Because that's where I live, and have lived for a few years now. I wouldn't say in food tastes, for instance, that I'm Indian. I would say I'm Chines… - Jeet Thayil

We didn’t know that right before us Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar had just read from The Satanic Verses in a separate session. The minute I finished, people were queuing for me to sign copies of Narcopolis. But we were taken to this room where Hari and Amitava were sitting and we weren’t allowed to leave. There was a lawyer, there were police on site and they threatened to close down the festival which made all of us feel like shit. I was full of remorse, because the directors are our friends and we knew how much work they had put into it, but I don’t think we were really in trouble. Even though we were told to make ourselves scarce.

He—an addict for 20 years—undoubtedly writes from close experience about that sordid world of pimps and prostitutes, drug addiction and sexual deviance, grotesque crime and heinous punishment. It fascinates as much as it shocks—even as you recoil in horror, knowing you’ll probably never set foot in Mumbai’s innards, you’re dying to know more about them.

The thing about opium is that it makes you vomit. You cook the original raw sticky pellet against the bowl of the pipe. And for the first three or four months, you puke. But it’s a clean very easy puke, not like alcohol. You could be walking down the street talking to a friend, turn, puke and keep going. But you do that a lot for the first few months. It takes devotion to become an addict to opium and heroin. You have to keep doing it to get through it. I lost a lot of weight. But the payback is huge. It is pure pleasure. There is a reason why opiates are used as a painkiller: they make you feel better. They’re designed to make you feel better.