I wonder what it feels like to have no desires left because you have satisfied them all, smothered them with money even before they are born. Is an existence without desire very desirable? And is the poverty of desire better than rank poverty itself?

The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.

My books may highlight corruption, brutality and venality, but they also show that if these things come to light, there is rectification. The voiceless do have a voice; democratic mechanisms and accountability do exist.

That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money you can have power over the minds of others

I am neither a Bengali nor am I from Delhi's St Stephen's. I am an Allahabad boy.

For me, the day job comes first. That's why I call myself a diplomat who writes, not a writer who masquerades as a diplomat. If the day job demands it, I won't write at all. I write in what I call 'the crevices of my day job', and that comes only on weekends.

Just because someone has gone to an elite school and college does not make him smarter than the person who has grown up on street knowledge.