Sai Paranjpye is a legend, there’s no two ways about it. The 82-year-old director is responsible for pioneering numerous changes in the film industry and the theatre circuit. With her memoir A Patchwork Quilt, Paranjpye charts her journey that saw her stints at All India Radio, Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, a delightful realisation in a Paris to creating some of the most memorable movies known to people in the Hindi film industry.

“I used to have a very vivid imagination. I guess I was born with it,” says Paranjpye, who credits her mother for bringing her up with a love for storytelling. “She used to tell bed time stories to put me to sleep. One night, she ran out of them and said, ‘you tell me a story’, so I did, and she said ‘that’s not so bad, who told them to you?’ I said no one, I made them up. Then she didn’t believe me and I told her another and another,” she remembers.

Thanks to that nightly tête-à-tête between mother and daughter, what transpired was a collection of stories published under Paranjpye’s name when she was all of eight years old. Although, she says, “I had to write every day, three to four pages before I was allowed to play. That bit I hated.”

A memoir for a reader may be a medium to get a peek into a writer’s world, but for the writer, it becomes a portal for revisiting past memories. Pleasant and unpleasant in varying degrees, the director swears by her skill for storytelling and absolutely enjoys writing. “I always say, and I’ve repeated it in my book, and pardon me if I am being immodest, but I am a first rate writer and a second rate director,” she quips.

One look at her filmography and even those who’re unaccustomed can point out films like Sparsh (1980), Chashme Buddoor (1981) and Katha (1982) for the importance attached to them and the legacy they left behind inadvertently. But selecting what to write and what not to, for her, was not as hard.

“Selecting what to say was not terribly difficult because I began with radio, and I am passionately fond of radio. That’s my first love. I never had a moment when I had to sit and scratch my head and say, now what shall I do,” she says, adding, “I have mentioned some unpleasant memories, too, how I was taken for a ride by the producers, how I was left with peanuts and the producers made king size profits out of the films. Now when I look back, I do not think I will change anything because I enjoyed the making of these films and writing their stories and putting it all together. I loved doing it. So, that in a sense, was the reward.”