exalted as any culture can be the germanspeaking world sees you as one of their own and people know that and you you reached that place of high respect decades ago when the germanspeaking world was rather conservative and yet you never gave up your indian citizenship for lets say german citizenship or american citizenship that might have made travel very easy for you do you think you have been honoured by india by your country as much as you should havea well listen i have never once given a thought of changing my passport never i grew up in bombay and then in vienna but it never struck me to change my passport either to austria or germany or america america has been very good to me ive been living here since 1962i have i have residency in california of courseq right righta i have the laughs sacred green card but passport is indianq my question was that do you think for all that youve doneand youve also been a diplomatic soft power for india for world peace do you think india has honoured you formally as much as she should havea yes i think so ive never felt unappreciated i have been given padma vibhushan which im very proud of very proud ofq your career has been marked by special concerts for peace the world right now is very very disturbed what is your message for the world how can music save the worlda well dont underestimate the power of music we have played in wartorn areas and people have turned up and given us standing ovations and especially with the israel philharmonic ive been to countries that are not very favourable and you know israel is not everybodys favourite cup of tea yet we go to countries that are politically not friendly with israel and play there and we have transmitted only positive feelings as a matter of fact right now i am completely against the present government of israel i hope things will change there very soon i hope i speak to friends in israel who are in a state of depression of whats going on in their country yet i will go next year again to perform there excitedly hopefully there will be a new government by thenq you have always believed in the separation of politics and culture not a lot of people understand that for example right now russian artistes have been cancelled i think you wouldnt appreciate that righta yes i know thats veryits very unfortunate because they are all my friends valery gergiev the great russian conductor is a close friend of mine i hope this ukrainian madness the war will change soonq right rightand i think your messageif you would like to give a message separation of culture and politics perhapsa well this morning i read that mr navalny jailed russian opposition leader alexei navalny has received a longer sentencein russia i dont know how those things can go on