India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called 'the golden bird'. We have fallen from where we were before. But now we have the chance to rise again. If you see the details of the last five or ten centuries, you will see that India and China have grown at similar paces. Their contributions to global GDP have risen in parallel, and fallen in parallel. Today's era once again belongs to Asia. India and China are both growing rapidly, together. That is why India needs to remain India.
A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can never be spent.
A country that cannot feed itself cannot have self-pride, and in the mid-'60s 20 percent of all the wheat produced in America came into India. We were agriculturally a basket case. And 15 years later, 20 years later, we have become an agricultural power. This is the famous Green Revolution.
And I don't want posture lessons from a country that spent the last 20 years flopping on its back and grabbing its ankles when Saddam showed up waving stacks of Francs in exchange for bang-sticks.
There is an old guest house opposite my house, and grandsons visit from time to time from the U.S., every time grown up a little. I don't know whether the same grandchildren come every time or it is someone else.
I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper adult. I had been very grown-up in primary school. But as I continued through secondary school, I in fact became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time.
There are some geologists involved with prospecting for oil and other hidden resources who can pick up a rock and say, 'Yes, there's oil under there.' A geologist who has been studying those kinds of rocks for 10 or 20 years is able to make that pronouncement.
Every day I wake up, and I think about the wear and tear on my body, and will I be able to continue to perform at a high level. Sometimes I'm working with guys that are 15 years younger than me, 20 years younger than me.
India will be successful when UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and other parts of North East India are strengthened. India cannot develop till the eastern part of the country develops.
I spent 12 years of my life, the last six years training six to eight hours a day, every day of my life. At the time, when I was 20 to 26, I could do things like that, and you're not going to notice it.
If you're 20 years old, you've grown up without buying albums.
I've been a regular customer at CVS Pharmacy, the country's second-largest drugstore chain, for 20 years. I've spent a small fortune there over that span, visiting several times a week to pick up everything from milk to toothpaste to prescriptions.
There is no disillusionment about India as far as I am concerned. There could never come a time when I would get disillusioned with my own country.
I spent a disproportionate amount of my time in a car in L.A. I'm 35 years old. If you add up the hours spent in cars, it would be years.
I spent almost 11 years at university. I have three degrees. I was a nutritional scientist for the Department of National Defense, and then I spent the next 20 years studying it and writing about it.
I have never let down Italy, and I never will. I love my country, and I owe a lot to my country, and in that sense, whatever I can and will be able to do for my country, I will do.