R. Madhavan

So, first of all, thank you very much for having me here at the Inspire series. It's worked dramatically. I'm already inspired to be addressing this really august intellectual gathering of people from Harvard, you know, a place that my mother thought I would never reach. But you know what?

A lot of people have spoken before me and eloquently and described their dreams for India and given, figures and facts that either are skeptical and like, Mr. Ober says, aspirational. But I'm just an actor, and I'm gonna just give you my dream shamelessly because that's the thing that I can do best.

And by that I mean when we talk of dreams, we have one of our greatest scientists and philanthropist, Dr. Abdul Kalam, and he said something which is very interesting. He said, "Dreams are not what you have when you sleep. The true dreams are the ones that don't let you sleep."

He said that when you have that dream once, it's a dream. When you have it twice, it becomes a desire. And when you see it for the third time consecutively, it becomes a passion, an aim, and a goal, and that is the passion with which I want to see this fantasy that I have for India 2030.

And Abraham Lincoln also, was a dreamer. And you know, but he said one thing that makes most sense in trying to achieve this goal that I have dreamt for my nation. He said, "If I have six hours to cut down a tree, then I will spend the first four hours sharpening the ax."

There's a great philosophy in that. In this era of instant gratification, we just keep thinking we can achieve all these goals by just tweaking this, tweaking that. It's not true. I really believe that a missionary zeal is required to make that quantum change.

That can make 2030 the, what I'm dreaming about right now. And just let's look at India as a country. What a unique nation, seriously.

Thousands of years old of culture and tradition. Many invasions, being ruled for many years, and we still somehow managed to maintain our identity. We still somehow have managed to maintain our Indianness, our beliefs, our faith.

And you know, yeah, there has been, we have our drawbacks. This, you know, there is corruption, there is violence, there is, differences between the different religions and sects and castes and everything. But I can't help but think, looking at India, at the geography, that we're not doing really that bad.

Look at all the other nations around in the world. Look at our neighbors. Compared to that, there is somebody in India who's doing something right for us to be called a growing economy and being projected as the third largest economy in 2026 and the most educated, and young nation in the world, and it's still functional democracy.

So let's first accept the fact that there is somebody, some people in India with the right ideas and the ability to lead the nation to where we are today. Under that assumption- Under that assumption, we are also very capable of finding very unique solutions to the problems that generally the world faces. And you know, and one of them, of course, is the fact that we found freedom through nonviolence and noncooperation.

Who would have thought that was possible? We have some other great. No, seriously, I mean, it was as radical a thought, then as it is today.

And one man in a loincloth with belief and faith and complete conviction was able to do that for us, you know, Mahatma Gandhi. And it's an amazing country of people, like Mahavir, Gautam Buddha, and Mahatma Gandhi and then Bhagat Singh, who also had a dream.

He dreamt then 85 years ago that, "I dream of an India where no infant cries for the want of milk, no youngster, is deprived of relevant education, and no youth goes door to door finding a job." Sadly, it's still a dream today. And I dream of a 2030 when this dream becomes irrelevant.

I dream of a 2030 when everybody's so equally satisfied, with what they're doing that they're able to actually devote more time back to art and culture, which is another great important aspect of our country. Now, we need to be a. For that to happen, we need to be a healthy nation.

And when I say healthy, I remember preparing for a film of mine, which I which released recently, where I had to look like a boxer, and I had these, you know, biceps and triceps that had to be there. So I decided just to work on the parts that is seen outside, my clothes. So I was just working out on my biceps and my triceps and my shoulders.

But you know what I suddenly realized? The strength that I had in my arms and biceps was not actually enough for me to look even fit because it is disproportionate growth. It is the kind of growth that will not make you fit or strong, but actually make you look inadequate.

And that is what is happening to India today. Everybody says we are the largest economy, the populate. We're gonna be the most populated country, in the years to come and you know, with, economic superpower and supremacy in rocket and space technology, which I am, privy to, and then IT giants and smarter cities.

