Trivial Pursuit 50

'X' was born in Nagpur and he grew up in Calcutta. He studied in a Hindi medium school up to 9th std. and went on become an engineering graduate (B.Tech. honours in Electrical Engineering) from IIT Bombay. After graduating from IIT, he went to the United States in 1968 for further studies at Michigan State University.

In California, he saw an old cinema hall, an old couple was trying to sell. He leased and renovated it and after showing some American films, decided to show Indian films. He found a 35 mm print of the Hindi film 'Julie', advertised, and ran it. Soon, his cinema hall got a lot of media coverage and became quite famous.

One day, Dev Anand called 'X' from India and said that he wanted to have the premiere of his movie 'Des Pardes' in X's theatre. He was followed by Yash Chopra with 'Kabhi Kabhie', Raj Kapoor with 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram' and Satyajit Ray with 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi'. X's cinema hall became the hot spot where big names from Hindi Cinema introduced their films.

Once, when Sanjeev Kumar had come for the screening of 'Pati Patni Aur Woh', 'X' told him about his desire to be a filmmaker. Sanjeev Kumar helped him in putting up a team and managing funds. 'X' soon made a film called 'Suraag' with Sanjeev Kumar and Shabana Azmi in the main lead.

'X' went on to make some thirty odd films in a career spanning nearly 30 years.

Identify 'X'.