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.

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

Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.

My films, no one else will do.

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

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.'