- 2 weeks ago
Scottish historian and author William Dalrymple has said Britain has never fully reckoned with the harm it caused in either India or Palestine, arguing that its actions in Palestine amount to an even “darker chapter” of imperial history.
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00:00He has to be one of the most relevant voices when we speak of Indian history.
00:18The sheer fact that he is a descendant of our colonizers is a separate thing.
00:2312 books done and still documenting the past, our next guest on UnPolitics is Mr. William Dalrymple.
00:37You're really welcome.
00:38Thank you for giving us the time. Sir, we appreciate it. Thank you.
00:42It turns into a fantastic television set. I've never seen it like this.
00:47I've cleared out all my excess books.
00:50How have you been?
00:51I'm very well, thank you.
00:53India is missing a trick.
01:04You could be a world superpower in museums.
01:08You could be a world superpower in art.
01:10You could be a world superpower in tourism.
01:12And you're not going to have it if you don't invest in it.
01:14What is the truth behind Kohino?
01:16Because the Supreme Court order in 2016 did say that they didn't take it.
01:20It wasn't stolen.
01:21We cannot get it back.
01:22That's why I wrote the book.
01:23Right.
01:24Because it was clearly nonsense.
01:25Is it true that whichever ruler has held the Kohinoor, it's resulted in his downfall?
01:30Well, it's always said that it doesn't affect, one of the other legends, it doesn't affect women.
01:35It's only meant to affect men.
01:37The Kohinoor was not used at the coronation after certain people read the book.
01:44Oh, really?
01:45I do know that for a fact.
01:46So the book did have some effect.
01:49So, you know, if you look at India's past, what is the period that's most fascinated you?
01:53One of the great pleasures of working on and in India is its scale.
01:59It's so vast.
02:00Yeah.
02:01So slowly over the 40 years, I researched many different areas and it's still got, you know,
02:10I could have nine more lives and find nine more periods of history to research.
02:14It's so rich.
02:17Welcome, Mr. Dalrymple, to UNPolitics.
02:24It's a privilege to have you.
02:25Welcome.
02:26Welcome to my study.
02:27We quite love it.
02:28It's quite fascinating the number of books that you have, but it seems you've traded…
02:32This is only half of it.
02:33My son's extension is there.
02:35Oh, wow.
02:36All the Shatterland books are next door.
02:38Oh, Lord.
02:39It is lovely.
02:40Okay.
02:41No, so it seems you've traded the grey cold skies of England for the polluted grey skies
02:47of Delhi.
02:48Well, I've never had the cold grey skies of England.
02:51I'm a Scot.
02:52So Scotland.
02:53Okay.
02:54Scotland.
02:55Equally grey, but…
02:56Exactly.
02:57But different.
02:58Like I said, for the grey polluted skies of Delhi.
03:02Well, this morning, I mean, the AQI is not great, but we're sitting here in Meroli
03:09and it's a long way from the centre and the skies were blue.
03:12That's true.
03:13It was a lovely, bright morning this morning.
03:15All right.
03:16There were hoopoos on my lawn, goats grazing happily.
03:19I live in a little fantasy world that it's a perfect rural oasis here, so…
03:23A fancy farm life in Delhi.
03:25Well, it's different from most farms in that it is a farm.
03:29We ploughed up the lawns and we seem to grow enough vegetables from all the villages
03:35around here and have our own bees and have our own goats.
03:39You have your own bees?
03:40Our own bees, our own goats, and we're pretty…
03:42In lockdown, we were completely self-sufficient for five months without really going out at
03:46all.
03:47So you were here during the lockdown.
03:48Yeah.
03:49You hear it a lot, the white man's fascination with India, but very few actually stay the
03:54course.
03:55You seemingly have.
03:56Well, I'm not entirely white.
03:57I have Bengali and Mughal ancestry, so I suspect, I mean, it's very difficult to put your finger
04:04on these things, but why have I ended up here rather than in Bulgaria or Greece or…
04:08Or back home in Scotland.
04:09Or back home in Scotland.
04:10Or back home in Scotland.
04:11And the fact that generations of my family, I have learned, because this wasn't anything
04:14that was in my childhood.
04:15I didn't grow up knowing anything about India.
04:18There was nothing physically in the house that was linked to India.
04:22But in fact, every generation of my family had been here since Stair Durumple died in
04:27the black hole in 1756.
04:32And my father was here at partition as late as 1947.
04:38So in between, people like James Princep, who my great uncle translated the Ashoka Pillars
04:44and Karashti, and I just found it instantly a place I felt at home.
