• Planned engineering, dropped it

Partly because I was the only child, I took to reading early. I was a very shy person in school.

Later in college, I made a lot of good friends (who are friends even now).

I used to read, I used to go alone to watch films, I used to have a cycle to go to my school. I would read all kinds of books. I was considered a good student in school, except in my last two years when I started developing interest outside studies. Before that, I used to win the general proficiency prize, the Bible prize, the scripture prize... everything. I used to read the Bible so well.

I would see all movies I could—Tamil, English and Hindi. Thyagarajan, the adopted son of M S Subbalakshmi, was a good friend of mine. I would spend a lot of time in Kalki Gardens where Sadasivam and MS had a beautiful home and a big garden. There I met all top artistes.

In 1964, when I finished high school, I won an all-India essay competition sponsored by The Hindu and a Japanese company and I was sent to Tokyo to see the Olympics. That’s when I realised that I could write something.

I was planning to join the engineering college in Madras. I had a teacher in pre-university who told me that I had a talent for writing. He was my English teacher, J Vasanthan. He lives in Madurai and I am still in touch with him. He advised me not to go for engineering. I would have ended up as an engineer.

... contd.