My family is almost exactly like the one in 'Monsoon Wedding'. We are very open, fairly liberal, loud people.

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

Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game.

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.

Marriage of attraction is a gamble anyway, so you might as well marry into a family that is similar to your own, and make that much less of an adjustment. But the 'love marriage', as it is called, is equally common in India now. But it would be interesting to do a comparison of what would work better. Marriage is hard work, and it is a gamble.

Every film is a political act; it's how you see the world.

Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant.