In picture: Rahul Bose as Zulfikar and Anita Majumdar as Emerald.

Midnight's Children revolves around the life of Salim Sinai, who is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. Starring actors like Satya Bhabha, Shabana Azmi, Seema Biswas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Darsheel Safary, Midnight's Children is releasing in India February 1.

Excerpts from an interview with Salman Rushdie:

Q. How effectively and deeply has the film Midnight's Children managed to convey the spirit and essence of your novel?

A. I'm happy that so many people who have seen the film have felt that it did justice to the original. Various Indian writers have seen it already, including Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Suketu Mehta, and I've been much heartened by their approval.

Q. Which of the actors in Midnight's Children, in your opinion, have nailed their characters most effectively?

A. We are incredibly lucky in our cast. The performances throughout the film are outstanding and it would be hard to pick out one or two names. But if you twist my arm, I would say that Seema Biswas as Mary Pereira is simply incredible.

Q. Mr.Rushdie, Midnight's Children is actually the first adaptation of your book to cinema. Do you consider your books 'unfilmable'? If so, how did the impossible become possible in the film?

A. Nothing is unfilmable. Good films have been made of Anna Karenina, Ulysses and The Tin Drum, even the works of Proust. It's just a question of finding the way, and that's what we tried to do. There's no magic trick, just hard work.