Interview with Mallika Sarabhai, interviewed by V. G. Narayanan, Ahmedabad, India

In this interview, Sarabhai discusses the broad trajectory of her career, beginning with the early influences that shaped it: her distinguished parents and grandparents. Sarabhai attributes her intellectual curiosity to her paternal family. Her father, she explains, emphasized the values of hard work, the drive to achieve success, and the desire to work towards the betterment of her country in all pursuits. Her father embodied these values throughout the course of his career as a scientist and founder of educational institutions, as did her paternal grandfather, who took over Ahmedabad's Calico Mills in the 1880s and went on to become the head of the Mill Owners Association at the young age of 24. To her maternal family, Sarabhai attributes her passion for the arts and dancing. Her mother founded Darpana Academy for Performing Arts in 1949, seeking not only to promote the performing arts in her community, but to capture and preserve Indian cultural traditions, from visual arts to the performing arts. Sarabhai also credits her mother for pioneering the use of dance and the arts as a powerful medium of social change. Sarabhai has drawn on both of these familial influences throughout