I work in a business environment forty hours a week, and writing is what I do to unwind. It allows me to transport myself to a happy place where I can indulge my hopes, beliefs, aspirations and fantasies. It also allows me to live and breathe a topic for eighteen months while I'm researching and writing.

I like to joke that I probably hold the world record for rejection letters. Yes, the truth is that I was fed up of being rejected repeatedly, and self-publicatio n was an act of defiance at traditional publishing. But life works in strange ways.

I've always been fascinated by books. When I was young, my grandfather used to hand out a book - which would be anything from a biography to a classic - to me every week and ask me to write a piece on what I thought about it. On the other hand, my mother used to love reading thrillers and bestsellers.

I was a businessman for 16 years of my life, so when I started writing, I wanted to keep my literary identity separate.

A book and a movie are different animals. You need a cinematic perspective to be involved in the motion pictures. And this is something I lack.

In order to become the master, a ruler must profess to be a servant of the people.

Mythology works... because Indians have been bred on myths.