Winning an award is a great feeling but winning the Vodafone Crossword Popular Choice Award is particularly exhilarating because it is based upon public voting. I find it a strange quirk of fate that Chanakya's Chant, a political tale, should end up winning an election!

There has to be a protagonist who has to overcome challenges, and there will be a race to finish.

While growing up, I always had to depend on foreign authors for page-turners. I think of myself as a commercial writer, and my job is simple to entertain you.

If there is one city apart from Mumbai where I would love to settle down, it has to be Chennai.

I don't care if my books don't sell abroad; we have a large enough market in our country. I write for Indian readers.

I would imagine that anyone picking up a book written by me would expect a fast-paced story that requires minimal effort to turn the pages. The reader would also be looking for some out-of-the-ordinary revelations along the way. At the end of the day, I'm a writer who simply loves revealing stuff that is out-of-the-ordinary.

We don't need to dumb down our stuff. And it's important to know how far we can push readers.