Things are meant to fit in a box not people
[Applause]
namaste thank you so much for having me
here with you today dit university
um a very warm welcome to the management
to our professors our teachers thank you
so much
thank you to all the students who turned
up and a big shout out to the organizing
committee for pulling this off
in these times can we give it up for the
organizing committee everyone
cheers to you guys um i’d like to start
with um
a short moment of silence for uh the
braveheart who lost her life recently in
hatras
so may i request you to please maintain
silence for the next
thank you you can choose to stand or sit
however you like it
let’s just say a small collective prayer
thank you
all right so i wanted to begin this
morning which is now afternoon
with my favorite lines by my favorite
poet which i read
back in school called robert frost and
they stayed in my heart forever
this is how they go i shall be telling
this
with a sigh somewhere ages and ages
hence
two roads diverged in the woods and i
took the one less traveled by
and that my friends has made all the
difference
so let me tell you that i was the moral
child in school okay i was
every indian parents dream kid i was i
was killing it at studies you know i was
scoring well
i was doing everything that i was
supposed to do i
i actually topped my board examinations
and made it to the college of my dreams
basically i was i was doing everything
that that you’re supposed to do when you
follow a set pattern
precisely i was in a box i was inside a
box
um now let me tell you about things that
i loved to do
as a student i love to paint you know i
love to dance i’m a trained classical
dancer i loved
loved being a part of the debating
society of my
school in college i used to always
wonder
that why is it that there’s only one
arts class in the entire month
and two math classes every day the
answer that i’ve
never got delayed by the memory
professor
um so then moving on i want to now come
over
to a day that completely changed my life
to the first day that changed my life
which was the day of my college
placements i’m sure a lot of you
students sitting here will relate to
that
so you know i dressed up in my favorite
shirt and my pants and
pressed it ironed it out and my mom
helped me um get dressed and put up my
my big smile and my confidence and i
walked into the room where these
were these honchos from you know google
and some of the biggest organizations
were out there
to to place us to basically write our
fate and our destiny it was in their
hands
so i was extremely confident it was a
smooth interview i made it
two days later i had my offer letter in
my hand
so i really wanna tell you i was i
should be ecstatic right i should be
extremely happy
this is the moment that i had studied
for my entire life right
my family was ecstatic though i come
from a very simple
middle class punjabi household where we
need reasons to celebrate yeah there was
a feast okay
because so parents are extremely happy
but i know something is irking me
in the back of my head something was
disturbing me
i kept asking myself why am i not happy
why am i not able to celebrate this
moment
so um i lived in a small one room
apartment and there was a store that my
mom had converted into my study
so i locked myself in the store room and
i kept staring at my offer later
i asked myself a simple question
what makes you happy creativity or
analytics
where do you see yourself 10 years from
now what’s
really what truly do you do you see
yourself becoming
and i got the answer guys and i went to
my father
i mustered up the courage to go up to
him and
i told him dad i don’t want to take up
this job
and my father was the most calm composed
gentleman that i know
only said um he only showed me something
he didn’t say a word he said
you see that roof above we lived in
a small one room and he said this loaf
is leaking
it’s leaking and i don’t have the
resources to repair this
so we truly need this job even after
this if you
if you plan on not taking this up and
throwing away this opportunity
i’ll still stand by you but it’s your
responsibility and your accountability
so i’m trying to tell you that i never
came from a place of privilege where you
know
it’s very easy to follow your heart and
give away the security of a job no i
didn’t come from that place
but the thing with us creative
eccentric people is that we never follow
a pattern you know
we don’t follow our paths and i don’t
know i personally truly feel that
things are supposed to fit in a box not
people
not you not i we’re supposed to
you know be infinite we’re supposed to
do whatever we want to do
we’re supposed to paint the canvas of
our lives with whatever color we want
that should not be predecided and i’m
extremely grateful to my 19 year old
self to that little girl
who was confused and she gave herself
the opportunity
to be who she wanted to be not who she
was supposed to be
moving on cut two
ten years later but before that let me
tell you a little about my struggle in
the field emceeing anchoring it wasn’t
easy guys
i i a round of applause for the anchor
who introduced me and now it is a
full-fledged profession
