‘When I can’t think of a subject,I think of my relatives and then there are always ghosts’

What are the scripts about? Are you locating your characters and plot in the hills again?
No. These characters are located in small-town India and are not the happiest people around. One story is located in Meerut,although I have included a scene in the hills and another in Delhi. But there’s another script that is located in Lucknow and the protagonist is a serial killer. I found that very depressing to write; I don’t like macabre characters. I consciously like to write about the good in people. But I watched all the films I could about serial killers to get a sense of the kind of character I wanted to create.

You’ve been a published author for over 50 years now. How do you keep writing a book a year?
I must say I count myself one of the lucky people who can write easily. Since I was a child,I’ve been writing and by the time I was 17 years old,I knew I could be nothing else but a writer. Anything can set me off,it could be an ant working its way across the floor,the way a tree outside my window looks. Something as ordinary as that will get me thinking and before I know it,I’ll be heading to my desk to jot down the outline of a story. As for being published for so long,I’ve had the good fortune of having young children read me through their school years and they grow up and read my anthologies and essays. They make their children read my books.

You’ve stopped writing love stories for a long time now. Why?
Yes,that’s true. I only wrote a few in the earlier collections,Time Stops at Shamli and The Night Train at Deoli. It’s just that I’ve been refused and rejected so many times that I can’t write about love anymore. Which is not the case with children’s books: if I can’t think of a subject,I think of my relatives and,if that doesn’t work,there are always ghosts. My next book is a children’s book called Mr Oliver’s Diary about an eccentric schoolmaster in a boarding school. He falls in love though.