Turning Point: Zoya Akhtar says Salaam Bombay

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With Luck By Chance her smart, funny and sensitive take on the Mumbai film industry, Zoya Akhtar made an assured debut this year.

Daughter of celebrated screen writers Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani, Zoya grew up in the 80s on mostly bad Hindi films but chose a career in film direction after she realised one didn't have to conform.

She says there was only film to convince her that there was space for all kinds of cinema. Salaam Bombay changed her life.

CNN-IBN Entertainment Editor Rajeev Masand spoke to Zoya Akhtar on the one film that changed her life. This is what she said:

It was the one film that changed my life. In 1988, I was 15. I saw that movie and it blew my mind. When you are a kid you like everything but when you come into your teens, one tends to get a bit discerning. And the films in the 80s were just awful. I wanted to be in films and become a filmmaker. But I didn't know how I would do it.

When I saw this film, it just made me think that one can do so much. It made me realise that such films can be made out of India and they can entertain too. The film was about life in reality and it was made in my city. So that opened a lot of doors in my head.

The film is about a boy named Krishna who is 10 years old. He gets thrown out of his house because he ruins a cycle for which he has to get Rs 500 or Rs 600. So he is told to get this money or not come back to the house. He then makes it to the closest city to his village and reaches Bombay. He navigates his way through pimps, hookers and drug peddlers. I remember Raghuvir Yadav was amazing as Chillum in the film.

So the child finds a balance somehow but raising that Rs 500 seems like an impossible task for him. It is a very simple story but it takes you on this journey. The film is fantastic because it makes you happy and sad at the same time. You feel for the boy in the story and you, too, make the journey with him and it is never presented to you as a tragedy. Neither is it a celebration, in that sense. It is a very truthful movie.

There are many moments in the film that I really like. There is one where there is this 16-year-old prostitute who is called Sowla Saal and a pimp is trying to seduce her. This pimp's role is played by Nana Patekar. In this scene, it is a photo studio and he tries to kiss her. There is this awkwardness and yet they are opening up. The scene is just gorgeous.

There are so many other scenes in the film which just come to you again and again.

What was interesting for me was watching that format because there was a documentary feel to it and yet it had the serious complete narrative of a drama. So it opened my head in other ways as well. It was a simple story in which everything was nicely packed in. You laughed and cried at the same time. One came out thinking and feeling. What more can one ask for out of a movie?