I was under police security for 15 years because I was on their hit-list. I opposed Khalistan because I thought it would be suicide for the Sikh community to demand a separate state, and they heard me because they knew I was one of them. I think I turned round at least the intelligent Sikh's point of view and that gave me enormous satisfaction.

I am prolific. Any rubbish I write gets published, so books keep churning out.

I turned to the Partition experiences, which were churning in my mind. Then came my first novel Train to Pakistan.

I am alone, but never lonely. You have always books around you.

I have never, in 50 years, ever missed a deadline [as a journalist].

I haven't any close friends. Friendship needs time to interact, sit down, gossip. I don't have that time.

If you look at things as they are, there does not seem to be a code either of man or of God on which one can pattern one's conduct. Wrong triumphs over right as much as right over wrong. Sometimes its triumphs are greater. What happens ultimately, you do not know. In such circumstances what can you do but cultivate an utter indifference to all values? Nothing matters. Nothing whatever.