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!

Admiration from my readers inspire me, and the only 'formula' I believe in towards making a good writer is: 'to thine own self be true!'

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.

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

I believe that patterns tend to repeat themselves and there are connections between the past and the present. There is the old proverb that reads, You cant know where youre going if you dont know where youve been. For me, history is like that. When you take history and combine it with myth, then you get mystery.

I am a businessman at the end of the day. I have grown up with Excel sheets. I start out writing my novel with spreadsheets and the milestones in each chapter highlighted.

I was passionate about reading from an early age, and I would always be carrying a different book each week.