Dil toh bachcha hai

Ask screenplay writer, actor and child activist Amol Gupte what he likes to do in his free time and he'll promptly tell you that he only has free time because he is never working.

"I only do what I enjoy doing, so it doesn't feel like work at all. I have never done a job in my life, I do everything for pleasure," he laughs.

The man who has been inundated with offers to play the baddie ever since he was seen in Kaminey, is thrilled about his new a role in a satire on recession. The brain behind Taare Zameen Par goes offline with CS:

Crisis management
I had an opportunity after Kaminey, but I'm driven by purpose not fame. And since this seemed like a film I would have fun doing, I took it up. I could see humour in the recent economic crisis, because it didn't really touch us Indians, except maybe the corporate world with American roots.

We Indians have had a 5000-year-old tradition of saving and spreading out our feet keeping in mind the size of our blankets, so recession didn't really wreck havoc on our lives like it did in other countries. Eighty-ninety per cent of our country doesn't pay instalments, so most of us were safe.

But then again, the Indian farmer is always in a state of recession, he can't get any poorer. So this film seemed like a project very different from the ones I've done before.

Child at heart
I love children and find myself eternally learning from them. They're so humble. We adults see them as kids; I hate that term. I don't know why we can't add a few more alphabets and refer to them as children. The day we adults sit down to their height, the world will be a different place.

How is it that a child who watches TV remembers a hundred names of Pokemon without being taught any? If only our curriculum wasn't as dry, the child wouldn't need TV entertainment. But slowly and surely, the wheels are changing.

Cause and effect
I'm happy that according to a government directive a child doesn't have to sit for exams till the eighth grade. But I'm waiting for the momentum to catch on.

I teach filmmaking to underprivileged children between the age of 6-12 years and this summer they will release their second film, Stanley Ka Dabba.

I must say that they are great; they have been able to unleash their full creativity. They're my philosophers. I don't think that I'm larger-than-life or a Gandhi in the making. If I'm making a small difference, it is for my own selfish reasonsu00a0-- so that I can be happy.

Who: Amol Gupte
What: Talks about why he hates the term 'kids'