'Zakhm' has no political agenda. But, it certainly says things as they are.

I felt it was a privilege that I came from such a rich background. I had the best of both worlds. My mother was a Shia Muslim, while my father was a janoi-clad man. He never pretended to be secular.

I think one of the basest of all things is fear. Fear erodes the individual. Fear erodes the nation, the spine of the nation.

We as men, need to give the Indian women all the strength that she needs, rightfully asking to be able to walk with head held high.

I was born on September, 20, 1948, to Nanabhai Bhatt, a Hindu, and Shirin Mohammed Ali, a Muslim. I was born after three daughters and followed by a daughter and son.

Films have to appeal to youngsters - it has to have tamasha, drama, and sensationalism.

We work without stars, and we proudly proclaim it. People come to Vishesh Films to work with us, and not because we can create a star.

I feel it is the believers who are most dangerous for the secular framework of a nation.

I love people who have distinctive, unique personalities who are not in assembly lines and have something to offer.

A person doesn't only give money to watch a film: he also gives his time.

The tragedy of India is that the Mahatma, who has numerous streets named after him and has had his statues put up everywhere, who's there in our school books and on our currency, who is used by everyone to hardsell his political ideology, is not emulated in India.

I love working with newcomers.

Campaigning for Congress is an issue of conviction, and there is no element of any personal gain in it.

There is a child in every man, and that's why larger-than-life stories which have a fairly tale component will work.

I believe that, at times, if some of us are almost too critical of our society, it's because our sensitivity and our concern for justice makes us aware that our nation falls terribly short of its highest potential.

My mother was a Muslim and dad a Hindu. I got the best upbringing that anyone could. Never did I see any angst in my family owing to that: each practiced their own religion. My existence is the harmony that these two communities can achieve if they try.

'Citylights' is for those people who know a lot but don't feel at all. It's time for them to feel, and this film will make those people, who know so much, feel because feeling is the life blood of human race, which is disappearing.

Questioning authority can hardly be called our national pastime. We even make a philosophy out of fear. Fatalism, destiny, karma... are the favourite cultural holes we hide in when authority flogs us. And what's our tragedy.

A true artist is one who, even after doing a lot, he reminds himself that he hasn't done anything.

I am an absolute atheist.

With larger-than-life films, you are lifted from your mundane, ordinary life because you empathise with the hero, and people see themselves in him.

I was perhaps lucky to be born in a single-parent home where my mother, Shirin Mohammed Ali, was the sole figure I revered. My father's absence in my life in my formative years exposed me to only one person, who was my source of learning the lessons of life. So to me, listening to a woman and her worldly view is almost automatic.

I don't give a tinker's damn for posterity.

Modi talks about Congress Mukt Bharat. I feel this is a fascist ideology.