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So, first of all, thank you very much for
having me here at the Inspire Series.
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It’s worked dramatically, I’m already
inspired to be addressing this really August
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intellectual gathering of people from Harvard,
a place that my mother thought I will never
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reach.
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But you know what, lot of people have spoken
before me and eloquently and described their
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dreams for India and given figures and facts
that either are skeptical and like, Mr. Omar
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says, aspirational.
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But I’m just an actor and I’m going to
just give you my dream shamelessly, because
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that’s the thing that I can do best.
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And by that, I mean when we talk of dreams
we have one of our greatest scientists and
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philanthropists Dr. Abdul Kalam, and he said
something which is very interesting.
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He said, “Dreams are not what you have when
you sleep.
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The true dreams are the ones that don’t
let you sleep”.
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He said, “When you have that dream once
it’s a dream; when you have it twice it
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becomes a desire.
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And when you see it for the third time consecutively,
it becomes a passion, an aim and a goal”,
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and that is the passion with which I want
to see this fantasy that I have for India
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2030.
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And Abraham Lincoln also was a dreamer and
you know, but he said one thing that makes
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most sense in trying to achieve this goal
that I have dreamed for my nation.
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He said, “If I have six hours to cut down
a tree, then I would spend the first four
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hours sharpening the axe.”
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There’s a great philosophy in that.
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In this era of instant gratification we just
keep thinking we can achieve all these goals
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by just tweaking this, tweaking that, it’s
not true.
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I really believe that a missionary zeal is
required to make that quantum change, that
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can make 2030 of what I’m dreaming about
right now.
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And just let’s look at India as a country,
what a unique nation!
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Seriously.
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Thousands of years old of culture and tradition,
many many invasions, being ruled for many
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years and we still somehow managed to maintain
our identity.
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We still somehow have managed to maintain
our Indian-ness — our beliefs, our faith
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and you know, yeah, there has been — we
have our drawbacks — there is corruption,
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there is violence, there is differences between
the different religions and sects and caste
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and everything.
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But I can’t help but think looking at India
at the geography that we’re not doing really
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that bad.
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Look at all the other nations around in the
world.
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Look at our neighbors, compared to that there
is somebody in India who’s doing something
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right for us to be called a growing economy
and being projected as the third largest economy
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in 2026 and the most educated and young nation
in the world, it’s still functional democracy.
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So let’s first accept the fact that there
is somebody, some people in India with the
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right ideas and the ability to lead the nation
to where we are today.
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Under that assumption — under that assumption
we are also very capable of finding very unique
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solutions to the problems that generally the
world faces.
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And one of them, of course, is the fact that
we found freedom through non-violence and
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non-cooperation; who would’ve thought that
was possible?
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We have some other – no, seriously I mean
it was as radical of thought then as it is
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today, and one man in a loincloth would believe
in faith and complete conviction was able
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to do that for us — you know, Mahatma Gandhi,
and it’s an amazing country of people like
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Mahavir, Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi
and then Bhagat Singh who also had a dream.
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He dreamed then 85 years ago, that I dream
of an India where no infant cries for the
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want of milk, no youngster is deprived of
relevant education, and no youth goes door
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to door finding a job.
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Sadly, it’s still a dream today.
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And I dream of a 2030 when this dream becomes
irrelevant.
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I dream of a 2030 when everybody is so equally
satisfied with what they’re doing, that
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they’re able to actually devote about more
time back to art and culture which is another
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great important aspect of our country.
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Now we need to be – for that to happen we
need to be a healthy nation.
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And when I say healthy, I remember preparing
for a film of mine which was released recently
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where I had to look like a boxer and I had
this biceps and triceps that had to be there.
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So I decided just to work on the parts that
is seen outside my clothes.
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So I was just working out of my biceps and
my triceps and my shoulders but you know what
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I suddenly realized, the strengths that I
had in my arms and biceps was not actually
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enough for me to look even fit because it
is disproportionate growth.
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It is the kind of growth that will not make
you fit or strong but actually make you look
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inadequate.
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And that is what is happening to India today.
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Everybody says we are the largest economy
— we’re going to be the most populated
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country in the years to come and you know
with economic superpower and supremacy in
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rocket and space technology which I am privy
to and then the IT giants and smarter cities.
