How can a child studying in Happy School not be happy? I was a good student and had a great childhood. The best part was the locality where we lived ? Chandni Chowk in old Delhi. There were lanes full of sweet shops and I’d go crazy eating gajar ka halwa, barfi, rabri, chamcham... A 25p coin from grandmother was all I’d need. I never got scolded, for my father also freaked out on sweets. In school, I liked science but once I reached college (Shri Ram College of Commerce) and took up B.Com, I literally gave up studying.

We were a family of film buffs. Every month my father would take us, two brothers, to see four-five films. We never missed a single Hindi release. Deewar and Bobby were my favourites. I used to adore Dimple Kapadia. But I loved the war movies best ? all the guns and the big battles. European cinema, I discovered in college. My favourites were Herzog, Godard and Bergman. My closest friend was, and still is, my brother. A year younger than me, Rajnish would accompany me to five-six shows daily when a film festival was on. We discovered jazz and Indian classical music at the same time. Now he is making cartoon films.

Though I am away in Mumbai, we seek each other’s opinion on our scripts all the time. After college, at 21, I discovered theatre. That gave me a huge high. I joined a group called Chingari. My first role was that of Aziz, in Girish Karnad’s play Tughlaq , which was staged at Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts. Since the age of 15, I was sure that I wanted to be a filmmaker but did not know how. Film and Television Institute of India showed me the way. There, I met Kumar Shahani as a teacher, who became a second father to me.