NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation, the more the NGOs.

I've never been that person who thought that because I've written one novel, I should write another and another. It's only when there was another novel to write that I was going to write another.

People can be extraordinarily resilient and show extraordinary grace and humour even in moments of tribulation. I've always found that it's much easier for people who are not terribly, badly off to lose hope and to be pessimistic. I suppose that when you are in a really serious situation, you have to be present, you have to think about it, there's not much scope for self-pity.

Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?

Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to.

Fiction is truth. I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was. My whole effort is to remove that distinction. The writer is the midwife of understanding. It's very important for me to tell politics like a story, to make it real.

It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used.