04:51I can't explain it.
04:52It wasn't something considered or thought through, but I've been very, very happy here.
04:56And India has been incredibly accommodating.
04:58It's now the place where most people listen to my podcast, the place where most people
05:02read my books.
05:03I listen to your podcasts and I love them.
05:07So was this…
05:08So you trace your ancestry back to Bengal, like you just said.
05:11Was there any…
05:12Like, was there a moment of epiphany when you were in India at 18 and celebrating your
05:1619th birthday here that this is where I'm going to stay?
05:18Do you remember that?
05:19Do you remember the day you came?
05:20I have to say, at this stage, I knew nothing about Indian history, although I was learning
05:25fast and reading at that point.
05:26I mean, this was in the middle of a journey which started, I suppose, in Dehradun through
05:32Delhi, Agra, Gwalior, Sanchi, Kajirao, Orcha, Ajanta, Elora, and Hampi.
05:39And so by the time that I was having my 19th birthday, I was completely dazzled by the
05:46extraordinary remains that I'd seen.
05:48I was reading Indian history for the first time.
05:51I mean, just paperbacks of Romana Tharpa and Percival Spear and that sort of stuff that
05:55was around on the bookshelves in the mid-1980s.
05:58But it was a moment, I mean, it was the first time I'd ever been out of Europe.
06:04It was the first time I'd ever been...
06:05Really?
06:06And you chose India?
06:07Through a whole series of accidents.
06:08It wasn't, at that point, a love affair that it was...
06:13I'd actually wanted to go to the Middle East.
06:15I was fascinated in history.
06:16I'd always wanted to dig Assyrian bulls or pharaoh's coffins out of the sand.
06:21All right.
06:22So a love affair with history.
06:23It was a love affair with history.
06:24And...
06:25Not an Indian woman.
06:26No, no.
06:27So let me tell you the story.
06:29So I'd always been fascinated by history.
06:31My first visit to England, because I was growing up in Scotland and was a long way from England,
06:35was to go and see the Tutankhamen show in the British Museum in 1972 or three.
06:40Which was also, I think, probably the first time I ever saw Indians,
06:43because it was a very white Scotland that I grew up in.
06:46And I remember coming out of the British Museum and seeing some...
06:49a bunch of Hare Krishna folk gathering money and giving out ladus
06:54or whatever they were doing and playing the tabla.
06:56And this...
06:57I'd never seen anything like it.
06:58These guys with shaven heads.
06:59This was the second...
07:00As much a revelation, really, as the Tutankhamen's mummy.
07:04You are one of the most relevant voices when it comes down to documenting India.
07:08I'm not sure I'm relevant to anything, but I...
07:09No.
07:10Relevant voices.
07:11When it comes down to document...
07:12Relevant and, you know, voices that document Indian history.
07:16You happen to be...
07:17You know, it's...
07:18You know, the fine print might be because you are the descendant of a colonizer.
07:22So I don't know whether we need to grudge you for that.
07:24But we believe with what you say.
07:26And one of the most credible voices that have documented Indian history.
07:30Well, I've certainly been...
07:31And both sides of the divide.
07:32You know, if there is a left or the right or even the centrists do, you know, take you seriously.
07:37Where I've been lucky is that when I came here, there was not a tradition of writing biographical narrative history.
07:43Right.
07:44And the kind of tradition which many of my friends were engaging in, people like Anthony Beaver or Simon Seabag Montefiore or Simon Sharma, that kind of history in the 80s was not being written here.
07:56But it was being written everywhere else.
07:57And so I didn't...
07:58I wasn't doing anything new, but it was often treated as new here.
08:02When I first started writing books like White Moguls, they were often reviewed as novels.
08:06They're not novels.
08:07They're history books with five years research behind them.
08:09But people were not used to biographically led narrative history.
08:17And so...
08:18You made it.
08:19I'm coming in, but you made it interesting because I remember I was in college when your books were, you know, a rage.
08:24And it was something that, say, for anybody who'd like to...
08:28It wasn't boring.
08:29Let me just say it in very simple terms.
08:30The idea was to try and interest people.
08:32Yeah, it did.
08:33And...
08:34The City of Jinns was fabulous, you know.
08:36That was a very young man's book.
08:38But it was...
08:39What I'm just saying is it just, it, you know, the pull of those books were very different
08:44than what, say, a young student who's growing up is used to with how Indians have documented
08:50our past.
