Vivek Oberoi: from a “victim” to “hero”

Brut India

Vivek Oberoi opened up about how his personal struggles in Bollywood led him to empower thousands. He was speaking at IndiaGlobalForum London. Brut is the culture partner for #IGFLondon2024

Transcript

00:00I was winning a lot of awards in my career and suddenly it evaporated because a bunch

00:04of people who had a lot of power in Bollywood decided, you're not going to work here anymore.

00:10We'll make sure that that happens.

00:11I experienced a lot of frustration and pain and anger and felt like a victim and I didn't

00:16know how to deal with it.

00:17My mom is somebody I really look up to.

00:19She's my hero.

00:20And she said, put your attention into being a hero to someone else and you'll feel like

00:24a hero.

00:25You'll feel like a winner.

00:28The only way you can transition from a victim to a hero is to be a hero to someone.

00:33So you start finding that someone that you can be a hero to.

00:36I came in from a time where I got a lot of success.

00:40I was winning a lot of awards in my career and suddenly it evaporated because a bunch

00:44of people who had a lot of power in Bollywood decided, you're not going to work here anymore.

00:50We'll make sure that that happens.

00:51I experienced a lot of frustration and pain and anger and felt like a victim and I didn't

00:56know how to deal with it.

00:57My mom is somebody I really look up to.

00:59She's my hero.

01:01And she said, put your attention into being a hero to someone else and you'll feel like

01:04a hero.

01:05You'll feel like a winner.

01:06And I accidentally chanced upon something that eventually became Project Devi, which

01:11started with rescuing a small bunch of girls, but then post-rescue wanted to do rehabilitation.

01:17I said, how do we empower them?

01:18We empower them with free food, free education, free healthcare, and their ability to think

01:23now that the primary needs are taken care of, to start to think differently.

01:28Take me back to the situation the girls were in when you found them.

01:3224 hours later, they would have been dispersed across the country, sold like worse than animals,

01:39kept in conditions that are totally inhuman.

01:42The eldest…

01:43What, as prostitutes or as laborers or what?

01:45Everything, right?

01:46Just commodity.

01:47So the eldest was 13, the youngest was 5, Nisha.

01:50So that still happens.

01:52Now because of Project Devi, which is a goddess, of course, but stands the full form as development

01:56and empowerment of Vrindavan Girls Initiative, we've impacted 15,000 girls over the years,

02:02empowered them, and now in a skewed ratio where in villages, boys have a lot more import

02:09than girls, right?

02:10The girls can sleep hungry, but the boys are to be fed.

02:14But boys haven't been to college.

02:16In 14 such villages, my girls are going to college.

02:20They're going to international universities.

02:22And when I ask all of them, what do you want to do when you're successful?

02:26They say, when I'm successful, I want to come back to my village and I want to help more

02:30girls like me.

02:32And that's why I say women are the conscience keepers of society.

02:34It's important to start making girls believe in themselves.

02:37And while they were growing up, they wanted to be just like their mom.

02:40I have a nine-year-old daughter who wants to be just like my wife.

02:43She wants to be just like mom.

02:44But all these girls, I haven't seen a single one of them when they come into our organizations

02:49who want to be like their mom.

02:50They want to be anything but their mom.

02:53They want anything but their life, the story, the journey of their moms.

02:56I believe equitable distribution of wealth between men and women is equitable distribution

03:03of power.

03:04Power is directly correlated to the wealth, not strength, because we still can't give

03:09birth to babies, but power.

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