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But ladies and gentlemen, I really believe
that more than smarter cities we require smart
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villages.
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And this is going to be primarily what I talk
about today.
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You know, a nation is only as strong as its
weakest link and rural India is our weakest
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link.
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See, it’s important that growth and progress
goes hand-in-hand with villages also getting
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onto the same train towards economic freedom,
super-powerdom, all terms that has been coined
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for a successful country but that is not happening,
the reason being we’re beginning to ignore
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them, we’re beginning to actually believe
that —
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This is a very interesting line that I have
found, where they say that everybody believes
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that they know what is required for getting
the underprivileged and the poor up to speed
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with the rest of the country.
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OK, and we always start assuming that this
is what they want; this is how we can help
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the poor and the villages and this is what
they need.
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And we can’t be more wrong, because when
you assume, and as the spelling goes you make
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an ass of you and me, let me tell you how
that happened to a friend of mine.
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His name was — he’s a very profound doctor,
a gastroenterologist, and he got a call from
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his patient Mr. Abdul, who said, “Doctor
Saab, my wife is really really ill and she’s
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got a big stomach ache and she can’t sit
and she can’t sleep and she’s in big pain,
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can I come and visit you?”
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And he said, ‘Yes, by all means’.
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And like all patients today he’s done his
research, he’s gone into the internet and
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he said, “usko yeh ho sakta hain, wo sakta
hain, and the doctor said, ‘Don’t worry
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let me handle it’.
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And he checked her out and he said “She
has an infected appendix, so I have to do
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a surgery and she’ll be fine.”
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The surgery was done, she was fine and Abdul
was a happy man.
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One year later, he calls back to doctor and
says, “Sir, my wife has got a stomach ache,
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please do the appendix operation, she’ll
be fine.”
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And so doctor said — the doctor Manu said,
“Listen, I am the doctor, let me diagnose,
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Abdul, please bring her to the clinic and
we’ll fix it up.”
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But he said, ‘No, no, sir fix up that operation
date, we’ll do it in half an hour and we’ll
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be back — just she needs that appendix removed’.
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So now he’s losing his patience, he says
“Let me do the diagnosis, Abdul, bring her
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to the clinic.”
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And he’s still insisting and finally the
doctor lost it, and he said, “Listen, I
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am the doctor and let me tell you that every
human being has only one appendix, and I have
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already taken out the appendix.
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So please don’t tell me how to do my job.”
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Abdul waited very patiently for the doctor
to finish with his assumptions and then he
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shot back very meekly, he says, “Sir, I
agree with you, every human being can have
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one appendix but a man can have two wives,
right?”
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So when we start assuming what the rural India
needs, we do what I think is most dangerous.
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In my vast experiences of shooting in really
rural India’s, and villages and small [cook-gramins]
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like they call it in Tamil, really small places,
I realized shockingly that the biggest financial
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burden for a person of this particular village,
would you all be able to guess what his biggest
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financial burden is — five minutes!
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Hey so I’m going to speak for 20 today,
I am going to reduce the number of questions,
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I’m prepared, is that OK?
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OK, so can you all tell me, anybody, quick
answers — anybody know which is the biggest
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financial burden for a man in one of these
small villages?
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Sorry, tap, health, OK.
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Not health, not the marriage of a daughter,
not education, not – liquor, thank you for
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reminding me, no.
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Say it again, dowry, no, no, no, no.
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Let me put you out of your misery.
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I’m saying why does he need financial assistance
for — the answer is the untimely death of
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one relative of a senior in their family,
that is the one occasion he can’t prepare
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for, that is one occasion where the ceremony
demands that he spend a certain amount of
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money, feed a certain amount of people, use
the funeral expenditures and that’s where
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he takes the loan and that’s where he gets
indebted and that’s where, to escape that
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particular embarrassment and humility of not
having the ability to perform the function
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every year as a specter of the Indian tradition
that he decides to leave the village, because
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he’s made to feel inadequate.
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Lord Macaulay in 1735 had spoken in the British
Parliament and said, “The only way to rule
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India is to make the men there feel inadequate”,
he said and truly so, that unless he feels
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that what he has is lesser than what others
have, you will not be able to rule him.
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And within a very short period they proved
themselves right.