08:51Now there are lots of people writing history here in the way that I write.
08:54So there is a whole generation of Manu Pillai and Anirudh Kanaseti and so on and so forth
08:59who are doing this.
09:00And it's nothing except Ayra Mukhoti, you know, Ruby Lal.
09:03There are millions of people doing this.
09:05But there were fewer in the late 90s, early 2000s when I started.
09:11And I think it'd be much more difficult for a kid to come in now and make the same...
09:17Yeah, well, you had the first mover's advantage.
09:21My son seems to have broken through his shattered lands.
09:24Yeah, that's true.
09:25He has.
09:26I want to ask you, does it amuse you?
09:27Because at one point of time you were the darling of the left liberals in India and suddenly
09:32after the Golden Road, you're the poster boy of the right.
09:35Does it like...
09:36I don't think either is true.
09:37I think people enjoy my books...
09:38You don't agree with me?
09:39Whether they're left or...
09:40I don't agree with you, no.
09:41I don't think I've ever been the darling of the left or the right.
09:43I think people that love history like my books.
09:45There is this...
09:46Or so you choose to believe.
09:48Well, there is a strange belief in this country that if you're interested in the history of
09:56the 18th or 19th century, or the 17th, 18th or 19th century, you're somehow a left-winger.
10:01While if you choose to dwell on ancient history, you're suddenly a right-winger and a member
10:06of the RSS.
10:07In my case, neither is true.
10:08I'm a centrist, but politically.
10:10And for me as an outsider, this is all extraordinary history.
10:15I find, you know, the late Mughal period fascinating, this twilight period.
10:21But I also find, you know, the early Buddhist or Gupta India absolutely wonderful and rich
10:28and exciting.
10:29I mean, I have to, in a sense, it's not like a football team.
10:32I have to support one side or the other or it's a cricket match where, you know, you have
10:36an investment in the Rajasthan Royals and so you're cheering them on.
10:40I as an outsider, and again, you said, you know, one of the advantages of being an outsider
10:44is I don't have a dog in the race.
10:46This is all just fascinating stuff.
10:48You try to document Indian history with as much objectivity and neutrality.
10:53Well, it's more enthusiasm.
10:55I mean, again, you make it sound like a very sort of ponderous academic and sort of considered thing.
11:04I just, to me, it's fascinating.
11:06I'm still that kid at 19 standing in Hampi, looking at these ruins and wondering what they are, you know, sitting at midnight in the Taj Mahal, watching the full moon and just thinking, you know, who built this?
11:19Tell me who built it because it's a matter of contention where India is concerned nowadays.
11:25So who built the Taj?
11:26There's absolutely no question who built the Taj.
11:30There's a reason why I'm asking.
11:32There's a reason why I'm asking.
11:33I'm shocked you even.
11:34Have you not seen popular culture nowadays?
11:36I have seen, but it's bollocks and you know it's bollocks.
11:38I'm asking you.
11:39No, no.
11:40You're a historian.
11:41I am historian.
11:42There's not the slightest doubt among any serious historian anywhere in India.
11:45Right.
11:46That Shah Jahal built the Taj.
11:48On land.
11:49It was previously owned by the Maharaja of Japan.
11:51There's no Tiju Mahal lying underneath the Taj.
11:53If you want to believe P&O.
11:55I don't want to believe it.
11:56If you want to believe P&O, Preeti, I'm amazed you've got to the job you have.
11:59I don't want to believe it.
12:01It's just journalistic inquisition.
12:03No, no.
12:04There is no serious historian in India of the left or the right that actually believes that bollocks.
12:08So, no.
12:09That's very clear.
12:10That's an easier question to answer.
12:11Objectively, as a student of history, would you think that the Mughal period should be
12:16just a small, you know, a mention, which it is now, a small subtext to it?
12:21Do you think that's correct representation of our history?
12:24So, in the case of the Mughals, I haven't seen the new textbooks, but I understand that
12:28the Mughals have been largely removed.
12:30If that is the case, obviously, the kids are going to have to learn their Mughal history
12:34themselves from Empire Pod or from other sources.
12:38Because, I mean, clearly this is one of the periods of history when India was at its most
12:46influential and at its richest.
12:48When people think of Mughal history in this country, I think they think of Aishwarya Rai
12:52and Ritik Roshan sort of dropping mangos into each other's mouths as white pigeons flutter in the background.
13:00In reality, that wealth rested on remarkable economic achievement, particularly by the kind of early 18th century,
13:09the largest textile industry, the most successful textile industry in the world.
