Bombay looked very different in the 1940s and 1950s. Pali Hill, in the Mumbai suburb of Bandra, was genuinely a hill then, there is barely any hill now. It also had a golf club encircled by a row of trees. Guru Dutt and I would walk in the vicinity and dream about our future together. Now all that's left is a concrete jungle.

The place where my dubbing studio (Anand Dubbing) stands today was once the site of the bungalow in which Mr Toubro of Larsen and Toubro stayed. My brother Chetan and I used to stay in a ground floor flat in a neighbouring building, owned by an Anglo-Indian.

I have seen the North Mumbai locality of Versova change from a near-barren, far-flung suburb -- which you had to reach not by roads but by pagdandis (pathways) -- to a bustling residential complex. Juhu beach was a walker's paradise. Once, from a distance, I could hear Gandhiji's pravachan as he addressed a gathering of thousands of people. I was too young then to be more than cursorily interested. When he was assassinated in 1948, I was shooting for Ziddi. We were shocked beyond words and instantly called for a pack-up.

What are your memories of India's first Independence Day?

Aah -- Independance Day. On August 15, 1947, after having a glass of beer at the Ritz hotel, I boarded the train from Churchgate. The train was all lit up and people were engrossed in listening to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's speech over the radio.

Who comprised the cream of society in the post-Independence era?