I discovered that a diplomat's life is largely entertaining and meeting people. At the end of the day there's nothing. So I gave up.

When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

But big people’s illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.

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

I still think that the point of reference for every Indian when he is in doubt on any political or social issue is to say, "What would [Mahatma] Gandhi have done under the circumstances?" I didn't subscribe to his fads - prohibition, celibacy, no doctors - but generally he was always right. He meant more to me than any of my gurus.

I discovered that a diplomat's life is largely entertaining and meeting people. At the end of the day there's nothing. So I gave up.

I was never a cardholder. But I was leftist in the sense that I voted communist.