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The rural India today is feeling inadequate,
they are feeling like they’re not even part
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of our country.
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And what happens with that is they start then
looking at opportunities in villages and saying
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better education, better health, better lifestyle
and no humility for not having performed the
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funeral properly, they decide to give up who
they are and move to the cities.
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And who they are is what is more important
for us to understand.
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Who they are, are actually the timekeepers
and the bookkeepers of our deep-rooted traditional
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culture and stories.
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You know, you should see how tradition and
culture flourishes in a happy village in India.
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We don’t have psychiatrist as a big fashion
thing in India and they still manage to maintain
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a great level of sanity.
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You know, there’s a great phrase from the
poem, ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling where it
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says, ‘Dream but not make dreams your master;
think but not make thoughts your aim; meet
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with triumph and disaster and treat those
two Impostors just the same.’
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It’s very easy to say it but how do you
treat those two Impostors just the same?
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The answer lies in the tradition and the culture
and the books and the epics that are so prominent
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and predominant in our country – The Bhagavad
Gita, the Koran, the interpretation of that
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in the subcontinent, the Bible, the Guru Granth
Sahib, the Granny stories, and you know how
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to handle the diversities and the setbacks
and you’re able to sit back, assemble — reassemble
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yourself, come back and fight with the same
glory again.
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And we don’t give him — when you don’t
give a villager that, you’re depriving him,
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we’re depriving ourselves of what I think
is one of the most important survival tools
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in today’s world, which is the culture and
tradition.
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So I dream of a 2030 where rural India is
as developed as the rest of the world, is
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as aspirational as the rest of India and where
the villager is providedg with the same opportunities
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as it is available in the cities.
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And after a hard day’s work, a villager
is actually able to come back, sit down, have
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a drink, put his feet up and start thinking
about art and culture and poetry.
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That would be a dream that I have for 2030
— a practical dream that I have for 2030.
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And the dreams that your parents and my parents
had when we were in college — urban middle
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class – where everything revolved around
the boy, studying hard, getting into a technical
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college of a repute and then getting into
a reputed managements college and finally
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the green card.
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And if it was the girl, then it was a spouse
with a green card.
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I dream of a 2030 where students the world
over will dream of a blue card, will dream
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of having once actually come to India and
study and imbibe the knowledge that we have
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as a nation.
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It used to be true: we were the first university
in the world – Nalanda was the university
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where people came in from far and wide.
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So it’s not a pipe dream, it’s a practical
dream that I have, and I think that’s easily,
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easily attainable.
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And finally, before I wind up, I think, I’ll
dream of a 2030 where we have a meritocratic
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electoral base which selects its leaders and
whose leaders believe that it is more important
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to serve — with a missionary zeal to serve
the nation rather than rule it.
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You know, there is another stanza from the
same poem which says that, if they have the
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ability to talk to the crowds yet keep your
virtue, walk with Kings – nor lose the common
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touch, if neither good friends nor foes can
hurt you, yet all men count with you but none
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too much — if only the politicians understood
the gist of that line, we would have a progressive
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country by 2030 where we’ll all be proud
of not just the way the country is running
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but also proud about our politicians.
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And finally, you know, I’m an actor and
the dream that I have for myself is that in
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2030 I’m as relevant and as handsome hopefully
but if age was to catch up, then they probably
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would have mapped my face by then and use
technology to make me look as young or old,
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as the role desired me to look, and I’m
still able to romance the pretty young things
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that would be part of the industry in 2030.
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I see that’s got many guys going ham.
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And finally as an actor, I’m used and prone
to dialogues, I love to speak dialogues, and
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I recently found a line that blew me apart
and I thought it was a phenomenal Hindi film
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dialogue, where this great gentleman has said,
“That whatever I am today and all the achievements
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that have been – that has been possible
by me and what will eventually also be possible
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by me in the near future are all because of
my angel mother.”
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Do you know who said that?
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You know who said that?
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Shockingly Abraham Lincoln!
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So I dream of a 2030 where every Indian says
the exact same thing about his mother and
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not just about his mother but also about his
motherland – and also for the sake of posterity
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about his mother-in-law.
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But hey, ladies and gentlemen, what do I know?
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I am an actor.
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Thank you very much for your patient hearing.
