You were born in Ara, Bihar, and grew up in Patna - well known for corruption, poverty and delicious mangoes. How much of your childhood does Husband of a Fanatic reflect and how much of it is the realization that comes with experience?

This book is part-travelogue, part-memoir. On some of its pages, I have described my experiences as a child growing up in a Hindu household. In the last chapter, I also write of what I remember of the violence in Bhagalpur, when the blinding cases first came to light, and then when I went there again after the riots, fourteen years ago.

Your book begins with the lunch with a rightwing Hindu activist, in New York.
Why did you choose to start off with the loud saffronised statements of a bigot?

I live and work in the United States now and that is why I wanted to begin with the experience of talking to a member of the Hindutva right in the diaspora. I wanted to show that the bigots were not only in distant Gujarat but right next door to me.

The initial pages of your book are gruesome. Do you really think it’s important to portray such crude violence, to get your message across?

You’re right. The speech of the bigot is violent. But you must remember a couple of things. One, our society has become more violent when it comes to matters of religion. The rhetoric of the VHP is terribly incendiary. Second, by the end of the first few pages, I have begun to turn the matter around. I try to understand how I share something with the bigot and that in some ways the rioter and the writer are one.

You are a storyteller par excellence. That’s precisely why our interest is renewed with each new incident you had to offer in Husband of a Fanatic. But don’t you think Husband of a Fanatic is more of a chronicle of all that happened during and after riots, and less of your views on the same?

I wanted to enter a world of observations. The book is faithful to my experience of what I saw and felt.

Your latest book deals with Hindu-Muslim & and on a larger level, with India –Pakistan pride and prejudices, conflicts & dreams, not forgetting that you have dealt with them with absolute honesty and emotion. How do you envision India in its relations with Pakistan 20 years down the line?

I don’t know how to answer that question. As you know, I have tried to argue that Indians and Pakistanis are “textbook enemies.” If we don’t alter what we teach our children we will have poisoned our future.