I'm not sure if I've told you this, but I'm in a Martin Scorcese film. It's called Living in the Material World, a biopic about a rather well-known musician called George Harrison. You might have heard of him; he was the lead guitarist in a popular band called The Beatles. There is a moment in Scorcese's movie, almost right after Harrison speaks about the power of chanting mantras, when the camera zooms in and you see the legendary writer's name clearly — C. Y. Gopinath.

I don't know Martin at all but I do remember George Harrison very well indeed. I remember being trapped with him in a cramped lift in Calcutta for about six minutes in 1976 as it cranked and creaked very slowly down from the seventh floor to the ground. Really slowly.