WEBVTT

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Thank you Sean.

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My story actually starts with two films:

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The first is "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham",
- it's a great name -

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one of the most successful films
produced in India,

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and the Oscar-winning
"Slumdog Millionaire,"

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one of the most successful films
produced about India.

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So when we look at images of these films,

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we see two very different views
of the same country:

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one is a fairy-tale, this nation built
on wealth and romance,

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the other is a near calamity,

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a place filled with poverty
and corruption.

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Cinema offers us insights

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into how we can perceive
a country and its people,

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who they are, what they value,
how they see themselves,

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as well as how others see them.

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And from these images,

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the view of India it seems
is either that of a musical or a slum.

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So my own journey into the world of films
started in the suburbs of Chicago

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where I was born.

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I'm the second child
of two Indian immigrants,

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and growing up in a joint family,

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I was raised on stories told to me
by both my grandfathers,

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one of whom left school in the fourth grade

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to sell timber to the British
during the reign of the Empire.

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The other worked for a local government,

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and he would travel
to remote areas of India

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in order to implement
the policies of the British Raj.

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So as I grew up, I remember listening
to these stories of India in the 1940s,

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and longing for a connection
to my own current story,

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that of America in the 1990s.

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I found this through film.

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Through stories that were rooted
in the American experience,

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and offered me a perspective

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that were so different
from the stories of my origin.

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However, it was the disparity
between these two stories

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that served as a constant reminder to me

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of the hardwork and the sacrifice
my parents had made to come to America.

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Mainly, to offer
their children opportunities

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that they themselves never had.

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America was possibility, freedom,
and a place to make an impact.

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My brother and I were raised
fueled by that desire:

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the desire to give something back

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to a country that had given
so much to our family.

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I took this ideology with me
into my first job out of college

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at a prestigious magazine
in New York City.

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It was pretty much my dream job,

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writing for a publication
that I had idolized as a kid

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for its political, environmental,
and issues-driven content.

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It was serious journalism,
but made accessible,

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and that felt like it was
a real vehicle for change in my eyes.

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However, instead of the fulfillment
that I had expected, I felt emptiness.

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It was as if I was surrounded by people
who were more concerned

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about how they, their brand,
and their legacy was perceived

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instead of their content.

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So that serious journalism
that I was drawn to,

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its message felt lost and diluted.

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I had built up this idea in my head

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about what writing about social issues
could do in terms of creating an impact,

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and instead, I was faced with the reality

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that to me, that message
felt so out of reach.

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So I quit my job.

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I moved back home
with my parents in Chicago

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and I was completely disillusioned.

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I spent months there;
and finally, with nothing left to do,

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I booked a ticket to go to
a friend's wedding in India

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for a two-week trip.

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Little did I know

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that I would find my lasting connection
to stories and their impact

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in the country of my grandfathers' birth

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and through a medium
that I knew nothing about:

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Bollywood.

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So a few days after I got to India,

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through friends of friends I was invited
to visit a Bollywood film shoot.

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And it was like nothing
I had ever seen before.

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I remember watching
as actors and actresses lip-synced

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to these songs that blared
from speakers overhead,

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and they were twirling together
in front of a green screen,

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meant not to represent India,

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but the mountains of Switzerland
or the pyramids of Egypt.

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(Laughter)

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So this was a story like none
I had ever seen before.

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It was different from the stories
of my grandfathers

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and from the stories
that I sought out in Chicago.

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It was just the most
incredible thing for me.

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Seeing something so unknown to me
was what pulled me in,

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it made me want to learn more

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about what the current story of India was,
and what it meant to its people.

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So I set up a couple of meetings

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with the few people that I knew
who knew people in Bollywood,

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and at one of them, with
the Confederation of Indian Industry

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which is an organization that works
to promote industry in India,

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I was asked to write a report
on the state of the film business

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So I stayed at first for a month,
then for three months,

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and finally, for over two years.

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I worked in International Marketing
and Branding for Bollywood films,

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setting up meetings for Indian producers
in LA with their American counterparts,

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putting together the first official Indian
presence at the Cannes Film Festival,

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and organizing a conference
where Indian producers would get to meet

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with Marketing and Distribution experts
from all over the world.

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But this was where I realized
my own paradox.

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I had thought that by addressing
social issues head on

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by writing about them, I would find
my way of creating an impact.

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But instead, it was in that moment
of my disillusionment

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that I stumbled upon the fantasies,
and the fairy-tales of Bollywood,

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and that was where I found my meaning.

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Because Bollywood films, although
they are musicals full of song and dance,

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they are important to a country
of over a billion people,

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and there is one very simple
reason as to why: they give us hope.

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But this is the paradox of Indian films,

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because Bollywood films mirror
this dream of what India wants to be,

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not what it really is.

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And films like Slumdog Millionaire
limit our view of all that India can be.

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So somewhere between these two stories,

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between this homegrown fantasy,
and this imported fiction,

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there lies a third emerging story.

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And that is
of a growing Indian middle class,

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of young people who have opportunities

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that they couldn't have imagined
for themselves a generation ago,

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of women who are charting
their own course in their lives,

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and of a country that although is
in a constant transition and influx

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is experiencing a renewal
of all that it really is.

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And to me, these are the stories
that have the most meaning,

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because these are the stories
that allow us to break down

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our stereotypes of a people and a place,

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they allow us to re-examine who we are,
and how others see us,

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but most of all, these stories
reinforce the idea

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that our own lives are good enough to be
the stories that we share with others.

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So it's because of my own journey
that I am always inspired to ask others

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to look past
what they know of their stories,

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to re-examine how they see themselves,
and how others see them.

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For me, that involved letting go of a lot
of the constructs I had in my head

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about what impact was
and where I would find it.

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Because although we all have

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our own versions of a path
that we see in front of us,

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or a story that we think
that we've written for ourselves,

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it is sometimes that unknown story,

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the journey we didn't think we'd take
that leads to our new voice,

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it's that story that has us
shift past the fantasy and the fiction,

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and finally to focus on our own truth.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)