13:13This is not taught to you in those movies.
13:15The Bollywood doesn't show that.
13:17But behind the riches of Mughalism or whatever it is.
13:22Jodhagba.
13:23Jodhagba.
13:25Take your Mughal Bollywood, Mughal spectacular, whatever it is.
13:30Behind all that lies the fact that India was producing about 40% of the world's GDP.
13:36It was incredibly rich.
13:38And that's why, first of all, the Portuguese, then the Dutch, then the Brits, then the French, then the Danes, then Swedes.
13:47Everyone else turns up here because this is the Silicon Valley of its day.
13:51It's the Bay Area.
13:53Bengal has one million loons.
13:56And obviously it was producing silks and kalakaris and all these gorgeous stuff.
14:03But even the simple piece cotton, bolts of white cotton cloth, simple white cotton cloth,
14:09was so cheap, so good, so world beating, that you get de-industrialization in Mexico at this period
14:18because no one can compete with the cloth being made in Bengal.
14:22But it's not being shipped to Mexico by Indians.
14:25It's being shipped by the Brits.
14:27So you would think that was one of the golden periods of India that should be reported on
14:30and should be in our textbooks.
14:32So it's not for me to lecture anyone on how this country should run its affairs.
14:37I'm a foreigner, I'm an immigrant, and it's not for me to say.
14:40But if I was doing the history textbook, I would include that, yes.
14:43I feel the contentious figures which have been relegated, removed, are also somewhere down the line villainized.
14:52And there used to be a chapter I remember growing up with, which was Akbar the Great.
14:57Was Akbar the Great or was he the marauder where Chittorgarh is concerned?
15:01Because now the entire chapter has been removed in that context, that he wasn't a great emperor.
15:06I mean, you could argue, I suppose, that it's better that the chapter is removed than that you get some
15:13bowdlerized, mauled version that has no bearing on the truth.
15:18So perhaps better that people get to read it themselves independently than that they get a biased version.
15:24I mean, I have not read these textbooks, so I'm the wrong person to consult.
15:27But it seems to me that this is an important period of history and that history is there to study and there to see in all its nuance.
15:39History is not full of vampires and angels.
15:44It's full of human beings with good and bad in them, like you and me, with flaws, with plus points,
15:51people that start good and become monsters, people who are monsters but have saving graces.
15:56Was there any good in Aurangzeb or is he the monster that we now know him of?
16:01Aurangzeb isn't a particularly contentious character.
16:04I think he's certainly the mogul I would least like to have at my dinner party, certainly, if you put it that way.
16:11If you were to have your fantasy dinner party, there are many other Indian rulers I would choose to have a jolly evening with.
16:18Certainly, Dara Shuko would be a lot more fun to have at your party.
16:23But the one I, I mean, at the moment, the guy I'm obsessed with is Mahendra Pallava.
16:28Do you know about him, this extraordinary ruler from Kanchipuram, part of the Pallava dynasty?
16:34He was not only the guy that carves the first temples and what stone, he carves out of stone the first rock cut temples in Tamil Nadu.
16:44But he's also a great drinker. He's also a great playwright.
16:47There are two plays which survive, which is written by him, a farce with a prostitute and a monk meeting in a bar.
16:55And you can imagine the whole series of conversations that go on over the monk's skull drinking bowl.
17:05And then there's another play where there is a, the god of death swaps the soul of a prostitute and a holy man.
17:15And they end up with the different personalities in the other bodies.
17:18So there's a similar sort of stuff, but they're short facets.
17:21So he's the kind of guy I think I'd like at my fantasy Indian dinner party.
17:25I think Narashu Kho would have been a good dining companion.
17:30I would enjoy having, oh, Hazrat Mahal.
17:35Begum Samru would be very amusing, particularly in her youth.
17:40I think one of the great Chola queens, what she called Mahadevi,
17:47Sembhi Mahadevi would be a great addition of the dinner party.
17:51So you do agree that, you know, it was, you know, it was with the lens on Delhi and the Sultanate and, you know.
17:58Well, I think sometimes that is expressed in a way because it's expressed in anti-Muslim,
18:07it's expressing anti-Muslim feeling.
18:10I think there is a real genuine reality that all the dynasties of different parts of India have been underrepresented south of the Vindias.
18:23And I've been writing about that for 30 years.
18:27I wrote about the Deccan Sultanates, for example, who no one read about, Golconda, Amin Naga.
