Sometimes good stories are created while documenting dreams.
In India, not enough importance is given to writing for children. And what could be more important than the enrichment of young minds with great literature?
It is okay to experiment with language. Writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf experimented with writing, but basically, one must have a familiarity with the language. And to have that, one must respect it.
I'm a pickle fiend. I like all kinds of pickles: garlic pickle, lemon pickle, mango pickle, jackfruit pickle, you name it.
I've lived in small rooms, flats, growing plants in pots on window sills. I'd have liked to have had a full-fledged garden with all kinds of flowers and plants. I've never had enough money to buy a big enough garden space.
I like flowers. In my next life, maybe I can be a gardener.
Many people told me such convincing ghost stories that I felt that there really were ghosts, though I hadn't seen any. And though I still haven't seen a ghost, I feel that they are all around us; we are just not aware of them being there.
One of the very first ghost stories I read - and that was in a forest rest house, where it is a bit scarier - was by M.R. James. He is one of the pioneers of ghost stories. And the book was called 'Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary.'
I may not have become a good writer, but I managed to make a living out of writing.
I write mostly for pleasure, and the reading should ideally be for pleasure, too.
If I'm really immersed in a story, I try to finish it in a few days. If it's a longer work, then it would take a few months.
If four or five days go by, and I haven't written anything, I feel incomplete.
Instead of becoming a great shikari, as my mother and stepfather might have wished, I had become an incurable bookworm and was to remain one for the rest of my life.
I get inspiration from a lot of things around me - nature, hills, people, and even insects.
Films and books have been intertwined as far as my growing up is concerned.
Small places intrigue me. Whenever I tried moving to a larger city, I ran back to the hills.
I enjoy writing personal essays in the way of Charles Lamb because it goes back to the school days when I was good in writing essays.
The books that I wrote in my late teens and 20s, the little love stories, they were right from the heart.
I used to consider myself a loner.
I used to type, but now, typing or working with a computer, I get a stiff neck. So I prefer writing longhand.
