Well the Bombay film wasn't always like how it is now. It did have a local industry. There were realistic films made on local scenes. But it gradually changed over the years.

At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.

Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.

I don't understand these national awards, because half of those who sit in judgement over Indian films do not... possess the competence to evaluate a film correctly.

My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.

There's always some room for improvisation.

Last, but not least -- in fact, this is most important -- you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and jerk a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better.

When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I'm familiar with. I don't write stories about the nineteenth century.

Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting

Life, is energy. It is the energy that makes your heart beat and makes you breathe, that causes the cells of your body to automatically grow and reproduce the moment you are conceived!

Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.

Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.

The artist who makes himself accessible is self-destructive.

When I'm in the movie, I'm entirely in the movie. When I'm on the set, I'm 200 per cent there; when I'm at home, I'm 200 per cent at home.

Life is fragile and absurd.

Prejudice is a form of untruthfulness, and untruthfulness is an insidious form of injustice.

Who has passed by the fates of disillusion has died twice.

If it's possible to do something, sooner or later someone's going to do it.

You can't spell Citrus without UT