18:34Amin Naga were the Seltans who employed Shivaji's grandparents,
18:40who developed under Malakamba the guerrilla tactics which the Marathas took on to defeat the Mughals,
18:52attacking the supply lines, breaking the chains of communication between Delhi and the Viceroy's in the Deccan and so on.
19:05I went two weeks ago to Malakamba's tomb to pay in my respects and it was locked up.
19:11Couldn't get in.
19:12The ASI had a padlock over the gate.
19:14There was rubbish inside.
19:16And this is so often the case in this country that go off the beaten track and the ruins are decaying.
19:23They're not there.
19:24This country could be making a complete fortune from tourism.
19:28There is this phrase, an embarrassment of riches.
19:31And I think India has that in every small town in this country has a Buddhist stupa, an incredible temple culture,
19:40oozing out of every pore of every town of every village.
19:44Amazing Havelis, amazing bath buildings, colleges.
19:49And so many of them are just terribly neglected.
19:53And the reason they're neglected is that the ASI, which is the government body that's supposed to look after this,
19:59has a pathetically small budget.
20:01There is no other government organization anywhere else in the world that is so badly funded as the ASI.
20:09Frankly, many of the museums in this country are a disgrace because the exhibits are magnificent.
20:15They are world class.
20:17They are one of the, you know, you have one of the greatest visual cultures in history.
20:22And yet they're badly displayed.
20:24No money given to building a proper museum for them.
20:28There's no lighting.
20:29There's dusty cabinets that were built in the 1950s and falling apart.
20:33Even in Nalanda, the great Indian university, the center of world culture where Chinese and Koreans and Japanese would come to learn from this country.
20:42There is a pathetically dusty museum built in 1950 and not renovated ever since.
20:47Only 10% of Nalanda has been dug.
20:5190% remains are dug.
20:53What treasures lie under there?
20:55What amazing finds could be shown to the world if a little bit more money was put into this?
21:04So if this is a government that really champions the culture of this great country, for God's sake, invest in it a bit more.
21:13Build some more museums.
21:14Build some, restore some monuments.
21:18Get proper conservation.
21:19Start a maritime archaeology unit.
21:22Digging wrecks and bringing up the wonders of the deep.
21:27There is so much here that could be monetized for tourists.
21:32There's not that you're pouring money into a vacuum.
21:36If you look at the way that people in Rajasthan have, you know, converted their Havelis and their Tikhanas into gorgeous hotels, that could be done by the ASI on monuments around the country.
21:49And at the moment, there are fewer tourists coming to India than come to Singapore.
21:55There should be no country in Asia that gets more tourists than India because there is so much to see here.
22:00There's so much rich history, incredible, incredible stories to be told.
22:05And as long as the museums are crappy and the sites are decaying and full of rubbish and overgrown and everything looks like it's falling apart, no one's going to come.
22:16Little investment into the history of this country.
22:20Sympathetic conservation and restoration is money so well-spelt.
22:26And spend money on archaeology.
22:28Dig up the rest of Nalanda.
22:29Dig up these incredible…
22:31There are five other universities in Bihar alone or Dantapura.
22:35Any of these contain treasures that are still sitting there.
22:39I'm going to break the conversation a bit because you've also written a book on Kohinoor.
22:43Yes.
22:44Right?
22:45So what is the truth behind Kohinoor?
22:47Was it taken from us?
22:49Was it gifted by, you know, Punjab to the East India Company?
22:53What is the truth behind that?
22:54So the first thing to be said is that…
22:56Because the Supreme Court order in 2016 did say that…
22:59That's why…
23:00They didn't take it.
23:01It wasn't stolen.
23:02That's…
23:03We cannot get it back.
23:04That's why I wrote the book.
23:05Right.
23:06Because it was clearly nonsense.
23:07Okay.
23:08Okay.
23:09And I would love to be able to give you a very clear, factual, established early history to the Kohinoor.
23:14The reality is that there is no reference to that diamond, unequivocally that diamond, using the phrase Kohinoor.
23:21So it was on the peacock throne but it was…
23:23The first reference we have is in the biography of Nadir Shah, written in the 1840s.
23:30Yes.
23:31And it talks about how he took down from the peacock throne, when it was in Herat, stolen from India, the diamond known as the mountain of light.
23:40Ah.
23:41So it was on the Kohinoor then.
23:43And he then wore it…
23:44Well, no, Kohinoor means mountain of light.
23:45Right.
23:46Okay.
23:47And he wore it on his arm as a bazuband.
