Writing is a very lonely occupation. To write you need to concentrate, to concentrate you need to lock yourself away. No distractions; you want your stream of thought uninterrupted.

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.

My first novel was a challenge to myself. No one had an inkling that I was working on it.

I am very interested in human-interest stories emerging from modern India. I get my inspiration and daily dose by reading the 'Hindustan Times.'

When we first started we felt something changing in terms of work, and we felt it was a global shift. People were taking control of their future, not just in terms of making money. They wanted to control their own destiny.

My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid.

I lead a normal life and I don't assume there is anything I can impart to people. The only reason to write a book would be to make money, and I don't want to do that. To write a book would be going against how I've lived.

It takes a long time to write a novel when you have to keep interrupting your work to earn money.