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.

Vish, the creator; and Shiv, the destroyer, are simply two faces of the very same coin.

I want to be remembered as a storyteller more than someone who had something meaningful to say.

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!

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.

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!'

Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it.