You can say that a small attack is one in which relatively few people die, but the minute you say that, you can sense the ironies in that statement. A blast in which five people are killed is a meaningful blast.
Karan MahajanAs for the Jewish-American question, what's funny is that I grew up in India, and the Jewish-American comparison is better for second-generation Asians. I'm sure there's something about globalization that has globalized our neuroses, so that I, growing up in India, somehow turned out very similar to you. It's a weird thing, when you think about it, but everyone now is exposed to a mainstream white American world, wherever you are. And so there's this need to belong or measure yourself up to that white world, which leads to all sorts of straining.
Karan MahajanThere's this great fashion among writers, especially those who follow the transnational conservatives like V.S. Naipaul, to disavow one's place in the world as a sort of box that has sprung you but is only worthy of your scorn, because it once contained you. And I've been tempted to say foolish things, like "I am an American writer" or "I belong nowhere," but the truth is I'm perfectly proud of identifying as an Indian writer, even if that might hurt my bottom line.
Karan MahajanI have to admit that I was terrified of ending the book, precisely because I go around saying about pretty much every book I read, "It fell apart at the end." I have friends who are waiting to ridicule me forever.
Karan Mahajan