It’s only at this age that I can say the word ’art’ without flinching.

Nair’s remark suggests a hard-won ease with claiming the mantle of “art” for her work—an ease that arrives only with time, experience, and a settled sense of authority. “Without flinching” implies earlier discomfort: perhaps the pressure of being judged by elite standards, the suspicion that popular or socially engaged filmmaking is “lesser,” or the burden of representing cultures and communities under a scrutinizing gaze. The quote frames artistic identity as something earned rather than assumed, and it hints at the psychological cost of ambition in a field where women and non-Western filmmakers are often asked to justify their seriousness. It also implies that maturity can bring freedom: the confidence to name one’s practice as art without apology.