Q Why do you write?
That’s the question I have been asking myself since the day I started writing.
Q Describe your favourite writing space.
A table in the smallest room in my home. I write with my back turned to the windows, curtains closed.
Q Your favourite word?
Still.
Q Do you have a writing schedule?
Yes. I usually write from four in the morning till my daughter wakes up.
Q Ever struggled with writer’s block?
A few times, but they’ve never lasted more than a month.
Q Do you keep a diary?
No.
Q What inspires you to write? Do you have a secret trick, or a book/author that helps?
Those who mocked me for dreaming of becoming a writer were my biggest source of inspiration. All of them fell silent a few years ago. I need to find new ways to fire myself up.
Q Best piece of advice you’ve ever got?
“You will never be published. Try and get a job in the Middle East.”
Q Coffee/tea/cigarettes — numbers please — while you are writing…
Quit smoking. Hate coffee. Love tea, specially black tea. A cup every 90 minutes would be perfect.
Q Which books are you reading at present?
Elieen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Q Who are your favourite authors?
V.S. Naipaul, Graham Greene, George Orwell, William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Saul Bellow
Q Which book/author should be banned on grounds of bad taste?
No book, author, movie or filmmaker should ever be banned.
Q Which are your favourite children’s books?
One Thousand and One Nights
Q Which classics do you want to read?
Ulysses. I tried to read it when I was 17. Didn’t understand a thing.
Q Who is your favourite literary character?
Ralph Singh of The Mimic Men
Q Which is the funniest book you have read?
I find almost all books of Anthony Burgess eminently funny.
Q Which is the most erotic book you have read?
Those Malayalam magazines with explosive names I read in my schooldays. I read most of them in the murky light of the bathroom bulb.
Q Which book do you wish you had written?
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
