Then there are the addicts, the hunger addicts, the rage addicts, the poverty addicts , and power addicts, and the pure addicts who are addicted not … - 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.

When you hear the name “Babur”, both sides – Hindus and Muslims – get excited. In Bombay you will get a Hindu backlash, in Hyderabad a Muslim backlash. We live in an insane country. We wouldn’t have to worry about the Christians or the Parsis and probably not the Buddhists. Very, very depressing.

I could feel my colour. I could feel racism...in the way people looked at you, and the way they talked to you. Now, though, because of the mixing of cultures, it seems like some kind of brilliant social experiment...In some ways it seems to me the city of the future.