But ladies and gentlemen, I really believe that more than smarter cities, we require smart villages. And this is going to be primarily what I talk about today. You know, a nation is only as strong as its weakest link, and rural India is our weakest link.

See, it's important that growth and progress, goes hand in hand with the villages also getting onto the same train towards economic freedom, superpowerdom, all the terms that have been coined for a successful country, but that is not happening. The reason being, We're beginning to ignore them.

We're beginning to actually believe that, this is a very interesting line that I've, you know, found where they say that everybody believes that they know what is required for getting the underprivileged and the poor, up to speed with the rest of the country. Okay? And we always start assuming that this is what they want.

This is how we can help the poor and the villages, and this is what they need. And we can't be more wrong because when you assume and as the spelling goes, you make an ass of you and me. I'm gonna tell you how that happened to a friend of mine.

His name was, he's a very profound doctor, a gastroenterologist, and he got a call from his patient, Mr. Abdul, who said, "Doctor Saab, my wife is really ill, and she's got a big stomach ache, and she can't sit, and she can't sleep, and she's in big, pain. Can I come and visit you?" And he said, "Yeah, by all means."

And like all patients today, he has done his research. He's gone into the internet, and he said, "And the doctor said, "Don't worry. Let me handle it."

And he checked her out, and he said, "She has a infected, appendix, so I have to do a surgery, and she'll be fine." The surgery was done. He was fine, and Doctor and Abdul was a happy man.

One year later, he calls back the doctor and says, "Sir, my wife has got a stomach ache. Please do the appendix operation. She'll be fine." so, doctor said, Dr. Manoj said, "Listen, that, you know, I'm the doctor.

Let me diagnose what I have to. Please bring her to the, to the clinic, and we'll fix it up." He says, "no, sir, fix up that operation, date.

We'll do it in half an hour, and we'll be back. Just, she needs her appendix removed." So now he's losing his patience.

He says, "Let me do the diagnosis, Abdul. Bring her to the, clinic." And he's still insisting, and finally the doctor lost it, and he said, "Listen, I'm the doctor, and let me tell you that every human being has only one appendix, and I've already taken out the appendix, so please don't tell me how to do my job."

Abdul waited very patiently for the doctor to finish with his assumptions, and then he shot back very meekly. He says, "Sir, I agree with you. Every human being can have one appendix, but a man can have two wives, right?"

So when we start assuming what the, what the rural India needs, we do what I think is most dangerous.

In my vast experiences of shooting in really rural Indias, you know, and villages and small Kukgramams like they call it in Tamil, really small places, I realized shockingly that the biggest financial burden for a person of of this particular village, would y'all be able to guess what his biggest financial burden is? Five minutes? Hey, so I'm gonna speak for twenty today. I'm gonna reduce the number of questions.

I'm prepared. Is that okay? Okay, so can y'all tell me, anybody? Quick answers. Anybody know?

Which is the biggest financial burden for a man in one of these small villages? Theft. Sorry? Theft. Theft. Health. Health. Okay. No, not health, not the marriage of a daughter, not education, Liquor.

Sorry? Liquor. Liquor. Thank you for reminding me. No. Dowry. Say that again. Dowry. Dowry? No. No.

Dowry. No. Food. No. Oh, let me, let me, let me put you out of your misery. Financial assistance. No fina that's I'm saying, what does he need financial assistance for?

The answer is the untimely death of a relative, of a senior in their family. That is the one occasion he can't prepare for. That is one occasion where the ceremony demands that he spend a certain amount of money, feed a certain amount of people, you know, use, the funeral, the expenditures, and that's where he takes the loan, and that's where he gets indebted.

And that's where to escape that particular embarrassment and humility of not having a, the ability to perform the function every year as is expected of the, of the Indian tradition, that he decides to leave the village because he's made to feel inadequate. Lord Macaulay had in in seventeen thirty-five, had spoken in the British Parliament and said the, "The only way to rule India is to make the men there feel inadequate."

