A few days back, India in general and Andhra in particular woke up to the news that a Vijayawada girl Nina Davaluri from AP India won the Miss America pageant... I was very happy for her and also happy for whoever likes her kind of beauty... but if you ask me personally I saw a more beautiful girl than Nina Davaluri in Central Mall in Hyderabad yesterday.

Come mid-October, and there’s pure oxygen in the air. Read: International film festivals, the only opportunities to catch up on the best of world cinema. That’s been my survival kit actually, over three decades, in cities as diverse as Mumbai and New Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram and Goa. No need to jet to the Cannes, Venice or Berlin fests, it’s all here.

“What’s the difference in being smart, being wise and being cool?” — a teenager.

From where do you get ideas like — a boy placing a coin on a railway track in Kshana Kshanam or a beggar eating off a newspaper in Satya?

There’s something Shakes-pearean — utterly tragi-comic — about Amar Singh. To Big B or not to be is the question.

“I get hurt, disturbed and angry with all men when I see injustice done to women. Why are women so discriminated against? Why can’t they be treated equal to men? I rage within, I seek an answer.”
— a teenage girl.

I am a 35-year-old single woman. I have issues with my father who is very stubborn, irresponsible and always believes, trusts and depends on outsiders for everything and doesn’t discuss anything with the family.

You present yourself as an emotionless person. So, how do the background scores of your films resonate with waves of emotion?

It’s a dumb question maybe: Do we really make genuine, 100 per cent proof political cinema? After watching Madras Café and Satyagraha, that’s what I asked the stalwart filmmaker Shyam Benegal on the sets of his under-production TV mega-series, Samvidhaan, on the making of the Indian Constitution.

“My dad has an uncanny ability to read my mind like a book, especially when I am trying to get away with a bluff. How is he doing this? Is there anything I can do to escape detection?”
— a teenager.