23:49So bazuband is one of those armlets that you see.
23:51Bajuband, yes.
23:52Yeah, yeah.
23:53And that is the first clear, unequivocal reference to the Kohinoor that we have.
24:00Now, it may be that the Kohinoor was the massive diamond mentioned that Babur took in Agra from the ruler of Gwalior.
24:10It could be that it was also the stone mentioned at one point in Vijayanagara, Hampi, on the throne of the kings of Vijayanagara.
24:20Mm-hmm.
24:21All we know for that, there are a few things we do know.
24:24We know that India was the source of all the diamonds in the world until the discovery of the Brazilian mines and then the South African mines later.
24:34So it's certainly from an Indian source.
24:37The Golconda diamond mines were not actually mines.
24:40That's another misconception.
24:42They were alluvial deposits.
24:44And you got the diamonds by sieving.
24:47So the same way that you find gold by panning for it.
24:51For example, the alluvial beds of the Godavari and all these rivers in coastal India.
24:58If you sieve them, sometimes, sometimes, you might find…
25:03You might get lucky.
25:04You might get lucky.
25:05You might get lucky.
25:06And the Golconda diamonds were from that area on the coast of Telangana, near Guntur and that sort of area.
25:16And until the Brazilian mines, they were the only source of diamonds in the world, other than a few black diamonds in Bordia.
25:24So almost certainly, the Gowinort came from India originally.
25:29How it got into the peacock throne, we don't actually know.
25:32We can speculate that it was one of these great diamonds of which there were many in Indian history.
25:36And what we do know is it was taken by Nader Shah, that it was taken from Nader Shah by Ahmed Shah Abdali.
25:44That Ahmed Shah Abdali uses it as collateral basically to found the Afghan state,
25:50which is why both the Persians and the Afghans think they have a claim to it.
25:55It was taken through torture by Ranjit Singh from Shah Shuja, the grandson of Ahmed Shah Abdali.
26:05And then it was taken from the young Dulip Singh by Dalhousie, hardly…
26:13Dulip Singh, obviously hardly in a position, age whatever he was, 12, defeated ruler, hardly in a position to refuse Dalhousie the conqueror.
26:23So however you dress up that transaction, it was not an adult freely giving something at all.
26:31It was basically a spoil of conquest.
26:34Is it true that whichever ruler has held the Kohi Nur, it's resulted in his downfall?
26:39Not all.
26:40Not all.
26:41But there is an incredible record of hideous violence associated with that diamond.
26:46And one of the reasons also that we chose to…
26:48You don't know who has it right now.
26:50We also chose to…
26:51Well, it's always said that it doesn't affect…
26:53One of the other legends is it doesn't affect women.
26:55It doesn't affect women.
26:56It's only meant to affect men.
26:58Ah, you're the current king of England.
27:01So, yes, it is true that he's had a health scare lately, but no, I know for a fact that the Kohi Nur was not used at the coronation after certain people read the book.
27:18Oh, really?
27:19I do know that for a fact.
27:21So, the book did have some effect in that.
27:25I didn't think the crown would be superstitious.
27:28I have reason to believe that whether you could say it was politics or…
27:34Superstition.
27:35Or superstition or whatever, that certainly the book had an effect, shall we say.
27:40Last question.
27:41If you had to give advice to a young 23 years old of yourself in India, what would that be?
27:49A piece of advice that you'd give to your younger self?
27:52Huh.
27:53I don't know.
27:54I mean, I was very lucky with my career, and I got to do things I loved.
28:01My father was like your father in the army, and he was very good in that he didn't have a fit when I decided I wanted to become a writer.
28:12And he allowed me to follow my dreams, even though there was no obvious income associated with it when I started, and it looked like it was going to be a loss maker.
28:25So, my advice would be that most of your life will be spent at work, or a great deal of it will be spent at work.
28:39And that to be able to find a way of making a living doing the things that you are passionate about and that you love is a wonderful thing.
28:50It means that you automatically wake up with a spring in your step, with the enthusiasm to follow the things you love.
28:57And in many cases, you'll find the way to monetize it if you try hard enough and are most passionate enough about it.
29:04So, I would say resist the parents who shove you into vocational jobs and tell you you've got to become an engineer or a dentist or a doctor.
29:15If you have some burning passion, give it a risk, give it a go.
29:20So, no regrets, sir. That's that.
29:22No, it's worked out.
29:24Thank you for taking the time out, sir. We really appreciate it. Thank you.
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