As a child, growing up in Hampstead, North London, I was shockingly fair-skinned. Holidays involved me spending the second and third day face-down on a bed, shrieking should anyone touch my blistered skin.

Just as there are moments when the words flow and it feels like the easiest job in the world, there are many more when I think I have nothing to say, and my journalism training taught me that writing is a job, that you write whether you are inspired or not, and that the only way to unlock creativity is to write through it.

I had just got married when I started writing my fourth novel. I'd come back from honeymoon, moved into our first house - a gorgeous little carriage house in London - and made my office on the third floor, overlooking the treetops in North West London.

I believe it is the flaws that make us interesting, our backgrounds, the hardships.

I'm a loner, and I'm most comfortable living by myself, but Bengaluru is home for me, as my family is there. Having said that, once you come to Mumbai, you can't turn your back on it. I've grown close to Mumbai now.

As I grew up, I was continually to suffer hardships in different realms of life - in my family, in my relationship to Japanese society and in my way of living at large in the latter half of the twentieth century.

I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for my family, my wife, and our health. I'm grateful to be in a band of brothers that I love so, so, so much. I'm grateful that this magical combination of dudes makes music that people like and moves them.

Yes, my mother was a singer, and my father played piano and keyboards. They were in a band together, though they also had regular jobs because they had kids and stuff like that.