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Aruna Sharma is director-general of Doordarshan

What does spirituality mean to you?
It has got nothing to do with religion. It is about goodness, about leading a good life, being a good person.

How does it manifest in your day-to-day life?
I don’t discuss persons but their qualities. I mould myself, trying to keep myself away from gossip. And I believe that everybody has some good points.
I am a core administrator, that’s basically what I am, and therefore the beauty lies in exploiting the positive points people have, instead of focusing on their issues. In the work culture, if you give someone a chance to use their good points, they will excel, and in the end it serves the organization well. It helps in reaching a win-win situation.

When situations are not black or white, how do you make decisions?
My sixth sense guides me and I have to say, it never goes wrong. If that warning comes and I do not listen to it, I invariably regret it later. My sixth sense is the correct analysis of the situation. And it has always stood by me. It is a logical thing, it is well informed, it is not only about intuition.

How did you figure out what you would do in life?
As a teenager you are too young to decide. I was quite confused at that stage. I wanted to be a doctor. But once admitted in medical college I realized I did not want to become a doctor. Basically I was a bit vague in life during graduation, not focused, enjoying my college life to the fullest. When I graduated I became a bit more serious and destiny kicked in, which led me to the IAS. I come from a family of engineers and doctors, there was no tradition of entering the services, nor a role model in my immediate surroundings. But we had a neighbour who used to observe me playing around. One day he called me and asked about my plans in life. He suggested I sit for the Indian civil service exams. He took me to some civil servants and senior bureaucrats and this convinced me to take that route, because I felt I could have a good impact in that kind of a job. That is when I decided to try that route and worked hard at it. That is what I call destiny, 100% destiny. Going that route was not in my thought process at all.

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