Did you always know you wanted to write?
Yes, since I was a kid.

When writing do you feel sometimes as the conduit for something else?
I do believe in that idea for people who write fiction, but I have not felt it particularly.
The topics of my books come because I have an interest in some issue, and opportunities come up, I meander with them.

You have very involved with India, a land of so many spiritual traditions: has it influenced you in any way?
I have always been interested in going to religious sites, but more to see how people behave there.
For instance last year I spent time in Karnataka going to a mosque, but more to see what kind of people are running it, how this part of Bangalore connects with its surroundings and so on.

Or I went to a village next to Mysore, with some important Hindu temple. I went to interview someone who’d had a very bad experience at the hands of the Indian State. Seeing great social disparity in that family and how it connected with the temple nearby, how people behaved inside the temple, how the priests behaved, the money-making there --- all those things were the focus of my interest, seeing how things are playing out in a social way, as a consequence of religion.

So you never had a significant or overwhelming personal experience in those places?
No, I haven’t. That has to do with the way I look at the world. That is just not how I am.

... contd.