How would you describe your connection to India?
It is some sort of a fascination. Of course I do not know it. The same way I do not know America --- last year 48% of Americans still voted Republican. So I definitely do not know my country! And for India, the more I learn, the more I feel I don’t know it. But the children I have worked with are so bright, joyous, anxious to learn, unspoiled, never complaining even though they often walk miles to go to school. It is so different from the world we live in here in California. Such different values. There is only a thin epidermis separating our world from theirs. It would not take much to be like theirs. And I find it morally appropriate. I think we live too good in a way in our world here. Yet these kids have a spirit we can’t match.
So India completely changed my life. Not only the knowledge that at least I have done some good beyond working at films, but it was never only about sending checks, I know and connected with the kids I have been helping.

Would you say there is something like a definitive purpose to life?
I try not to be too philosophic about who I am or the world I live in.
As a kid, I had no idea what I would want to do. I grew up in the Bronx. People were just struggling to make it. Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein lived a few blocks away from me. Many people in the entertainment field in Hollywood also came from the Bronx. I don’t think it is by chance. But because they knew how to struggle to get ahead, and that is what is needed here. It is competitive, you can’t just sit idle and expect for things to happen. The Bronx was not poverty but definitely lower middle-class. So we all intuitively understood there was no fall-back. We had to make it for ourselves.

... contd.