Do you know anyone who would - secretly, sincerely, in his innermost self - really prefer to return to childhood?

India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.

People think that because I write about India I must be trying to portray India in a way.

My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.

What a sense of possession, of confidence, it gave one to have pockets, to shove one's fists into them, as if in simply owning pockets one owned riches, owned independence.

The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past.

Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?