Storizen – July 2019

COVER STORY

18 | STORIZEN MAGAZINE JULY 2019

When you write regularly, the real and

artificial, the imaginary and the

organic, all get inextricably mixed with

each other. Niki, and indeed all my

characters, has elements of real

people I have encountered. However,

Niki is no less real to me than people

whose lives are not lived on the page.

Any medium that enables reading is

great. I prefer physical books to

ebooks any day.

Inshallah!

Is the character Niki in The

Radiance of A Thousand Suns

inspired from any real life person?

"I grew up amidst women who made me realise

that Draupadi was alive and living amongst us.

For a girl child in Punjab, there couldn’t have

been better role models."

What do your plans for future

projects include? Any plans for a

motion picture/web series based

on your book(s)?

How do you feel about eBooks vs.

print books and alternative vs.

conventional publishing?

Who are some of your favorite

authors that you feel were

influential in your work? What

impact have they had on your

writing?

Too many to name! Just an initial roll

call would include Ghalib, Gulzar,

Khushwant Singh, Toni Morrison,

Margaret Atwood, John Steinbeck,

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Charles

Dickens, Shakespeare, Krishna Sobti,

Amrita Pritam, Hillary Mantel, Anita

Desai, George Eliot, Ruth Prawer

Jhabvala, Enid Blyton... I believe that

every text I have read has left its

influence on me. The greatest impact

on my writing comes from the fact that