He said, and truly so, that unless he feels that what he has, is lesser than what others have, you will not be able to rule him. And within a very short period, they proved themselves right. The rural India today is feeling inadequate.

They're feeling like they're not even part of our country. And what happens with that is they start then looking at opportunities in villages and saying better education, better health, better lifestyle, and no humility for not having performed the funeral properly. They decide to give up who they are and move, to the cities.

And who they are is what is more important for us to understand. Who they are are actually the timekeepers and the bookkeepers of our deep-rooted traditional culture and stories. You know, the you should see how tradition and culture flourishes in a happy village in India.

We don't have psychiatrist, as a big fashion thing in India, and they still manage to maintain a great level of sanity. You know, there's a great, there's a great, phrase in, from the poem If by Rudyard Kipling where it says, "Dream, but not make dreams your master. Think, but not make thoughts your aim.

Meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same." It's very easy to say it, but how do you treat those two impostors just the same? The answer lies in the tradition and the culture and the books and the epics that are so prominent and predominant in our country.

The Bhagavad Gita, the Quran, the interpretation of that in the subcontinent, the Bible, the Guru Granth Sahib, the granny stories, and you know how to handle the diversities and the setbacks, and you're able to sit back, assemble, reassemble yourself, come back and fight with the same glory again. And we don't give them.

When you don't give a villager that, you're depriving him, we're depriving ourselves of what I think is one of the most important survival tool, in today's world, which is the culture and tradition. So I dream of a 2030 where rural India is as developed as the rest of the world, was as, aspirational as the rest of India.

And where the villager, is provided with the same opportunities as it is available in the cities, and after a hard day's work, a villager is actually able to come back, sit down, have a drink, put his feet up, and start thinking about art and culture and poetry. That would be a dream that I have for 2030, a practical dream that I have for 2030.

And the dreams that your parents and my parents had when, we were, we were in college, urban middle class, where everything revolved around the boy studying hard, getting into a technical college of a repute, and then getting into a reputed managements college, and finally, the green card. And if it was the girl, then it was a spouse with a green card.

I dream of a 2030 where students the world over will dream of a blue card, will dream of having once actually come to India and study and imbibe the knowledge that we have as a nation. It used to be true. We were the first university in the world.

Nalanda was a university where people came in from far and wide. So it's not a, it's not a pipe dream. It is, it's a practical dream that I have, and I think that's easily, attainable.

And finally, before I wind up, I think I dream of a 2030 where we have a meritocratic electoral base which selects its leaders and whose leaders believe that it is more important to serve to, with a missionary zeal, to serve the nation rather than rule it.

You know, there is this, another stanza from the same poem which says that, "If they have the ability to talk to the crowds, yet keep your virtue. Walk with kings, nor lose the common touch. If neither good friends nor foes can hurt you yet all men count with you but none too much."

If only the politicians understood the gist of that line, we would have a progressive country by 2030 where we'd all be proud of not just the way the country's running, but also, about, proud about our politicians. And finally, you know, I'm an actor, and the dream that I have for myself is that in 2030, I'm as relevant, I'm as handsome hopefully, but,

If age was to catch up, then they probably would have mapped my face by then and used technology to make me look as young or old as the role desired me to look, and I'm still able to romance the pretty young things that will be part of the industry in 2030. Well, I see that's got many guys going, huh? And finally, as an actor, I'm used and prone to dialogues.

I love to speak dialogues, and I've, I suddenly I recently found a line that blew me apart, and I thought it was a phenomenal Hindi film dialogue where this great gentleman had said that, "Whatever I am today, and all the achievements that I've been, that has been possible by me and what will eventually also be possible by me in the near future is all because of my angel mother."

Do you know who said that? Do you know who said that? Shockingly, Abraham Lincoln. So I dream of a 2030 where every Indian says the exact same thing about his mother, and not just about his mother, but also about his motherland.

And For the sake of posterity, about his mother-in-law. But hey, ladies and gentlemen, what do I know? I am an actor.

Thank you very much for your patient hearing and-