Mind over matter

Shadi Ganz, artist and founder of the Mammomobile Charitable Trust, to aid women in rural areas in cancer survival by raising awareness and provide early screening facilities braves our rapid fire

1 If you weren’t doing what you were doing, what would you be doing?
I would probably be a psychologist. I feel that understanding the creativity of the human mind is the closest thing to creating art yourself.

2 True love, eternal youth, or a million bucks? What's the first thing you’d pick if you had to make a choice in 10 seconds?
Eternal youth, no doubt. Youth can achieve almost everything easily, including true love and a million bucks.

3 What came first — the chicken or the egg?
 I'm vegetarian, so for me, I would prefer if the egg came first (and preferably if it was possible to make eggs without the use of live chickens).

The sleaziest pick-up line used on you?
I actually have a very useful in-built filter that as soon as sleaze approaches me, I stop listening, so I honestly can't recall.

Take us through an instance of a performance you saw that went real bad...
There was a well-known theatre actor in Germany, who was regularly so drunk on stage that he was at least once accompanied by a massive wet patch in his pants after he relieved himself.

6  Art and culture to you is? And if you were to explain it to your grand kids?
Art and culture is what gives meaning to human lives. I would tell my grand kids to close their eyes and explore the colours they see in their mind’s eye. That is the core of art and the start of human culture.

7 The most bizarre response you have received when you told someone that you perform live not for a living but for pure passion?
Silence…

8  A fashion trend you wouldn’t follow even on a gunpoint?
Uncomfortably high heels. I think a gunshot would hurt less.

9  A guilty pleasure
 Finding cute outfits to cheer up my sometimes sad rescue dog, Lily.

10  A trait of yours that people are better off not knowing?
I am a fighter for a good cause, you don’t want to cross me on my mission.

— as told to Namita Gupta