I am neither a Bengali nor am I from Delhi's St Stephen's. I am an Allahabad boy.

Tokyo may have more money and Kyoto more culture; Nara may have more history and Kobe more style. But Osaka has the biggest heart.

The slums are not a place of despair. Its inhabitants are all working towards a better life.

...a rainy day ceases to have meaning for a person who has lived in the open under a monsoon cloud most of his life.

That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money you can have power over the minds of others

Sometimes street knowledge can be as important as book knowledge.

Never judge a man's actions until you know his motives

I am not into the unrealistic realm of magic realism where birds talk.

I did not go to any creative writing workshop; I did not major in literature. If I can write, anyone can write. All it needs is imagination.

I am very interested in human-interest stories emerging from modern India. I get my inspiration and daily dose by reading the Hindustan Times.

A great artist is not one who merely fits into a genre but one who defines the genre.

Fear and Love are the two emotional pillars of survival.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

......When one loves, one is only too ready to believe one's love returned.

I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel.

I have a theory about that, if you have to say something, if you have encourage for one second a prospective acting student - he should not go in to acting.

The only art I'll ever study is stuff I can steal from.

For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.

I got the chess bug when I was finishing high school, we were doing chess tournaments at my house. I never got to a very high level.

Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!

I think I'll always be a better playwright than a pundit, but I believe that writers should be public intellectuals and that theater, even more than film, is a place of public debate.