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.

I am not into the unrealistic realm of magic realism where birds talk.

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

...a rainy day ceases to have meaning for a person who has lived in the open under a monsoon cloud most of his life.

Sometimes street knowledge can be as important as book knowledge.

I became completely addicted to 'Angry Birds' for a while.

I am the luckiest novelist in the world. I was a first-time novelist who wasn't awash in rejection slips, whose manuscript didn't disappear in slush piles. I have had a wonderful time.