India is blessed with an artistic diversity and richness that few othercountries can boast of. We are inheritors of a fascinatingly rich anddiverse artistic legacy. Yet we live in times, and in a nation-state, that has little value for our arts and artists; where the arts are treated assecondary, to be turned to, perhaps, when we have some extra time. We lacka general awareness and understanding of why the arts are necessary. And we, therefore lose out on the individual and collective enrichment thatthe arts can give us. We experience, without knowing it, a certaindeprivation of the soul. In a fast urbanising country like India, we need to think and act for the soul of cities - it is the need of the hour, ifwe are to imagine a future that is healthy, vibrant and humane.

Sameera Iyengar is co-founder of Junoon, an organisation that aims tomake theatre/arts an integral and powerful part of our everyday lives. InJunoon, she plays a key role in conceptualising and developing Junoon's programmes and capacity building efforts, as well as building theorganisation. She is also currently Course Director of SMART (StrategicManagement in the Art of Theatre), a unique course designed specifically for theatre groups in India, and offered under the aegis of the IndiaTheatre Forum (ITF). Sameera was also a founding member of the ITF in2006, and remained a core member till 2014. As part of her ITF contribution, she co-edited Our Stage:The Pleasures and Perils of TheatrePractice in India Today (Tulika 2009).Previous to Junoon, Sameera was Director Projects at Prithvi Theatre forclose to a decade, and has also worked with the Seagull Theatre Quarterly.She has a PhD on theatre from the Department of South Asian Languages & Civilisations at the University of Chicago. She was bitten by the theatrebug however during her undergraduate years at Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT), from where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BSc in Mathematics and a Minor in Theatre. Sameera believes that theatre and thearts open doors to imagination, understanding and living life with fullness, curiosity, empathy and sheer joy. She delights in sharing thisexperience and possibility with all people.