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Sunit Tandon is the head of Lok Sabha TV, a theatre actor and a former Doordarshan anchor

What does spirituality mean to you?
I see many manifestations around me of what people call spirituality. Especially in a country like India which has so many religions and ways of being spiritual. Actually people often confuse religion and spirituality. And it can all be extremely bewildering.
Personally I don’t really believe in anything that other people call spirituality. I suppose I believe more in ethics and morality rather than spirituality because the latter would assume believing in some external force or power. And I believe that whatever is there is internal, you must cope with it, you can’t lay the blame on something external to yourself. Either you accept responsibility for who and what you are, including your state of mind and emotions, or you try to escape, looking for some guidance from a book, a person, or some concept external to yourself. All these can help and contribute to getting down the path towards morality and ethics but they can also distract you from that path. Therefore I tend to be suspicious of spirituality, until I know which direction it actually is in.

You always felt that way?
By and large, yes, at least ever since I began to really think for myself. As a child of course you accept whatever is taught to you.

You had a religious upbringing?
Not particularly, apart from the usual rituals on the main holidays. It was a very relaxed Hinduism, more a way of life than anything else. Hinduism was about choosing whatever god would suit you at a certain moment in time. The freedom of choice was always there, as well as the freedom not to believe. Hinduism is actually one religion with a strong atheistic tradition, it always had a space for atheism.

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