I’m basically a train person. I’ve taken the train to work—and college before that—for 30 years straight. Still, cars have woven in and out of my life. Weirdly, I was an editor on The Indian Auto Journal, India’s first newsstand automobile magazine, from 1986-1988. Don’t ask what I was doing there—I know zilch about cars—but we did popular test drives of the new cars and bikes flooding the market. Bonus: I went twice on the Himalayan Car Rally, a thrilling, week-long, cross-Himalayan adventure, once as navigator, and then as cheer-upper.

Years later, I was assiduously wooed by an Italian with a gorgeous Alfa Romeo convertible. I remember many glorious rides along Marine Drive, with the car’s hood thrown back, the wind in my hair. Then, as filmmaker, I was line producer on Star Biz by Dorothee Wenner and Merle Kroeger, one of five international feature-length documentaries I’ve line-produced in India. It was an independent German documentary on the Mercedes Benz in India and Bollywood, and included a spectacular scene from Qurbani, in which Feroz Khan smashes Amrish Puri’s Mercedes Benz, to punish him for his arrogance after the latter kicks a beggar who cleaned his car. So, the Mercedes Benz in Bollywood is not just a symbol with which a rich hero might woo a heroine, but a symbol of the villain. Real revelation.