My features I take from my father, but my spirit, my industry and perseverance I get from my Indian mother.
I am extremely honoured by Indian Council For Culture Relations, India's apex body on the promotion of great Indian culture across the world for including cinema and I am deeply honoured for being the first person from the Indian film industry to represent the cause of this industry in the overall cultural promotion globally.
You have to be very skilled in this industry. I grew in this industry; we created the very beginnings of this industry. We made the first PCs (personal computers) in the world.
Be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother."
I'm singularly lucky to have worked with directors who dared me to take risks and be different and I am thankful to the Indian film industry for giving me my primary identity.
After I finished university and started going to auditions again, and I also did a bunch of other jobs. I worked in the insurance industry, the digital media industry; I worked in a financial services company for three years.
Terry's mother worked in the film industry for many years. She always wanted him to marry an actress.
My mother's mother is Jewish and African, so I guess that would be considered Creole. My mother's father was Cherokee Indian and something else. My dad's mother's Puerto Rican and black, and his father was from Barbados.
I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren't many degrees offered in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money.
Since I came from another part of the world, I expected many differences in the way things worked, but at the end of the day, there actually were more similarities between the American and Indian entertainment industry: the same chaos, creativity, passion, and genius all around.
My siblings and I grew up on Indian food. My mother, though of Slovenian descent, learned to cook Indian delicacies for my father after their wedding.
Having portrayed English-speaking Indian characters in British and American projects, I have always wanted to use my mother tongue in an Indian film.
The food we ate was Indian, and both my mother and father were very deep into the ancient philosophy of India, so it could well have been an Indian household.
My mother worked in factories, worked as a domestic, worked in a restaurant, always had a second job.
One of the weaknesses of Indian industry is that in many areas.. like consumer goods.. it is very fragmented. Individually, the companies might not be able to survive. What is needed is a consortium of like companies in one industry, presenting a strong front to the multinationals. The Swiss watch industry did this.
The U.S. government doesn't build your computers, nor do you fly aboard a U.S. government owned and operated airline. Private industry routinely takes technologies pioneered by the government and turns them into cheap, reliable and robust industries. This has happened in aviation, air mail, computers, and the Internet.