India, Sept. 18 -- V eteran actor Anant Nag has been named the recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2024, India's highest honour in cinema. The 78-year-old, whose five-decade-long career has spanned Kannada, Hindi and several South Indian languages, will receive the award at the 72nd National Film Awards in Kevadia, Gujarat, on September 22. "I was pleasantly surprised! People said that the Prime Minister had tweeted it; I was doubly happy," says Nag, who is only the second Kannada actor after Dr Rajkumar, honoured in 1995, to receive the award. Nag says the honour belongs to Karnataka. "It is the soil and cultural atmosphere of Karnataka that made me feel very much at home... This is my karmabhoomi," he says, dedicating both the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and his recent Padma Bhushan to Karnataka and Kannadigas. Across more than five decades, Nag has worked in Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi cinema, moving between parallel films and mainstream entertainers. He says that wherever work took him, he saw himself representing Karnataka. "I was called to work in all the neighbouring states... I have worked in all their languages, but I went there as an ambassador of Karnataka," the actor shares. His work spans films such as Ankur (1974), Minchina Ota (1980), Accident (1985) and Beladingala Baale (1995), besides the show Malgudi Days. Despite the honours coming his way, including the Padma Bhushan last year and now the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, Nag says awards were never what drove his choices. "We want to do well in our careers, but one never really works for an award, as it is made out to be." On the 31-year gap between Dr Rajkumar's Phalke honour and his own, Nag points to the award's nature as a lifetime recognition. "As far as I understand, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award comes at the fag-end of one's career. Nobody gets it in their 20s, 30s or even 60s." Nag also spoke about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, crediting his government with widening recognition across fields. He shares, "Favouritism and nepotism stopped after 2014 when he took over," adding, "People say that you are flattering the PM, doing chamchagiri. But I don't care." Modi had congratulated Nag after the announcement, describing the honour as recognition of his contribution to Indian cinema. Nag's broader claims about favouritism and nepotism are his own assessment....