big up to you girl thank you but thank
you
but back then this was not a profession
okay
this was not a real job it was not a
real profession
so i had to genuinely go ahead and knock
so many doors
make so many calls wait for hours to
meet people
just to convince them that you need an
emcee for your event
not not even that you need to hire me
that you actually need an emcee
so as not just believing in myself but i
was believing
that this is going to be a full-fledged
profession in a couple of years
i have performed at the most bizarre
places you know without a stage
i have performed in buses in roadsides
in the remotest of cities that you can
name and think of
um in a mall in a small canopy without a
mic
shouting at the top of my voice without
a green room you know i used to
knock a door in residential colonies and
request lady
can you please let me change in your
home it was super tough
but then cut to ten years later cut two
is the language in theatre and movies
which means now 10 years later i
performed in over 24 countries around
the world in the most
iconic venues with the most iconic
artists
that i can think of from er rahman to
shahrukh khan whoever that you can think
of
i have won all the major awards and
accolades in
my category in my fraternity
and then that disturbance in the back of
my head
started again it started irking me you
know
what next what am i doing
am i again fitting myself in a box so i
started learning to act theater happened
to me
i started giving a lot of auditions then
i um cracked a role i
got a hindi bollywood movie acted as a
lead in that it was a beautiful
experience
um i i grew up a community of
lakhs of people online i don’t know they
call them influencers these days
but i think if you’re a real influencer
you’ll influence
ideas and thoughts and minds and not
just put pretty pictures out there
um i i also am an entrepreneur i just
happen to co-found a
startup with a friend next i want to
write a book
so who did i want to be a google
executive
what do you get when you google my name
today you know entrepreneur actor
live host social media influencer and
there’s a whole lot of world of
possibilities and things that i can do
now i’m coming to the second day that
changed me forever and changed my life
i’m going to take a breath so um
i was hosting sorry i was addressing a
press conference
for the first time in my life as an
actor for the promotions of my movie
and um you know there was this young
little girl who was standing there on
the podium
i was really happy to see her i was
smiling at her
i was being nostalgic going back to my
old times and days
and my struggle and it was a smooth
press meet
and um i just waved a bite to her before
leaving and i just
uh smiled at her and then something
happened that changed my life forever
this girl comes running to me and you
know in our culture we bend down and we
do this
the girl bent down and she touched my
feet
and when somebody does that in your 20s
to you you don’t know how to react right
because i never saw myself like that i
never put myself on a pedestal i was so
busy working and running and
following my heart that it escaped me
that in the process
i was actually influencing young minds
their career choices their life paths
their thoughts their ideas that day
changed me forever
that day made me realize that our job as
entertainers
as creative people and by creative
people i don’t just mean actors or
anchors i mean artists i mean dancers i
mean
painters i mean lyricists writers poets
everybody we have the power to create a
larger impact
we have the power to actually impact
people’s choices
in life if you’re an entertainer and
you’re only entertaining
i respect you and i don’t judge you
but that day taught me that as an
entertainer that as an artist
i could create a bigger impact out there
i could i could contribute to the social
fabric
of the society that i could add grace to
the society
and i think we should use every
opportunity every stage
every moment of the camera to do that
that we should set a good example so
today
i’m a sustainability advocate um
you know i’m an animal rights activist
i’m a vegan evangelist
i invest in vegan brands
don’t worry i don’t force my vegan
agenda on you i
i talk about sustainability i support
brands and designers that
make sustainable fabrics like these
i’m proud to say that i do a lot of work
for animals
i rescue and save a lot of animals
foster them
love them care for them this is my small
way of
giving back to the universe that’s
that’s given me so much
so the point in the end that i’m trying
to make over here is
magic happens to you when you let it
happen
magic happens to you when you don’t let
yourself
be defined you know by anybody not even
by yourself
magic happens to you when you realize
that you’re not a thing
to be put inside a box i truly hope
that all of you sitting in this room
today no matter what age you’re from
what background you’re from whether
you’re privileged or not
you muster up the courage to listen to
that one voice
inside your gut you know at the back of
your head
to follow your path take that chance and
take that leap of faith
thank you
you