all.
I've been to a village in Saurashtra, some three years back and I saw a very happy life.
I saw there was a (inaudible)bus coming to the village, there were roads, there was a
Gram Panchayat radio, there was a windmill in that village, it was all very good.
Then a year later I went to an Adivasi area in Gujarat again and I saw the people had
not heard of a plane or a train and I felt that this was not progress.
We make rather good aircrafts as well.
NATs and Vampires, well don't ask me, you can go somewhere else.
When mother is in danger, they do abortion.
They call it Apadharma but when the country population is going up like hell and country
is going to dogs, they don't understand it is also like a kind of Apadharma to save the
country.
There are 13 men in the family but we don't have enough labor.
9 brothers sisters, one this big.
Another this big, another this and another this.
One sister this big, another this big and one in the lap.
Well let me put it this way.
I would say that our achievement is that we have a hopeful tomorrow, our failure is that
today is very precarious.
But if a country can industrialize itself so well in 15 years, I am sure that we can
solve the problem of agriculture as well in the next 15 years.
What do you want me to do for the country?
I think I do enough by being a honest citizen.
By doing my job to the best of my ability, by working 8 hours a day.
By not complaining much about the ration, about the unavailability of sugar.
No, i don't get to see the ration queue.
When I am standing in the bus queue for the whole day, how can I go in the ration queue.
Well I don't know, it seems to be a fashion to denigrate the country and when two people
meet, they get into a sort of competition about who can abuse the government better.
Like other boys, I do not eat fancy things, I just watch films.
Well I debate, I take part in dramatics, I like literature.
I like to do a lot of things.
I want to learn French, I want to study German, learn Russian.
I never find time, never find opportunity.
Well first and foremost is dancing.
I like Indian dancing and I am learning Bharatanatyam at the moment.
I like to hear Ghazals, talking about Ghazals, I like Begum Akhtar.
I play tennis myself and I think the Indian tennis players have got a lot of hope.
Well my proudest moment was when we qualified for the Davis cup finals and our chaps Lal,
Krishnan and Mukherjee, they did wonderfully well.
Probably you must not have the Indian I admire the most but it happens to be Zubin Mehta,
the Indian conductor who I should say is the only Indian conductor.
I admire that man Mihir Sen.
Not only because he is a wonderful swimmer.
Besides what he has done sounds almost fantastic.
Swimming the seventh strait is not a joke and I would like to be another Mihir Sen if
I can help it.
Great batsman Pataudi.
But when Pataudi scores a century, I realize I haven't done anything.
I feel if I did a century, then I would be happy and at peace.
My favorite director happens to be Satyajit Ray for obvious reasons.
He has the gift of capturing things in a realistic way and that's why he is being acclaimed all
over the world.
India's future, how can I say?
I don't think there is any future left for us, we have only got a big past to boast of.
As Kennedy put it, I think it is a question of not what the country can do for you, it
is what you can do for the country.
Ofcourse frustration is in fashion today but I think deep within every Indian, there is
despite all this frustration, we are underestimating him.
He has a capacity to work.
If all the people in this country who didn't fancy their prospects in it were allowed to
quit, I think I will stay because it is something big.
It is a huge experiment and I would like to be a part of it.