Actor-activist Rahul Bose will be putting on sale iconic memorabilia from 16 famous Indians in an auction titled as 'The Idea of India' through his NGO.
The memorabilia belongs to legends like Zakir Hussain, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, R K Laxman, Vikram Seth, Amartya Sen, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Amitav Ghosh, Aamir Khan and many other celebrities. The auction is slated to take place this Saturday.
"We decided to have an auction from 16 greatest Indians, who with their talent and world-view uphold the value of 'The idea of India'. The idea behind the auction is that India should be a secular inclusive democratic state without discrimination of any kind," Bose, 45, told PTI.
"These people are compassionate, generous and they don't discriminate on the basis of gender, caste, colour, age and religion. Auctions also help us in raising money for my NGO The Foundation. Our funding model is based purely on auctions," he added.
The actor, who was last seen in Kamal Haasan's thriller 'Vishwaroopam', said he came up with The Foundation as an effort to fight all kinds of discrimination prevailing in the country.
"Any kind of discrimination has always bothered me. To bring an end to this, I had to start from somewhere. To start with I wanted to link those parts of India which are discriminated from rest through equality and advancement of children.
"The Idea was we would go back to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Manipur, Kashmir and so on, select six children from these places, educate them and make them self-reliant. We select those children, who are deeply attached to their homeland, so that they go back to their place and start businesses, schools, colleges etc.
