"I wish I'd died after Chashme Buddoor (1981) and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (JBDY, 1983). I would've become India's James Dean," actor Ravi Baswani, who passed away in 2010, told me in the early 2000s, seated in his modest suburban apartment that he shared with a flat-mate then.

James Dean was a fine headline for a nostalgia piece I was writing. Only later I wondered, what a thing to think/say? It's the reverse of what Sylvester Stallone mentioned in an interview about progressively fading from public memory: "Well the good thing about being a 'has-been' is that at least, you 'have been'!" Most haven't.