My mom knew Salman sir, as they grew up together in Bandra. He would often tell my mother Genievev Advani how one day he would be a star. They have been friends for the longest time and would go cycling together.

I wanted to make sure that the man who found the genie would not take terrible advantage of her, so he needed to be a person of integrity and honor - which is why I made the male lead an astronaut. The rest, as they say, is history.

Writing is.... being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.

"Stories are like genies...They can carry us into and though our sorrows. Sometimes they burn, sometimes they dance, sometimes they weep, sometimes they sing. Like genies, everyone has one. Like genies, sometimes we forget that we do.

I wanted to make sure that the man who found the genie would not take terrible advantage of her so he needed to be a person of integrity and honor - which is why I made the male lead an astronaut. The rest as they say is history.

'Aladdin' was probably my favorite Disney animation when I was a kid. The animation was great and Robin Williams was unbelievable as the Genie. 'Aladdin' was an amazing adventure and the lead character was a hero for guys which I loved. It wasn't a princess or a girl beating the odds it was a street rat. That seemed really cool to me.