I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.

You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us - brown people - were looked at as the 'Others.'

We have three generations at home, including my father-in-law. I keep a very low profile, and a lot of things I do are very much with the family in mind. I have actually made films with the family around me.

Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.

I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.

I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world.

I want to question what the outside is and who defines it. I often find those that are considered to be on the outside extremely inspiring.