It's a great opportunity to be together apart from celebrating Indian cinema.

The select group of people who do make realistic cinema, who do make cinema perhaps a little more acceptable to the Western audience, is a very small percentage.

We must have song and dance in our lives; we've had it ever since the inception of cinema in India. Our stories are very social-based, very human-based. We are a very emotional nation.

Audiences change because life changes. Countries change geographically, climatically, socially and morally. Many things happen, and cinema, in a sense, reflects what's happening in the world.

The film industry is large enough and has many successful icons that have taken Indian cinema to shores beyond India. I think that Indian cinema itself needs to be applauded beyond one individual.

There are large numbers of people in India below the poverty line; there are large numbers of people who lead a meager existence. They want to find a little escape from the hardships of life and come and watch something colorful and exciting and musical. Indian cinema provides that.