Realism hasn't fallen out of favor with most people, who are interested in people's lives rather than gymnastics of style or literary trends. It's a certain kind of academic who undervalues realism, largely because it is not amenable to endless exegesis.

So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people's lives, the lives of people you don't know, and you want to know what's going to happen to them.

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

When I realised that I had feelings for men as well as women, at first I was worried and frightened, and there was a certain amount of 'Who am I? Am I a criminal?' and so on. It took me a long time to come to terms with myself. Those were painful years - painful then and painful to look back on.

Too many trees are killed to print the words of people who may not have all that much to say, and authors and journalists are equally culpable in this regard.