Asoka was another fascinating film I worked on. It was very challenging, as the budget was quite tight. [Director] Santosh Sivan told me we were going to do a small film and only the war sequence would be big. Just because Shah Rukh Khan was the producer, people thought it was a big-budget film. It wasn't.

"Santosh wanted the look of Peter Brooks' Mahabharata for his film and I did just that. We just moved around a few pillars. That was very challenging because I had to make them look big.

"Unfortunately, the film, which was not exactly commercial, didn't do as well as expected."

Photograph: On the sets of Asoka.