How do you place your book in the present Pakistani political context — Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, democracy, threat to Pervez Musharraf?
I started my book much earlier, at a time when Benazir was here in London as an exile and Musharraf was the most well-entrenched military dictator in the world. Now Benazir is gone forever and Musharraf gets a daily dose of humiliation from Pakistani politicians and the media. I wrote the book as a way of escaping from my day job, which is journalism where things like political change, context, etc, are very important. I wanted to get into a world where journalistic principles like balance and impartiality didn’t matter. And that’s how I see it, as a fantasy thriller with some jokes. The only relevance I can see is that General Zia was a military dictator and somebody had to kill him so that our lives could move on. Musharraf was also a military dictator but we’ll probably get rid of him by ridiculing and sneering at him. I think this is a much more civilised option.

Your book has been compared to Catch-22. But one also feels the presence of Llosa and his The Feast of the Goat.
You are spot on. I am almost certain that if Llosa hadn’t written that novel, I would have probably written a different book. I think I learnt from The Feast that it’s okay to write a book about killing a dictator. We had Catch-22 in our library in the Pakistan Air Force Academy and it stayed by my bedside when I was in my early twenties. I could quote passages. But lately, I have also watched a lot of M*A*S*H. I have read a lot of Truman Capote and works of some of the contemporary Urdu writers have really seeped into my writing. Najam Hussain Sayyed, a Punjabi poet, has also been a major influence. I’m sure random headlines and some op-ed rants too influenced me.

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