Whatever else their faults may be, they were not radical Islamist states - Iraq was not, Syria is not, Libya was not. The most radical fundamentalist Islamist state is, of course, your America's Saudi Arabia.

One of the reasons some people get so angry with me is because I have the space now that a lot of others who think like me don't.

The [Booker] prize was actually responsible in many ways for my political activism. I won this thing and I was suddenly the darling of the new emerging Indian middle class – they needed a princess. They had the wrong woman. I had this light shining on me at the time, and I knew that I had the stage to say something about what was happening in my country. What is exciting about what I have done since is that writing has become a weapon, some kind of ammunition.

As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: a) Anything can happen to anyone. and b) It is best to be prepared.

People always loved best what they identified most with.

One beach-colored. One brown. One Loved. One Loved a Little Less.

I think many people were surprised by the victory of the Congress, because it was really hard to see beyond the sort of haze of hatred that the Hindu nationalists had been spreading.