I've always wanted to become a director but initially, it seemed like an impossible dream.

After I got a master's degree in mass communications, I started doing ad films and writing. I wrote television shows like Movers and Shakers, Kyun Hota Hai Pyaar and Dil Chahta Hai.

I got to know a lot of people, and asked Aziz Mirza if I could join him as an assistant for Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. He already had six assistants working for him. I told him that I was ready to be the seventh, and work without pay.

Eventually, I got Rs 5,000 a month.

I would chat with Santosh Sivan, who was the cinematographer in the film, inbetween shots, and he knew I was helping on the film's writing too. Some time later, he told me that he had this idea of a story called Asoka. I didn't think he would ask me to write it because I was not an established writer, and it was a really big project. But he did.

I wrote more scripts after that, but none of them got made.

Then I took time off to write my own script.

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